EPQ Toolkit for AQA - A Guide for Students (Updated Edition)

Connect with your audience It is often said that a poor presenter seems to be speaking to an empty room. Connecting and establishing a rapport with your audience helps tomaintain interest and will encourage them to believe that you are genuinely interested in talking to them. You can connect with your audience in various ways: ⦁ Eye contact This will help to give the audience a sense of involvement in your PRESENTATION and it will also help you to convey your objectives on a more personal level. Make sure that you share eye contact with all members of a small audience and all areas of a large audience. It is important that you do not just address your supervisor, instead regularly shift your focus around the room. ⦁ If you prefer not to look directly at people youmay wish to look at their forehead instead. People will just think that you are looking at the row behind. ⦁ Hands up You will probably use your hands and arms when you are talking to your friends to convey meaning or to emphasise certain points. Use open gestures to welcome your audience. These are gestures where youmove your arms away from your body. Toomuchmovement can be distracting but if you do keep your arms rooted at your side then this can look awkward. You need therefore tomake sure that all gestures are controlled and precise and are used to create emphasis to introduce your main points or to indicate an ending. ⦁ Asking questions You can show acknowledgement to your audience during your PRESENTATION by asking rhetorical questions which you then answer, such as: ‘How do we know this was true?’ or ‘What does this show?’ ⦁ Encourage involvement by introducing visual aids by saying ‘If we look at this slide we can see that ..’ or ‘This slide shows us that…’. ⦁ Encourage the audience to ask questions at the end of the PRESENTATION. In fact this is an EPQ requirement and your supervisor should also keep a record of your answers . Where to start It is always a good idea to begin your PRESENTATION by acknowledging your audience. You could start by thanking them for their time. Also another good starting point is to ask if everyone can see and hear you, or check that lighting and sound levels on audio-visual equipment are satisfactory. The glass is always half full Anxiety can inhibit the flow of saliva and so your throat may get dry causing you to cough. It is a good idea to have a glass of water nearby to quench your thirst if you are speaking for a long time. Be polite and assertive Directly addressing your audience will help to engage your audience. You should be polite and greet your audience. Be natural. Remember that your audience wants to listen to you. They may take a fewminutes to settle down so wait before you start speaking and then assert yourself in a confident way. Do not be afraid to ask politely for them to be quiet if this does not happen in a reasonable amount of time, for example twominutes. It may also be a useful idea to ask the audience to turn off their mobile phones. Pump up the volume? Your voice can be used inmany different ways. In terms of volume you should ensure that your voice is loud enough for your audience to hear clearly. Youmay wish to check with your audience, ‘Can you hear me at the back?’ ⦁ Add volume for emphasis. ⦁ Speak quietly to draw the audience in. ⦁ Vary the volume to avoid sounding monotone. Pace yourself To add energy to your PRESENTATION, try changing the pace of your delivery – for example, sometimes talk faster to draw attention to a particular point. But remember, if you speak too quickly your audience will have difficulty following your talk. Too slowly and it can appear dull and lacking in energy. Mind your language Use language that is welcoming and involving throughout your PRESENTATION. Avoid using complicated specialist terminology to alienate your audience but also do not patronise themby dumbing down toomuch. It is about striking a balance. Don’t forget to breathe If you are anxious about making a presentation your breathing will become fast and shallow. This will affect the quality of your voice and your ability to speak clearly for extended periods of time. Try to take a few deep breaths before youmake your PRESENTATION, thenmake a conscious effort to slow your breathing down and take inmore air with each breath. During your PRESENTATION, use pauses after questions or at the end of sections to allow comfortable breathing patterns. Pausing may seem like forever but it is probably just a few seconds and your audience will appreciate a short break. On the day Non-specialist audience Remember that your audience must be made up of non-specialists. This means that, for example, if your EPQ relates to History then you should not deliver your presentation to a group of A-Level History students. In other words the audience should not consist of specialists in the field to which your EPQ relates. Chapter 5 Revi ew 99