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The language barrier

With Simon Raybould of Curved VisionÂ

We spent a little while over in Belfast recently, working with the British Council. As you can imagine the staff there do a lot of international presentations to audiences who don’t have English as a first language… add to that the relatively pronounced accent of the region and you can see that things might be slightly tricky. In fact, it’s not necessary to drop your accent when you present (though in extreme circumstances it might help, I admit): what’s more important is that you’re clear in your diction and that you go at a sensible pace.

For example, I have nothing better than school-boy French, but I can understand even quite complicated things in France if the person I’m listening to wants me to understand them. I’m sure you remember times though, when someone’s not wanted you to understand and they’ve slipped into a variation of the language which was pretty in-penetrable to you… fast, full of slang and local dialect and without breaks between words… and probably with poor articulation, too.

So it is with presentations.

Even if your audience doesn’t have English (or your local version of it!) as their first language, you can vastly increase your chances of being understood if you follow a few simple rules:

• slow down slightly. There’s no need to over do this, just a little will help hugely. In any case it’ll probably happen as a bi-product of these other points. Don’t make a big thing of it or you’ll sound a bit silly!
• put a clear space between words and a slightly longer one at the end of a sentence. You’d be surprised at how much you tend not to do this when you’re talking normally, letting each word run into the next
• don’t use contractions - say cannot, not can’t
• make a point of (over-)articulating with your lips (that is, more than you normally do)
• take a few minutes to make sure your presentation will be using short, active sentences and, if you possibly can, avoid sub-clauses (like I just used!)

Put these things together and you’ll find that your audience has a much better chance of keeping up with what you’re saying.

As always, questions and comments to me at sme@curved-vision.co.uk.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .