Speaking and presentations – Peter Ryan

Syllabus: Speaking and presentations

Professor: Jason Grasse
Overall goals
This course is aimed at those students who wish to enhance their public
speaking/presentation skills and to be able to effectively speak to larger groups of
people. As such, the course focuses on developing students’ abilities to prepare and
present a number of different styles of presentations.

Course Objectives
Students who take this course will be involved in classes aimed at improving the
following areas of public speaking:

• Preparation – what to do before speaking

• Visuals – effective use of visual materials
• Voice - how to make your presentations sound more interesting
• Techniques – different ways of making your topic more engaging
• Handling questions – clarifying and dealing with questions

Text
The textbook for this course is Presenting in English by Mark Powell. In addition to this
book, a variety of supplementary materials will be used.

Syllabus
The syllabus will be arranged as follows.

Week Areas covered

1 Introductions and basic preparations
2 Getting started
3 Presentation 1: Self-introduction presentation (no visuals)
4 Exploiting visuals
5 Using your voice
6 Using your voice
7 Presentation 2
8 Presentation 2 mid-term week
9 Basic techniques – emphasis, softening, repetition
10 Advanced techniques – rhetorical questions, dramatic contrasts
11 Advanced techniques – tripling, machine gunning, creating rapport
12 Business terms/presentations
13 Business terms/handling questions
14 Handling questions
15 Presentation 3
16 Presentation 3 final week

This syllabus is subject to change depending on national vacation days and university
events. The exact timing will also be influenced by the number of students taking the
course.
Speaking and presentations – Peter Ryan

Assessment
The students taking this course will be assessed as follows:
Attendance 10%
Participation 20%
Presentation 1 10%
Presentation 2 30%
Presentation 3 30%

Presentation 1 will occur early in the course and will be a self-introduction. It will last
approximately 3-5 minutes and will test your ability to prepare and present a basic
presentation. Presentations 2 + 3 will be longer presentations. The topic and time limit
will be decided later, depending on personal interests and the number of students taking
the class.

Expectations
As this program is primarily aimed at improving public speaking skills it is extremely
important that students attempt to speak only English in the classroom. Furthermore, it
is expected that students will actively participate in pair and group work inside the
classroom. In addition, during the three presentation sections, students are expected to
listen attentively and fully participate in post-presentation discussions. All these areas
will influence the assessment you receive in the participation section. As this is an
advanced class, the high grades will go to those students who try hard in class, do well
in the presentations and work well with their classmates.

A strict attendance policy will also be adhered to. A maximum of six absences will be
allowed - any student with more than six absences will be unable to pass the course.
Three late arrivals will equal one absence. Absences and late arrivals will reduce your
attendance assessment.

Cell phones should be kept in your bag and put on the “manner” mode. It’s not polite to
text or answer phone calls in class, as it is not respectful to your fellow students.

Contact information
jgrasse@hotmail.com. Please feel free to email or call at any time.