When you're giving a presentation, you're speaking to people. This is the most important thing, but it's very easy to forget it when you're feeling nervous, trying to look at your slides, or remember what you wanted to say. But if you went to a café with a friend, and they just stared at their phone, fidgeted nervously the whole time, or even ignored you completely, you wouldn't be very happy. It's the same with a presentation!
To keep our presentation audience happy, we need to make sure we do the following things:
Look at them
Talk to them
Not do anything to distract them
On this page, we will talk about some basic elements of body language that will help you to make sure you engage with the people in your audience successfully. We'll start from the feet and work upwards.
Getting your feet in the right position is the most important thing you can do to start engaging your audience. Many student presentations fail because the presenter spends all their time looking at the screen, or ignores half their audience.
To avoid these problems, make sure you are near the center of the stage, and get your feet pointing straight forward. This makes it difficult for you to spend too much time looking at the screen or to ignore people in front of you, so your audience will be happier.
If your legs feel nervous and you want to move, that is OK. You could walk to another position in the middle of your presentation if it helps. But try not to walk around continuously, let your legs shake, or rock from side to side. All of those are distracting.
Your hands can really help to make your presentation better by using gestures. But they can also make your presentation worse if they move too much or make you look nervous. So, first, getting them in a good basic position will help you.
I think you have three options for your hands.
Behind your back. This is especially good if you have notes and want to hide them, or if your hands move when you're nervous. However, it makes it difficult to gesture.
On your belt buckle. Or if you're not wearing a belt, in the place where your belt buckle would be. This is good because it keeps your hands out of the way and stops unnecessary movements. However, it can feel very uncomfortable.
Hands holding each other in front of you. This is good because it is very easy to gesture, but it is also very easy to forget and let your hands move around too much.
As you can see, each hand position has advantages and disadvantages. There is no right way. You can try out all of them and find the one that feels most comfortable and fits with what you need to do with your presentation.
Posture means how you stand. When giving a presentation, keep your back straight and shoulders relaxed. Imagine a string pulling you up from the top of your head and stretching you. However, it's also important to relax, especially your shoulders. Some deep breathing before you start your presentation will help you to do this. Finally, make sure your feet are flat on the ground, and don't lean to one side or put too much weight on your heels or toes.
You need to make sure you talk to everyone in the room when you do a presentation. The best way to do this is to choose a number of people around the room, making sure that you choose the people on the far left and right, and the very front and back. If you have friends or friendly people in the audience, concentrate on them.
Now, as you do your presentation, slowly look between all of those people and talk to each of them for a few seconds. To the audience, it will look like you are really speaking to them.
If you find it very difficult to look into people's eyes when you speak to them, try looking at their forehead or hair instead. They won't notice!