词汇大师-- Take a Deep Breath

　　AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: English teacher Nina Weinstein joins us from Los Angeles for an oral presentation about oral presentations.

　　NINA WEINSTEIN: "You know, some people will tell you, well, don't be nervous. I think that's kind of counterintuitive because you're going to be nervous -- you feel what you feel. But I think it's important to realize that everybody is nervous. And so I give students breathing exercises that they can do before the presentation."
AA: "Talk a little bit about those breathing exercises."
NINA WEINSTEIN: "There's a very simple breathing exercise you can do where you take a deep breath and hold it in your chest, as full as you can make it. And now push it down to your lower abdomen¹.
"And I have my students put their hands on their lower abdomen so that they can feel the breath all going down to the lower abdomen. You're going to hold it to the count of ten, and then you're going to very slowly breathe it out through your nose."
RS: "That's like my yoga class. This is the same thing I do in my yoga class. Similar."
NINA WEINSTEIN: "And how do you feel now?"
RS: "How do I feel?
AA: "Lightheaded?"
NINA WEINSTEIN: "No, but did it make you feel calmer?"
RS: "Yeah, it relaxes you. I mean, proper breathing is good."
NINA WEINSTEIN: "Well, it is, but they don't focus on this in classrooms necessarily², or in places where people are preparing to do presentations. So this is just a skill that they can use before the presentation. I also tell them to go off by themselves for a few minutes and just kind of center and focus on what it is they're trying to transmit³ to the audience.
"A lot of times people are nervous because they're focused on themselves. And I tell them that's not the focus. When you're giving a talk, people are there to get the information and they may notice you for a minute or two. But as soon as you start to talk, if you're the authority⁴, they'll forget about you and they'll just be listening to what you're saying."
RS: "So we've taken a little hike. We've prepared ourselves -- "
NINA WEINSTEIN: "We've come back."
RS: "We've come back, we've prepared ourselves with breathing exercises. How do we get started?"
NINA WEINSTEIN: "I have students put notes on three-by-five cards, but I tell them that they're not going to be reading those notes. They're going to be just practicing those before the speech or before the presentation -- because, again, [you're] the authority. And if you're the authority, you shouldn't be reading. You should know what you're going to be saying. So they practice that.
"And I also caution⁵ the ones who are doing PowerPoint -- and a lot of people really like to do PowerPoint presentations. And that's fine, but I caution them that the PowerPoint is the assistant. They're the presentation and so they should not be focused wholly⁶ on the PowerPoint. It should just be a kind of augmentation or help for the presentation."
AA: "Well, this raises a question here, because I've sat through a lot of PowerPoint presentations and I've always wondered: are you supposed to read what's on the slide or do you just put a few words on the slide? I mean, what do you recommend for people to do with PowerPoint?"
NINA WEINSTEIN: "What I've come to the conclusion of is that we shouldn't be reading on the screen, because if we're reading what's on the screen, we're not listening to the speaker. And so there should just be a few points on the screen. It shouldn't be mostly words anyway. Words can be said. We don't need the words on the screen.
"One of my students gave a very effective PowerPoint presentation on robots and what robots will be doing for homeowners and elderly people in the future. And what he did was he showed a soccer game at a RoboCup international competition. And so that got the audience's attention, that was on the PowerPoint and that was really effective, because that's not something he could say as effectively as he could show."
"Another example was a student who gave a presentation on E.Q., which is the emotional⁷ intelligence [quotient]. And so in order to get the audience involved in that, she gave a very short test in the beginning, of maybe five questions that we would answer. And based on our answers she told us how much E.Q. we had. And then she began her discussion⁸. So something like that, that's an example that pulls us in, something we can do as the audience, something that's shown to us that helps us relate to the topic, and then the audience is yours from that moment on."
AA: Nina Weinstein will have more advice about oral presentations a week from now.
RS: And that's WORDMASTER for this week. Archives are at voanews.com/wordmaster. And our e-mail address is [email protected]. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.
CPF/AA/rs

1 abdomen   

n.腹，下腹(胸部到腿部的部分)

参考例句：

• How to know to there is ascarid inside abdomen?怎样知道肚子里面有蛔虫？
• He was anxious about an off-and-on pain the abdomen.他因时隐时现的腹痛而焦虑。

2 necessarily   

adv.必要地，必需地；必定地，必然地

参考例句：

• More work does not necessarily call for more men.增加工作量不一定就要增添人员。
• A voter must necessarily be no younger than eighteen.选民必须在18岁以上。

3 transmit   

vt.播送，发射；传送，传递，传染

参考例句：

• A telegram will be the quickest way to transmit the message.打电报将是传递这个信息的最快途径。
• These symbols transmit a message in a simple and direct manner.这些标志用最简单直接的方式传达出一个信息。

4 authority   

n.当局，官方；权力，权威，威信；当权者

参考例句：

• He is recognized internationally as an authority in this field.国际上承认他是这方面的一个权威。
• Professor White is looked upon as an authority on mathematics.怀特教授被看成数学权威。

5 caution   

n.小心，谨慎，警告；vt.告诫，警告

参考例句：

• You should exercise extreme caution when driving in fog.在雾中开车要极为小心。
• There is no need for such caution.不必如此小心谨慎。

6 wholly   

adv.完全地，全部地

参考例句：

• I wholly agree with you.我完全同意你。
• His story is wholly fictitious.他的故事全是编造的。

7 emotional   

adj.令人动情的；易动感情的；感情(上)的

参考例句：

• Emotional people don't stop to calculate.感情容易冲动的人做事往往不加考虑。
• This is an emotional scene in the play.这是剧中动人的一幕。

8 discussion   

n.讨论，谈论；论述

参考例句：

• It is certain he will come to the discussion.他肯定会来参加讨论。
• After months of discussion,a peace agreement is gradually taking shape.经过几个月的商讨，和平协议渐渐有了眉目。