In het Engels presenteren voor een gemengd publiek

door Regina Coeli

Een van de belangrijkste punten die je in je hoofd moet houden als je succesvol je informatie over wilt brengen is dat verschillende mensen informatie op andere manieren interpreteren. Sommige mensen hebben graag een globaal overzicht van informatie (the big picture). Anderen geven de voorkeur aan meer gedetailleerde informatie. Sommige mensen begrijpen concepten door ze te visualiseren. Anderen hebben concrete of praktische voorbeelden nodig. Sommige mensen hebben een wetenschappelijke mindset en horen graag de voor- en nadelen, anderen moeten de verbanden zien tussen delen informatie.

Hier volgen enkele zinnen en technieken die je kunt gebruiken als je in het Engels een presentatie geeft aan een gemengd publiek.

Zinnen voor mensen met een helikopterview

1. Vertel wat de essentie van het onderwerp is door te zeggen:

  • Essentially, …
  • The essence of the issue is …
  • The crux of the matter is …
  • The bigger picture is …
  • Isn’t the issue about ? .. Put the issue in a question form

2. Herhaal je woorden door minstens twee synoniemen te geven of door te zeggen:

  • In other words, this means that …
  • To paraphrase, what I’ve just said …
  • To put it simply, …

Zinnen voor mensen met oog voor detail

Ga in op de details door te zeggen:

  • Let’s have a look at this in more detail …
  • What are the further consequences of this …

Zinnen voor visueel ingestelde mensen

Gebruik een vergelijking door te zeggen:

  • It is just like …
  • Let me draw a picture for you …

Zinnen voor wetenschappelijke of gestructereerde denkers

1. Licht voor- en nadelen toe door te zeggen:

  • If you do this/ consider this, then you can …
  • If you don’t understand this/ don’t do this, then you can never …
  • On the one hand, … On the other hand …

2. Laat correlaties en links zien door te zeggen:

  • If A happens, then B will happen, which will lead to C happening …

Zinnen om concrete voorbeelden te geven

  • Let me demonstrate the point …
  • Let me give you some examples …

Zinnen voor praktisch ingestelde mensen

Leg je punt uit met een praktisch en concreet voorbeeld door te zeggen:

  • In practice this means that …
 

Het volgende deel uit een presentatie laat zien hoe je deze zinnen kunt gebruiken om een gemengd publiek aan te spreken.

A presentation on style and tone

Good morning, everyone. My name is Maya. Today, I’m going to talk about style and tone and its importance in the English language. Before I start, I would like to give a demonstration. Could I have a volunteer, please? This is Kay and today is her lucky day. I’d like to give her two presents.

The presenter gives Kay a beautifully wrapped present. Then she gives Kay a pen.

Kay, would you like to open the present, please? Kay opens the present and finds a pen inside.

Audience, which do you think she preferred? The present with the pen inside or the pen itself? Even though the content was the same, I’m sure many of you would agree that she preferred the beautifully wrapped present.

Similarly, style and tone is essentially about how you ‘wrap’ your message. In other words, it’s how direct or indirect you are. To put it simply, it’s just like giving someone a present. As the demonstration showed, wouldn’t you prefer to get a present which is nicely wrapped up than as it is rather than the bare content? Wouldn’t your message, especially a negative one, be better received if you wrapped it up nicely?

The principle behind adapting your style and tone is that you take the receiver of the message into account, not simply the content. In other words, you are focusing on the process and the relationship rather than achieving goals. Let’s look at this concept in more detail in the following example: You want to give some negative feedback to your colleague regarding some work he has done. You could say, extremely directly, “That’s awful” which would probably elicit a defensive response from your colleague. He would probably feel hurt and unhappy and be unwilling to continue the conversation. Alternatively, you could wrap up your message by saying, “Well, that’s an interesting piece of work you’ve done. However, maybe the following points could be improved if you… .” If you are able to vary your style and tone, this means that you can be more nuanced in getting your message across. Moreover, if you can adapt your message to your receiver, you are more likely keep the listener’s attention and to achieve your goal whether it’s to change their behaviour or to communicate negative information without damaging the relationship. If you don’t do this, your language comes across as direct and aggressive. It may make you sound very authoritative and directive. Consequently, the receiver may stop listening. You have, in effect, shut down the communication channel.

In practice, style and tone may require you to consider the amount of ‘wrapping’ your message needs to suit the situation. If you asked a friend to borrow a pen, it would be appropriate to say “Can I borrow your pen?” In this case, you are able to be fairly direct because you are asking a friend and because borrowing a pen is a normal request. However, if you asked the same friend to borrow their brand new Porsche, it would be far more appropriate to say “Peter, as you know, I’m getting married next year, and I was just wondering if I could possibly borrow your Porsche to drive to the Registry Office?” Despite being friends, the situation and the request are abnormal ones. Therefore, you would choose to wrap your message creating a style and tone that is indirect and highly nuanced and which is more likely to lead to a positive response from your friend.

To conclude, I would like to leave you with the picture of a delighted young child playing with the wrapping paper and the box his expensive toy came in. We shouldn’t forget that, sometimes, the box and the wrapping paper matters just as much as the content.

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