Powerful Ways to Hook Your Audience

Check out Ms. Birzu's ideas for powerful ways to hook your audience. Consider using one in your presentation.

Role-Play

Perform a short skit.

Ask a few rhetorical questions

"How do you explain that this school pays a lot of money on energy bills? Have you ever thought of how much  energy is wasted in schools all over the world every year? Given how fast we run out of non-renewable resources, don’t we all deserve to save money instead of paying too much on electricity?”

Start with shocking data/statistics

“50.2% percentage of energy is wasted by the US economy every year”

Use the word “imagine”

“Please close your eyes and imagine you are walking the hallways. You are noticing empty classrooms. You’re also noticing lights that are turned on. Lots of lights. Imagine you could get involved. Now open your eyes. What about switching from using light bulbs to sensors?

Arouse curiosity

“I need to make a confession. My parents often do something at home that they are not proud of, something that in many ways I wish I will never do as an adult, but I feel I have to reveal that with you here. Several times every day, my parents leave the lights on in rooms where they don’t stay for long periods of time. And, yes, I’ve noticed teachers do the same in our school.”

Take the audience through a "what if" scenario.

“What if at the end of the month you will have more money left in your school account after paying the electricity bill? What if you could actually use that money to invest in teaching materials or...books for the library instead?”

Tell a story

“Linda is a 10-year old girl living in a poor village in Colombia. She lives with her parents and her 7 elder brothers. Linda tries hard to do her school work at home. However, it is not easy for her to work on it when parents decide to turn off the lights in the house to save energy. They can’t afford to pay the monthly bills. They use energy for 2 hours only. Two hours a day. Two hours every day. …….”

Presenting Data in Your Presentation

We've learned this year that adding data in the form of a chart can make a big impact on your audience.  To make that impact even stronger consider the way you describe a chart.

Our language expert, Ms. Birzu, has some great tips to help you explain data in your presentation.

Explaining a bar graph/chart/pie chart

INTRODUCTION:

This …(pie chart/bar graph etc.).... indicates/shows ….(how much/how long/how often/how many etc -use words from the chart titles)... .

FINDINGS:

You can see that …( ex: a larger proportion of teachers leave lights on../lights are on in 6th grades classrooms most of the time/most 6th graders recycle bins for plastic and paper/most hand towels are EQUALLY used to dry hands and other purposes etc .etc.).....

In contrast, ….( (here you COMPARE  the small percentages; ex: a small number of teachers turn lights off.../ less lights are turned off, which is a percentage of only 20.8%).. , whereas …(here you talk about the smallest number/percentage; ex: only 17% represent …).

However, …(here you talk about contrasting numbers/percentages)...

CONCLUSION:

As you can see, …(say a conclusion about what the survey/bar graph shows).

Overall, we can see that….(conclude by saying the purpose of your project; ex:  our school can save a lot of money if we instal sensors, etc.).

HELPFUL WORDS for describing graphs

• UP – Verbs rise, increase, grow, go up, improve, jump, surge, shoot up , soar, rocket
• UP – Nouns a rise, an increase, growth, an upward/rising/increasing trend, an improvement, a jump, a surge
• DOWN – Verbs fall, decrease, drop, decline, go down, slump, plummet
• DOWN – Nouns a fall, a decrease, a decline, a downward/falling/decreasing trend, a slump
• NO CHANGE – Verbs remain stable/constant, stay at the same level, stabilize
• FREQUENT CHANGE – Verb fluctuate
• FREQUENT CHANGE – Noun – fluctuation
• AT THE TOP – Verbs reach a peak, peak., reach its/their highest point
• AT THE BOTTOM – Verbs reach/hit a low (point), hit/reach its/their lowest point

TO SHOW CHANGE

Adjectives:

• dramatic, considerable, sharp, significant, moderate, slight, sudden, rapid, steady, gradual, slow

Adverbs:

• dramatically, considerably, sharply, significantly, moderately, slightly, suddenly, rapidly, steadily, gradually, slowly

Prepositions:

• a rise from HUF 725 to HUF 1100
• to increase by 2.1 %
• an increase of 2.1 % energy saving