Life Skills Persuasive presentation

Why do short motivating talks catch on?

Do you ever watch inspiring or motivating short talks online? Why do you think they are popular? Discuss in pairs.

• How to be happy.
• Why stress can be a good thing.
• The importance of creativity.
• Why looking good isn’t really that important.
• How to be a more effective public speaker.
• The power of believing in your dreams.

Listen to two students talking about giving talks. One of them recently gave a motivational talk for the first time. What did she learn from the experience?

Complete the advice in the Life Skills box with one word in each gap. Then listen again and check.

Life Skills box one: message, opening, closing, connection

• Focus on getting across just one key 1 ___. Everything you say should clearly relate to this.
• Plan a strong 2 _ and 3 _. Practise exactly what you’re going to say at these points.
• It’s vital to 4 ___ with the audience. You can do this through:
• keeping good eye contact
• engaging them with some 5 _ facts, saying something funny, or telling a 6 _ anecdote
• making your voice sound 7 ___
• using 8 ___ aids and props.

What does Jameela say is her key message?

How does she make the beginning of her talk memorable and engaging?

What personal stories does she tell?

What is the prop she uses towards the end of the talk, and why does she use it?

Life Skills box two: five persuasive tricks

• Emotion: People tend to respond to emotional language, or an appeal to their emotions.
• Rhetorical questions: A rhetorical question is asked to make a point, rather than to get an answer.
• Quotations: A well-selected quotation from a famous person can give your argument more weight.
• Repetition: The repetition of a particular word or phrase, usually something which carries a key meaning.
• Tripling: People seem to respond to information in threes, so speeches often list three similar things, or make three similar points.

Emotion

Rhetorical questions

Quotations

Repetition

Tripling

Say it with stress, then plan your own talk

• I’d like to talk about the aims and ambitions we all have.
• We need to have something to reach for and to help us move forward.
• If you’ve got something you really want to do, then you shouldn’t let anything stop you.
• For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved to swim.
• But what they hadn’t realised was just how determined I was.

• It is more important to enjoy life than make money.
• Developing self-discipline is essential to success in life.

Your turn: give a persuasive talk

Use your notes from Exercise 8 to give a short presentation.

• Prepare a presentation based on your plan.
• Organise your arguments and examples into clear sections.
• Use the tips from the Life Skills box to make your presentation as persuasive and motivating as possible.
• Use some of the rhetorical devices from the Speaking box.
• Give your talk to the class. Think about stress and intonation.
• Listen to other students’ presentations. Notice what techniques they use to make their presentation impactful.
• Choose the most persuasive presentation.