How Poor English Speakers Make Clear Presentation

Today a guy with very poor English made a even poorer presentation in English. A presentation with same amount of information is made in twenty minutes by a normal English speaker, he used one and a half hour. However all audiences (fluent English speakers) were very patient and nice. They waited until he finished. In stead of making comments on the topic, they gave some suggests to the speaker on how to make a clear presentation. Here are some suggests they gave.

• Write down most of the information you want to send to the audiences. As you have problems on speaking clearly, you should write down as much as information as you can on the slides. If the audiences cannot understand what you talk, they can still get the information of the topic from reading your slides. Also the speaker you can just read out the slides if you cannot talk freely. This is not a nice way to make presentation but it guarantees that the audience can understand the topic.
• Make a detailed introduction to the topic. Do not mind to spend a bit more time on introducing your topic. If the audiences know what the topic from the beginning, they can guess the meaning that you want to express from their knowledge or experience when you cannot express clearly. If they do not understand what you talk about from the beginning, they cannot get any information from your presentation at all.
• If there are mathematical equations in your presentation, explain the notation (which notate the variables and parameters) in the equations clearly. Do not assume that everyone understands the notation you use. If they do not know what the notations mean, there is no way for them to understand the equations (usually these are the core information you hope to give to the audiences) you create.

First DSP Meeting, Lecture and Language

The meeting with my supervisor and DSP chair this afternoon really encourages me. It shows me that my situation is regarded, the difficulties I encountered are noticed and my hard-working is confirmed. As a foreign newcomer here, I feel I am cared about by someones. They suggest me turn them for help and ask them questions freely, which remind me that I am in a team and not alone.

After 4 weeks' study, I gain some tips about how to follow the lectures better. The most important step, in my case, is preparing lessons before class. You need to pick up the key words and get familiar with them, especially the pronunciations, so that you will not miss them in the class. You can practise by repeating many times. What's more, tick the points you cannot understand or feel confused so that you can pay more attention to them in the class or ask the questions to the lecturer or classmates. I the class, you should pay very close attention to the lecturer. Acclimatize yourself to the his/her accent as soon as possible and take the front seat so that you can hear the lecturer more clearly if necessary. I do not think it is a good idea the record the lecture, because it is time consuming and you may relay on the recordings too much. But I appreciate the tradition of asking questions in the class as most western students do, although it needs a lot of encourage for a Chinese student. After class, it is quite necessary to review what you learnt through practising, doing assignment or homework, discussing with other people, referring to other materials, etc..The more, the better. Anyway, practice makes better. Try to make sure all the knowledge points understood and configurate the knowledge structure or knowledge tree of the sections and then the modules. This is actually what I did before, I should do this with the modules in totally English environment now. Furthermore, try to connect the knowledge of different subjects and find the over-leaped and interlinked parts. Most importantly, keep thinking about how to apply what you learn into your research.

Some specific suggestions to improve the language. (1) Simply organize the words before you speak and speaking slowly and clearly. Make sure people can understand you. (2) Try to talk with the native speakers at any  suitable situations. Do not scare to speak with other people. (3) Listen to the speakers, such as the lectures in class very carefully. Never give up. You may catch more even if you cannot hear anything at the beginning. (4) Discuss the expressions which confuse you and cannot be figured out by looking up the dictionaries with the local people.