Answering Questions in a Business Presentation: A Guide for ESL Students

When you are giving a presentation in English to your business colleagues or to any other group of people, it is easier to deal with the actual presentation of your material than it is to deal with questions from your audience. Audience members may bring up thoughts or questions that you haven't thought of, and listening to and understanding their questions in English is not as easy as memorizing and expounding on notes you've made for your presentation. To help you make sure that your presentation goes well, it is important to consider the following ideas and tips.

1.) Know Your Stuff: Make sure you know all of the ins and outs of your material you will be giving in your presentation. In other words, be knowledgeable about your subject. If you are confident that you know what your presentation is about, your audience will pick up on that. You will appear sure of yourself.

Also, make a list of questions you could see your audience members asking you after you have created and practiced your presentation. If you can answer those questions better in your presentation, change your presentation up a little to do so. This can save time and questions later on.

2.) Three Steps to a Presentation: These are the three main parts of a presentation:

-Tell them what you're going to tell them.

-Tell them.

-Tell them what you told them.

In the first part of your presentation, you can clearly identify how you want to deal with questions from your audience. You can say things like,

-"I'll leave time at the end of my presentation for questions."

-"Unfortunately, we will not have time for questions during this presentation."

-"Please feel free to interrupt me with questions you may have during the presentation."

If you are unable to answer questions during your presentation, make sure you tell your audience that they can note down any questions they have, and that they are free to send you their questions via telephone or e-mail after the presentation. Reassure them that you will answer their questions as soon as possible after the presentation.

3.) Repeat the Question: When someone asks a question, it is a good idea to repeat the question for a couple of reasons. For example, if you receive a question that asks, "How will your plan be better than the old plan?" you can rephrase the question and ask the person who asked the question, "The question was, 'How is this idea better than the old way of doing things?' Did I get that right?" This can help you understand the question better yourself, and the audience member will feel that you were truly paying attention to and understanding his/her question when he/she asked it. This practice can also help other audience members who were not able to hear the question. When you restate it, they will have a chance to listen to the question again.

Here are some resources to help you learn more about dealing with questions during your presentations in English:

-This site has a pod cast about how to answer questions during a presentation. Look for the title "Business Presentations - Handling Questions" on the page.

-This site has some general ideas on how to make a good presentation , and it also addresses answering questions.

Be confident in yourself as your make your presentations, and practice answering questions you think may come up during your presentation. You'll do great!