Kicking Off Coffee Talks: Nailing Your English Presentations
On 23 April, we officially launched this semester’s SLUB Coffee Talks series. I had a great time co-hosting our inaugural session with Kay-Michael Würzner, where we explored the finer points of delivering effective presentations in English.
While we mainly focused on the hurdles of presenting in a second language, most of our tips and tricks hold water for any high-stakes talk. If you couldn’t make it, here’s a breakdown of some of what we covered and why it’ll help you level up your next presentation.
Strategic Team Dynamics
When presenting as a group, the order of speakers is not just a matter of who wants to go first; it’s a tactical decision. We discussed why it’s important to rehearse the transitions in advance to ensure a seamless presentation.
One of the most important things for teams to remember is to put your most confident, high-energy speakers at the start and end, and place any teammates who are less confident in the middle. This structure grabs the audience’s attention immediately and leaves them with a strong final impression, while also giving less experienced speakers a bit of a safety net.

The Psychology of the Slide
The most interactive bit of our talk was definitely the visual design segment. We showed off a nightmare slide we’d put together specifically to overwhelm the senses. It had everything: a mess of British and American date formats, tiny, illegible fonts, and typos galore.
We used this eyesore to prove a basic point about how our brains work: you simply cannot read and listen at the same time. That cognitive load gets even heavier when the audience is listening to a second language.
If you want people to actually listen to you, your slides need to be minimalist. We showed how to take that cluttered mess and split it into two clean, simple slides that supported the story rather than distracting from it.



Sneaky Breaks
We also shared a few pro tips on building interactive moments into your talk. These aren’t just for the audience’s benefit; they’re sneaky breaks for you as the speaker. By tossing out a quick question or running a poll, you buy yourself ten seconds to catch your breath, glance at your notes, and reset your pace.
A Note on Nuance
You probably noticed quite a few British idioms sprinkled throughout this text. While they add a bit of personality and flair to a blog post, this is actually something we advise against in a professional presentation.
In an international setting, not everyone in your audience may be familiar with specific regional terms or figures of speech. To keep your message clear and accessible to everyone (regardless of their primary language) it is usually better to stick to more direct, universal English.
Missed the talk? No worries. You’ll be able to download the full presentation shortly at: https://bildungsportal.sachsen.de/opal/auth/RepositoryEntry/24130879489/CourseNode/98267014615921?0
OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
R Krische (5. Mai 2026). Kicking Off Coffee Talks: Nailing Your English Presentations. SLUB Open Science Lab. Abgerufen am 15. Mai 2026 von https://doi.org/10.58079/166az

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