Uploaded May 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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SOME TIPS FOR PRESENTERS
I cannot say I am an expert, but I have attended numerous talks by others and I have given quite a few myself. So I thought I would make a quick list of ‘Dos and Don’ts’ – hoping that others will add to it…
DO…
…start with something attention-catching (a joke – something weird – a story); you only have a few seconds.
…say interesting things. Content matters. (Ask yourself: would someone still find your talk interesting if they were not an EL teacher?)
…use stories and anecdotes to make your talk more interesting. Stories are our mother tongue.
…use stories to convey information; stories are far more memorable than giving studies or numerical information.
…move from the concrete to the general. It is easier for people to understand a principle if you have given them a concrete example first.
…include some practical elements. People need to be able to answer a question like ‘What did you get out of this?’ afterwards – regardless of how brilliant the talk was.
…add value to your talk through ‘social currency’. Include interesting little tit-bits of info that people can share with others (‘A glass ball will bounce higher than one made of rubber’).
…include ‘peak’ moments in your talk (a striking example; a paraprosdokian; a motivational quote etc.). This is what people will remember later (‘The Peak – End Effect’).
…segment your talk, and regularly let people know which part of the talk you are in.
…use your body, your arms and your facial expressions to liven up your talk.
…colour your voice; you may never become Cliff Parry but pitch fluctuations, stress and the strategic use of pausing help immensely.
…talk with confidence and assurance. This means two things: i) you have to know your stuff and ii) you need to have faith in what you are saying.
…use incongruity. Weird things like the completely unrelated picture of a dinosaur on the slide helps wake people up.
…use the power of association. Make that dinosaur a cute baby or a kitten. Advertisers have used kittens to advertise pizza. They know what they are doing.
…use emotions (uplifting soundtracks, moving poems, anger-provoking pictures, etc.) Emotions help print your message in people’s memory.
…interact with the audience (e.g. by eliciting information, by asking them questions, by using simple discrimination tasks, or asking them to predict something).
…engage the audience somehow (e.g. by giving them an activity to try out or something to discuss with a partner). Interactive elements boost information retention.

DON’T…
…stand behind the podium (unless you are as interesting as Luke Prodromou in which case you can do whatever you want).
…read from a text or your notes / overload your slides / read from the slides.
…choose titles like ‘The situated construction of divergent modalities in the quest for a fundamental positionality: the case of the subjunctive’.
…use long, complicated sentences. Forget you are an academic for the duration of the talk (…better still: ‘Forget you are an academic’).
…let the talk sag; make sure you maintain a brisk pace. Monitor activities and cut them short if people are losing interest.
…go over time; even the best attendees start getting restless if you do (plus it is unfair to the organisers and the next speaker).
…fade out; end with a bang (a quote – a joke, etc.) – and clearly signal to the audience where they are supposed to applaud. This helps round off the experience (see 2:00 – 2:12 here). *
[* NB: That last joke is not mine; I’ve pinched the idea from J. J. Wilson :-) ].

[Clips from IRCEELT. Tbilisi, Georgia 4 / 5 / 2019]