englishonline.training 🎤 Presentation Skills

🎤 Presentation Skills: Finding Your Theme

This is a self-paced lesson — work through it at your own speed, there's no timer. You'll cover delivery technique, slide design, and a structure framework, then choose a presentation theme that fits your own background, and finish by submitting a PowerPoint file.

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Step 1 of 5 — Delivery

🗣 Delivery & Body Language

How you say it matters as much as what you say. Keep these in mind when you practise:

  • 🗣 Vary your pace and volume — slow down for key points, speed up through less important detail.
  • ⏸ Use a deliberate pause instead of filler words ("um", "like"). Silence sounds confident, not awkward.
  • 👀 Make eye contact across the room — or look at the camera, if you're presenting online — instead of reading your slides.
  • 🙌 Use open, purposeful gestures. Keep your hands visible and avoid crossing your arms.
  • ❓ Open with a rhetorical question, a quick statistic, or a short story to pull the audience in.
  • 🧭 Signpost clearly: tell the audience what's coming next before you move on to it.
  • 😌 Rehearse your opening line until it's automatic — the first 30 seconds set the tone for everything after.
Step 2 of 5 — Visual design

🎨 Slide Design Principles

Slides support you — they shouldn't replace you. Apply these rules:

  • 📐 One idea per slide. If the slide title needs "and" in it, split it into two slides.
  • 🔢 Follow the 6×6 rule: roughly 6 bullet points per slide, 6 words per bullet, maximum.
  • 🔠 Body text no smaller than 24pt; titles big enough to read from the back of the room.
  • 🎨 Pick one consistent template — same fonts, colours and layout from first slide to last.
  • 📊 Replace blocks of text with a chart, diagram, or image wherever you can.
  • ⚖️ Use high contrast — dark text on a light background (or vice versa). Never light grey on white.
  • 🧱 Overall shape: title slide → agenda → 2–3 content sections → summary → thank you / questions.
Step 3 of 5 — Structure

🧭 Presentation Framework

📄 Your task

You've been asked to give a 5–7 minute presentation to colleagues or stakeholders, introducing a topic from your own professional field. Structure it like this:

Opening (30–60s): a hook (a question, statistic, or short story) + a one-line agenda.

Body (3–5 min): 2–3 clearly signposted sections, each backed by one strong visual.

Closing (30–60s): a one-sentence summary, a clear call to action, and an invitation for questions.

📚 Useful signposting language

Opening:

"Today I'm going to talk about…" · "By the end of this presentation, you'll understand…"

Transitions:

"Let's move on to…" · "That brings me to…" · "Building on that point…"

Closing:

"To sum up…" · "The key takeaway is…" · "I'd be happy to take any questions."

Step 4 of 5 — Find your theme

💡 Find Your Theme

Your presentation should be on a theme connected to your own background. Some starting points by field:

Business / Management: a process improvement, a quarterly update, a new internal workflow
Healthcare / Nursing: a patient-care initiative, a public-health topic, a new protocol
IT / Engineering: a technical solution, a project update, a tool comparison
Education: a teaching method, a course or module overview, a learning resource
Hospitality / Tourism: a new service, a destination or marketing pitch
Other fields: any topic from your studies or work, framed for a professional audience
Please fill in both fields before continuing.
Step 5 of 5 — Task & submission

📤 Build & Submit Your Presentation

Prepare a PowerPoint presentation (5–7 minutes) on the theme you chose, applying the delivery and design principles from this lesson.

  • ✅ Title slide + agenda
  • ✅ 2–3 signposted sections, with one visual-led slide per section
  • ✅ Summary, call to action, and a questions slide
  • ✅ Slides follow the 6×6 rule and use one consistent template
📂 Submit your file: upload your finished .pptx to the Teams / OneDrive folder for this unit using the button below.
📂 Open Teams / OneDrive upload folder
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