Communicating your ideas
How best to communicate your ideas
Group discussion
Make sure that you contribute a reasonable number of ideas to the discussion. This will largely depend on your preparation, and how confident you feel about the topic.
When offering ideas, make sure that you get some complexity into your contributions.
If you are talking about novels, plays or other texts you have been studying, remember to say something analytical, rather than just a point of content (a remembered fact, for example).
It often helps to think of theme – try to link the point you making to a key theme. This often gives sufficient complexity.
Presentation
Remember that your teacher will be looking for detailed and complex ideas/views/opinions/information. In your preparation, be careful that the content has enough of this level of material.
Things to keep in mind for your presentation
- be concise:
- keep it simple
- don’t try to communicate too many ideas
- decide on a topic or theme and don’t move away from it
- cut your content down to the absolute essentials
- make it memorable:
- use a few powerful examples
- including carefully selected personal experience, if appropriate.
- grab your audience from the start:
- use a punchy quote
- give a shocking statistic
- ask a thought provoking question
- signal your structure:
- give your audience an idea of where your presentation is going
- set out what you are going to cover (and how long you are going to be!)
- you can do this by saying something like : “I am going to make three key points.”
- remember the 'rule of three':
- writing or speech can be more powerful if the ideas and/or examples are expressed in groups of three
- this can help with structuring your presentation
- use humour - if appropriate:
- it can be a very effective way to help you communicate your idea
- it really helps you to achieve a good rapport with your audience
- it can make what you are saying more memorable
