DESIGNING A TOURISTIC ROUTE: THE TRANSFORMATION OF MADRID DURING THE REIGN OF CHARLES III

Shared by César Martínez:

TASK:

Imagine that you are presenting a number of one-day tours to a group of tourists who want to spend a day in Madrid and to know a bit more about its history.

In your case, you must design a tour focused on the reign of Charles III and the urban transformations that he boosted in his time. Then you must gather all that information in a PowerPoint presentation and, finally, make an oral speech to your partners as if they were the tourists who are about to hire one trip among others.

TIPS

Remember that you are about to face a descriptive public speaking so you must think of descriptive words/phrases and sensory images. In order words, you have to keep in mind that you must make the listener help to visualize the image that is portrayed by the public speaker.

As we are going to refer to monuments, buildings and public spaces, the first things that pop up are:

§  Measures

§  types of construction;

§  What you see, what you hear and feel as you approach the building:

§  The colours;

§  The environment;

Use imagery and figurative figures of speech; words and terms that denote all impressions and represent the object or process being described are important. Some examples are:

a)  adjectives, verbs and metaphors

b)  sensory features of a subject

c)  comparisons between two things

d)  evolution in time

e)  statistical data and bare facts

f)   newly discovered information

g)  details that could be important to know

h)  personal experiences and memories you could share and people can learn from.

PowerPoint Tips

Use these tips to enhance your presentation:

·      Use a large font. As a general rule, avoid text smaller than 24 point.

·      Use a clean typeface. Sans serif typefaces, such as Arial, are generally easier to read on a screen than serif typefaces, such as Times New Roman.

·      Use bullet points, not complete sentences. The text on your slide provides an outline to what you are saying. If the entire text of your presentation is on your slides, there is no reason for the audience to listen to you. A common standard is the 6/7 rule: no more than six bulleted items per slide and no more than seven words per item.

·      Use contrasting colors. Use a dark text on a light background or a light text on a dark background. Avoid combinations of colors that look similar. Avoid red/green combinations, as this is the most common form of color blindness.

·      Use special effects sparingly. Using animations, cool transition effects, sounds and other special effects is an effective way to make sure the audience notices your slides.

Presenting Effectively

Use these tips to help keep them interested throughout your presentation:

·      Be excited. You are talking about something exciting. If you are excited, your audience will feel it and automatically become more interested.

·      Speak with confidence. When you are speaking, you are the authority on your topic, but do not pretend that you know everything. If you do not know the answer to a question, admit it. Offer to look into the matter further.

·      Make eye contact with the audience. Your purpose is to communicate with your audience. People listen more if they feel you are talking directly to them. As you speak, let your eyes settle on one person for several seconds before moving on to somebody else. Make sure you connect with all areas of the audience equally.

·      Avoid reading from the screen. First, if you are reading from the screen, you are not making eye contact with your audience. Second, if you put it on your slide, it is because you wanted them to read it, not you.

·      Use a pointer only when necessary. If you are using a laser pointer, remember to keep it off unless you need to highlight something on the screen.

·      Explain your equations and graphs. When you display equations, explain them fully.

·      Pause. Pauses bring audible structure to your presentation. They emphasize important information, make transitions obvious, and give the audience time to catch up between points and to read new slides. Pauses always feel much longer to speakers than to listeners.

·      Avoid filler words. Um, like, you know, and many others. To an audience, these are indications that you do not know what to say. Speak slowly enough in order to collect your thoughts before moving ahead. If you really do not know what to say, pause silently until you do.

·      Relax. It is hard to relax when you are nervous, but your audience will be much more comfortable if you are too.

·      Breathe. It is fine to be nervous. The most effective way to keep your nerves in check aside from a lot of practice before hand is to remember to breathe deeply throughout your presentation.

·      Acknowledge the people who supported your research. Be sure to thank the people who made your research possible, including your mentor, research team, collaborators, and other sources of funding and support.

Tips. How to organize the information.

Introduction

• Capture your listeners’ attention: Begin with a question, a funny story, a startling comment, or anything that will make them think.
• State your purpose; for example:
  ‘I’m going to talk about...’
  ‘This morning I want to explain…’
• Present an outline of your talk; for example:
  ‘I will concentrate on the following points: First of all…Then…
  This will lead to… And finally…’

The Body

• Present your main points one by one in logical order.
• Pause at the end of each point (give people time to take notes, or time to think about what you are saying).
• Make it absolutely clear when you move to another point. For example:
  ‘The next point is that ...’
  ‘OK, now I am going to talk about ...’
  ‘Right. Now I'd like to explain ... ’
  ‘Of course, we must not forget that ...’
  ‘However, it's important to realise that...’
• Use clear examples to illustrate your points.
• Use visual aids to make your presentation more interesting.

The Conclusion

• It is very important to leave your audience with a clear summary of everything you have covered.
• Make it obvious that you have reached the end of the presentation.
• Summarise the main points again, using phrases like:
  ‘To sum up...’
  ‘So, in conclusion...’
  ‘OK, to recap the main points…’
• Restate the purpose of your talk, and say that you have achieved your aim:
  ‘I think you can now see that...’
  ‘My intention was ..., and it should now be clear that ...’
• Thank the audience, and invite questions:
  ‘Thank you. Are there any questions?’    

 

Tips. Useful language for presentation.

Explain what your presentation is about at the beginning:

I’m going to talk about ...
I’d like to talk about ...
The main focus of this presentation is ...

Use these expressions to order your ideas:

First of all, ...
Firstly, ...
Then, ...
Secondly, ...
Next, ...
Finally, ...
Lastly, ...
To sum up, ...
In conclusion, ...

Use these expressions to add more ideas from the same point of view:

In addition, ...
What’s more, ...
Also, ...
Added to this, ...

To introduce the opposite point of view you can use these words and expressions:

However, ...
On the other hand, ...
Then again, ...

Remember that the activity assessment will include both the content presented (70%) and the competence shown when presenting it. (30%).

In order to help you prepare the oral presentation you can find it below the rubric which will be used for assessing it. Make sure all the items are clear enough as they add the same percentage to the final mark.

	1	2	3	4
FLUENCY	The speaker’s talk is interrupted all the time by long pauses and stutter.	The speaker makes noticeable pauses. Talk pace is irregular.	There are a few pauses. Talk is slightly accelerated or slow in turns.	The speaker is able to talk without pauses and the pace is correct.
SUBJECT MANAGEMENT	The speaker does not manage the subject at all and is not able to answer any questions.	The speaker shoes some knowledge about the topic and can answer a few questions.	The speaker shows sufficient knowledge and topic management. They are able to answer the questions.	The speaker knows the topic and proves it by answering all the questions related to the topic correctly.
GRAMMAR	The speaker makes serious essential grammar mistakes	There are some essential  grammar mistakes.	The speaker makes few essential grammar mistakes.	The speaker does not make any essential gramma mistakes.
EYE CONTACT/ MOVEMENT	There is no eye contact with the audience and the speaker does not interact at all.	The speaker occasionally  keeps eye contact with the audience. There is little interaction while speaking.	The speaker has eye contact with the audience during most of the presentation. They interact with the audience but not all the time.	The speaker manages to keep eye contact with the audience all the time and at the same time they interact with them naturally.