Infront of groups of people

[Howard]

Urghh... I have to do a presentation in Business Studies next week infront of my class... Using overhead projector slides, handouts, etc, and I absolutely HATE doing things like that!!

Does anyone else feel the same way? My confidence really sucks, and I'm gonna be really stuttery and crap

What is everyone else like when having to do similar things?

[lynni]

practice!!! lots, to your parents your friends, drag people in off the street to sit on your couch for five minutes anyone who will listen and will help, get them to help you out.... practice untill u know the slides without needing them in front of you. Make lots of eye contact as well, dont stare at whats in front of you and dont look down at the floor

you will be ok

[GreenPiggy]

I used to be really bad at this sort of thing but am a bit better now. The best advice i can give you is be really really really prepared. Write what you're going to say out word for word if you have to. Once you've done one good presentation your confidence will go up a lot.
Good luck with it.

[Theo]

I hate doing them, too, but it's, more often than not, something that you have to do to get somewhere in life, unfortunately.

To cope with it, I find that when you're looking at the audience, pretend they aren't actually there. Of course, look into each of their eyes, but completely ignore their expressions/faces/and the fact that they're there. Kind of like doing a magic eye puzzle - stare in that direction, but through the object.

It's hard to describe, but if you do understand, it's a good method of coping with being nervous.

Make sure that you practice your presentation at least twice on your own, beforehand. Try to keep your "lines" as memorized as possible, and use a cue-card, rather than the OHP as a method of remembering what you're talking about.

Dress smartly - shoes, pants, a nice t-shirt. A suit may be OTT, but always makes a good impression. Just avoid the reeboks and jeans, if anything.

If your lecturer says "Look upon the rest of the class as the audience, don't look at me". Don't look at the lecturer. Classic sign of weakness. If they don't say that, feel free to look at them.

Blah blah, hope that helps.

Even if you're not a confident person, there's always a way of portraying confidence - smile on your face, talk loudly and clearly, "eye contact" etc.

[Elmo]

Yeah i was the same in school, we were told we had to give up our lunch breaks and go to "lunch time recitals" in the music dpt and play our exam pieces in front of a load of our peers. At the time, my confidence was in the gutter, i couldnt physically do it, so just didnt turn up. I got rollocked for it from 2 of the music teachers, but they just didnt understand that i couldnt physically do it, the sheer thought of standing up there in front of a load of my peers made me feel physically sick! their excuse was that i'd have to do it for my exam sooner or later, but my argument as, that my exam would be in front of 3 outside bodies, who wouldn't know me from adam and would probably never see me again in my life, so i wasnt bothered about that, it was more the fact that if i stood up in front of 20 or so of my peers and f***ed it up (which i would have done only having had the pieces for 2 weeks and my nerves combined) I'd get laughed out of the room and ridiculed. To me, that's just plain torture, and NO ONE should force you into doing something that makes you feel uncomfortable etc.

As a result, i got given a predicted grade D for my performance exam. Because the teachers wouldnt listen to me, eventhough i was just about to turn 18, I had to get my mum involved. Only then, after she'd stressed that she was against the idea, did they appologise to me. They didnt increase my predicted grade tho....

I then came out of the exam at the other end with an A and simply told my music teacher where to go.

Saying that, presontation skills are important in later life. You may be asked to do a short presentation at a job interview or whatever. So it's useful to be able to scrape some sort of presentation skills together. In uni we have a presentation skills course integrated with our chemistry course, where we're split up into groups of 9 and then into smaller groups of 3, and given some information and a few acetates and told to put together a short presentation on the subject.

Now, although i still wasnt 100% comfortable doing this, i was a lot more confident in myself and in what i was doing and around the people i was presenting to. We did a few of these over a few weeks and after each one we were to write a small essay about what each group talked about. By the last one, it was a lot less daunting than it was at first, and i do feel i could probably stand up and do a short presentation of my own now, so it did help.

Does this presentation count towards your final grade? If so, i guess you'll just have to stick it out, grin and bear it, however, if you REALLY are uncomfotable about it, have a quiet word with your teacher. They cant force you to do it. Maybe they'd let you do the presentation just to them and another teacher instead of the whole class. See what they say

[Howard]

It counts a bit I think.
The worse thing is that we have been given places of who goes first, who after who, etc, and I am number 2. Number 1 is some townie berk who never turns up. So I'm gonna be the one going first

[Stringent]

I'm about to find out. Best Man at my mates wedding on Saturday. 100 people attending. Should be fun.

[lynni]

It counts a bit I think.
The worse thing is that we have been given places of who goes first, who after who, etc, and I am number 2. Number 1 is some townie berk who never turns up. So I'm gonna be the one going first

then u get it out of the way dont ya? please dont worry about it, the more u dwell on this the more your just going to get yourself into a state

[Lee H]

I too was totally scared while doing presentations etc, and when I first started my job I was utterly mortified at speaking to people I didn't know at all. After a while my confidence grew and now I don't give a flying monkey's if I sound like Terry Christian on the phone or whatever - as the end of the day I can get myself across clear and concise with the occasional use of technobabble to assist people. Lynni is correct, you will have to learn to do presentations and many people have their own way of dealing with this, but once you get the swing of it, I'm more than sure you'll get the hang of it in no time.

ciao for now..

[Howard]

Right. This presentation is gonna be a piece of cake. I had to do one in English in year 11 to my class (which was full of layabouts) and it went brilliantly.



Thanks for the advice guys and girls

[Elmo]

thats the attitude

[Tumble]

if you're REALLY clever, and have the right kit.. do your presentation in Powerpoint... on your laptop (if you have one) and hook it into the projector (if you have one), point it at the wall/screen behind you.... and read off the screen thats facing you.. if you do the letters large enough it'll only need a glance.. you can look super-prepared AND make eye contact with the class too

[Russ]

i teach, so listen

NEVER EVER.. read. dont right a script, just a few helpfull flash cards and a brief start to ur sentence, let your knowledge do the talkin.

Always involve every1, eye contact, questions, jokes, dont leave any 1 out, and dont just talk to ur mates.

Dont, do what i do, and say the same thing when you get stcuk "err..." "COS, ERR" "err... tbh", makes u look like me... a plumb.

and talk with your hands, movements is the key, but dont over do it. nothin worse that listenin to a statue talk. so move around.

apart from that, after a few sentences your nerves will go, trust me mate

[5lab]

pick one bird, preferably fit, block out everyone else and just talk to her, give the whole presentation to her. works a treat and you might be in there

[Lead_Head]

-Don't look at your overhead projector,
-Don't shuffle side to side on your feet,
-Try not to scratch your face from nerves,
-Don't write a script, write bullet points,
-Hand out your "hand-outs" before your audience arrives, so leave them on there chairs as they walk in - prevents disruption in your talk (you can continue to explain the handouts whilst they go round / pick them up) - makes people interested,
-Make eye contact with everyone, don't talk to one side of the audience,
-Try to crack a couple of jokes, or innuendo's,

Above all, look comfortable.... and good luck

[Sair33]

Knowing your stuff is the main thing.
If you know what you're talking about, inside out, you'll feel MUCH more confident and won't worry so much about getting your words in a muddle or anything, because in theory, if you know your stuff, with or without a "script", you could talk "naturally" about the subject. Prompt cards are a good idea so you don't loose the thread, but don't be tempted to read either. You'll sound much more natural that way.
Everyone else is in the same boat I guess, so that'll help!
Oh, and being first is a GOOD thing!! There's nothing worse than sitting there worrying about it and getting more and more nervous as you watch everyone else. You can do your bit, then relax

Hope it goes ok!! I'm sure you'll be fine

(PS I hate things like that too!!!)