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Every week throughout the year, a blog written by a Ritsumeikan language facilitator will be posted here. These blogs cover a wide range of topics: language learning tips, stories from daily life, travel recommendations, and more.
By clicking on the ‘CATEGORY↓’ tab on the right, you can search for subjects you’d like to read about. Whatever your tastes, we are sure there will be something here for you!
コラム一覧 / Blog List
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02 .25Insect hunting in RyuouHave you ever watched the NHK TV program, “Kagawa Teruyuki no Konchu Sugoize” [https://www.nhk.or.jp/school/sugoize/]? In the TV program, Kagawa Teruyuki, a famous Japanese kabuki actor and an insect geek, catches insects such as dragonflies and butterflies while lecturing about their habits. The show has become very successful and popular in the last few years. One reason is that it reminds viewers of their childhood when they stayed outside all day with a butterfly net to catch rare insects such as the giant dragonfly (‘oniyanma’), rhinoceros beetle (‘kabutomushi’) and stag beetle (‘kuwagata’). When you watch the show and get the urge to go for an insect hunt, Ryuoh is an ideal destination for your trip. Ryuoh, a town with a population of 12,000 in Shiga prefecture, has rich natural surroundings that nurture a wide variety of insects and other creatures. Let me introduce some of them.If you get tired of bright neon lights in big cities, visit Ryuoh at night from late May to early June. Hundreds of greenish-yellow lights of fireflies in the dark sky will relax you. But watch your steps so you won’t stamp on jumping frogs and crayfish walking across the road along rice fields.When rainy season is over in July, it is time to catch symbolic summer insects: the rhinoceros beetle and stag beetle. Find a copse and look for sap from trees at night. If you are the first visitor to the spot that night, you are likely to find them with little effort. Even if you are impatient and cannot wait for the sunset, some types of stag beetles might be waiting for you in the afternoon, too. But watch out for hornets.Even if you are not a big fan of insects and do not want to see them, it is a good idea to visit the place in early fall. You can see golden rice fields under moonlight with the beautiful music of bell crickets hiding in the grass. You also might have a chance to meet foxes and raccoon dogs on the way.Except for winter, Ryuoh is one of the best places for the adventure of an insect hunt. No interest in insects? No problem. Ryuoh is still a nice place for a visit. Yummy cheese, ice-cream [http://www.kokabu.co.jp], omi beef [https://www.okakihonten.jp] and an outlet mall [https://mitsui-shopping-park.com/mop/shiga/english/] are there for you.Photo Credit: Pixabay@pexels.comYoshitaka Seto
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02 .18Is “Piiman” pepper?A dictionary is a helpful tool to automatically transform a word of your language into a word of a foreign language. For example, when you look up the Japanese word piiman in a Japanese-English dictionary, you will find green pepper or bell pepper. According to this result, a piiman is a kind of pepper. Is it correct? There are a few pepper-related words in English. For example, chili pepper, black pepper, and green pepper. They are all pepper. In contrast, Japanese assign different names to these three plants: tougarashi, koshoo, and piiman.Chili pepper was introduced in the 16th century from Portugal. At that time, European merchants were routed via China to Nagasaki, so it has been called tou-garashi, which means karashi “mustard” of tou “China”. The noun karashi “mustard” comes from the adjective karashi “spicy” in old Japanese. In Japanese, mustard has been representative of spicy things.The word pepper originally meant black pepper, which was very important trade goods in the 15th century. Christopher Columbus was so eager to find the trade route to India that he misunderstood the spicy vegetable in the new continent as pepper in India. As a consequence, English integrated chili pepper into the category of pepper, so they don't have a word that directly means the red vegetable.By the way, piiman sounds similar to piment (/pimɑ̃/) in French. It is said that piiman first appeared in the Meiji period when Japan started to import it from the U.S., so it is mysterious why Japanese adopted a French-like sound, not an English-like sound, for the green vegetable then. In French, piment is a general term for chili pepper and green pepper, and black pepper is excluded from the conceptual area the word piment covers. In this sense, assigning the word piiman, which sounds like piment, to the green vegetable is more accurate than the word pepper.Back to the first question, you might conclude that it is not appropriate to call the green vegetable pepper, and it is better to use the word piment instead. However, the usage was not conventionalized in the history of English. Inconveniently, we cannot use words that the language does not permit us to use. That's language.Photo Credit: Lisa Fotios@pexels.comTetsuta Komatsubara
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02 .11Motivation Versus DisciplineDuring my teaching career, I have had multiple students ask me questions along the lines of ‘What are good ways to learn English?’ and I often used to answer that having some form of motivation, be it intrinsic or extrinsic, may help. Yet over the years, I have come to believe that discipline is a much more important and beneficial quality for learning, not only English but many things in life. So let’s look at why this is so.Motivation is a wonderful concept to take advantage of when it occurs. It gives us unusual powers of focus and productivity. So we should definitely use that when it’s around but motivation is finite, so when you’re looking to change something in your life: Let motivation inspire you, but don’t expect it to stick around. Focus on building disciplined actions around those things you want to learn. Get specific in what “discipline” will look like for your specific targets or aims.Humans are generally creatures of habits and we often create routines and rhythms in our daily lives. By understanding how we establish and practice habits each day, we can figure out how to implement beneficial ones (and lessen burdening ones). By this I mean when we begin something new, we must focus a lot of our brainpower on it because it’s out of the ordinary and we are learning how to do that thing. But as we repeatedly do it, we need to devote less and less conscious brain activity to it until it eventually becomes second nature. An example of this is walking. As infants when we learn to walk, our brains focus on trying to put one foot forward then the other and it takes effort, but gradually, because we do it repeatedly and from small steps first, we no longer have to think about those actions. It becomes second nature and frees up our brains to focus on new activities.So when studying the same principles can be applied: creating discipline and routines can be very important. Even, at first, if it is just a simple activity for two weeks of sitting yourself down at a desk and just opening a book and reading for 5 minutes, then we gradually increase the intensity of time and effort, and these actions will become routine. Then you will find yourself automatically doing these tasks as time goes by. The key is the discipline though, we have to make the time to do these activities regularly and consistently, then eventually improvements will be made.Motivation is good at inspiring us to start something, but discipline will be the quality that keeps us pushing towards our goals.Photo Credit: Plush Design@pexels.comAndrew Dowden
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02 .04Principles of Weight TrainingA holiday tradition that is not so common in Japan is making a New Year’s resolution. The Cambridge dictionary defines a New Year’s resolution as “a promise that you make to yourself to start doing something good or stop doing something bad on the first day of the year.” Some of the most common resolutions concern health, and many people decide to get in shape by joining a gym. In January many gyms and health clubs will be filled with new members, but by Valentine’s Day most of them will have quit. Why? There are a variety of reasons why someone might quit; ranging from the time required to the expense, but many people will quit because they are dismayed with the results of their hard work. These people might go to the gym three times a week for one month only to see a little muscle growth, or a slightly smaller waistline. The likely reason why these people are disappointed in their results is because they do not understand some basic principles of weight training. To build muscle it is important to understand four principles of weight training: hypertrophy, progressive overload, calories in versus calories out, and the importance of compound exercises.The first important concept to understand is hypertrophy which is defined as increase in bulk, through the thickening of muscle fibers. A common misconception is that muscles are made in the gym. In reality however, weight training damages the muscles, creating micro-tears in the tissue. These micro-tears heal themselves when one sleeps, creating a bigger and stronger muscle.Progressive overload was originally defined by DeLorme and Watkins (1948) as “the need for greater demands to be placed on the body during successive workouts over time if improvement is to be achieved.” In other words, it is necessary to work a bit harder than last time every time one goes to the gym. To achieve progressive overload, variables that can be manipulated include: weight, volume (number of repetitions or sets), rest time, speed, and frequency.In order to build muscle, the body requires adequate nutrition, which is commonly referred to as “calories in versus calories out.” This means that if one burns more calories than they eat they will lose weight. If one burns less calories than they eat then they will gain weight. Therefore, in order to build muscle it is necessary to take in more calories than the body requires for maintenance.Finally, an important principle that beginners should know is the difference between compound and isolation movements. Compound movements are exercises which use several body parts at once such as squats, barbell rows, bench press, etc. Isolation movements are those which exercise only one or two body parts at once such as arm curls. For building overall strength and mass, compound movements have been shown to be superior.This is a brief introduction to some key concepts in weight training. For more information, check out some books or videos on YouTube. You do not need to have all the answers before you begin training. Just go to the gym and start working out!Photo Credit: Victor Freitas@pexels.comJohn Syquia
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01 .28Cacaos in IndonesiaA trip to Indonesia was one of the most memorable experiences for me. In August, 2018, I joined a cacao study tour to Indonesia conducted by a chocolate company from Kyoto. I attended a seminar about fair trade a year before, and the company owner was an invited speaker who impressed the participants with his passion and enthusiasm. The chocolate company is quite young and just about eight years old; however, their innovative ideas go beyond fair trade and attract not only chocolate lovers, but also people who work for world cooperation and social business. I was one of them, and couldn’t wait to join the tour.The most exciting event during the tour was visiting local cacao farms and farmers. It took almost two days to get to the village of Polewali in Polewali Mandar on Sulawesi Island in Indonesia. However, it was worth visiting there. We experienced to plant a cacao sapling and harvest cacao fruit on a farm. Also, we observed the process to make cacao beans ready as the ingredient for chocolate. Furthermore, we had a chance to ask many questions to the cacao farmers. We learned that they practice agroforestry so that they could harvest a variety of farm products to get a stable income without the influence of bad weather or trouble, and that a key to make quality cacao beans is fermentation, which requires a lot of training and special skills. I was quite impressed by the fact that the chocolate company and the local cacao farmers are really working hard together for high quality cacao beans. The company rewards the farmers with a higher price for their efforts. The farmers seemed to feel rewarded by meeting their customers from Japan too.Another unforgettable event was that we made our own chocolate from cacao beans by hand with local elementary students at their school. The experience helped us to understand the ‘bean to bar’ process and to value the importance of the quality of cacao beans for good chocolate. The local kids whose parents are cacao farmers had never eaten chocolate. They don’t have a custom to eat chocolate because it melts at over 30º C, which is the typical temperature there. After making and eating chocolate for the first time, all kids looked very happy and so proud of their parents. Their smiles made us happy and our memory sweeter.The whole program gave me an opportunity to learn that delicious chocolate is made from high quality cacao beans, which is supported by the producers’ effort and patience. Their chocolate is a little expensive, but they deserve it. Whenever I bought so called fair trade chocolate, I used to have a feeling of charity. However, I don’t feel like that for them, and I just appreciate all the hard work they do. When I eat their chocolate, I think of the cacao farmers and the children’s smiles in Indonesia, and I hope they think of their chocolate lovers in Japan.Photo Credit: the authorThe BBP Staff
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01 .21Antique Watch BargainsOne of the joys of living in Japan is the amount of antique shops that are around. Quite often I will take my trusty eye glass with me and see what’s around. As you can tell by the picture, I have a thing for antique watches. However, I don’t like to pay a lot of money for them. That’s not a problem. In Japan, if you are patient, take time and have a little good luck, you’ll come across the bargain here and there. For example, last weekend I was walking around Uji, Kyoto and I came across a small jewellery shop. As I quite often do, I popped in to have a look. Amongst all the wares was a gold watch that caught my attention. It was a 1975 Seiko quartz watch (2nd from the right in the picture). On closer inspection I realised that it had the initials “VFA” (very finely adjusted) stamped on the dial. That means the watch was hand built by two people with one person checking the other. When the watch was new it was the same price as a new Toyota car. You have to remember that quartz was new technology in 1975. “How much is this?”, I inquired. “5000yen, okay?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing as I quickly handed over the money.Admittedly, you’re not going to run into such a find every day; however, there are plenty of bargains to be had. For example, the watch on the far left of the picture is a “Skaagen” from Denmark. While not a Japanese antique, it is nonetheless made out of titanium. It was found in a junk box at an antique fair for 600yen! The green watch at the top of the picture is a 1974 Seiko “Elnix”. This watch is famous because it has a mechanical movement that also runs on a battery. It was the crossover watch before quartz watches. It is quite popular with overseas collectors and in Japan I only paid a few thousand yen for it. And I bought the light blue Orient and others just for fun.Quite often my wife will offer to buy me a new “retro” watch like a “Paul Smith” or “Nixon” for my birthday or Christmas. Are you kidding? Why would I want that when I can have the original instead at a fraction of the cost? In my opinion, antique Japanese watches from this period with their style, grace and build quality are certainly the better buying option.Of course, there are a few things to take care. It’s important that you do your research before you buy. There are many online auction sites to check models and prices; however, you should refrain from buying from these sites. While I have had no troubles, there have been a few reported cases of fraud or fake watches being sold. It’s best to go to a watch shop, 2nd hand store or antique market. That way you can take it back if there are any problems. Also, remember it is an antique, so they sometimes need a little care or “TLC”. But hey, you only paid a couple of thousand yen, right? So, no problem.Another tip is to make sure you take a small eye glass or loupe with you. That way you can check for scratches and more importantly it identifies you as a serious collector and guarantees a better discount.So, next time before you spend money on a “pretty” foreign made fashion brand watch please consider a Japanese antique instead. Your friends and especially older relatives will be certainly impressed with your style choice!Photo credit: Mark WrightMark Wright
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01 .14My Journey Towards Zero WasteSometimes on Instagram we see these terrible pictures of sea creatures who have died because they have eaten plastic, and we see pictures of plastic waste floating in the ocean. Plastic is a new invention: it has only existed since 1907. It has been very useful because it is cheap to manufacture, it is strong, and it is waterproof. It has replaced traditional materials like wood, stone, leather, glass and metal in many things. When my parents were teenagers, they drank Coca Cola from recyclable glass bottles, but now young people drink Coke from bottles made of PET plastic. My grandparents played with toys carved from wood, but I remember melamine plastic toys from my early childhood. The problem with plastics is caused by one of the reasons that they are so popular: it takes a very long time for them to biodegrade, or rot. Because they are a combination of particles that are never made naturally, the natural processes of decomposition take hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of years.Some people think that this is not a problem. If we burn plastic items that we no longer want, they are gone, right? Unfortunately, when we burn things, we release gasses into the air. Carbon molecules enter the atmosphere. The Earth’s natural system is really wonderful: trees and plants ‘breathe in’ this carbon, and ‘breathe out’ oxygen. But because we humans are releasing so much carbon into the atmosphere recently, and also cutting down lots of trees, the balance has been lost. Too much carbon in the air works a little like the blanket that you have on your bed in the winter time. It holds in the warmth, instead of letting it out into space (or your bedroom). The Earth is getting hotter and hotter, and many species, including humans, are having trouble. The sea is rising because the Arctic ice is melting, and low countries are losing land underwater. It doesn’t rain enough, and some countries can’t grow enough food for their people. Storms and typhoons are bringing flooding and dangerous landslides.Because of these two things, plastic polluting the ocean and the burning of plastic polluting our air, I have decided to try to reduce the amount of plastic in my life. I know that a target of zero waste is very difficult, but I am trying really hard to halve the number of trash bags that I put out for collection each year. Here are some of the ways that I am trying.• For about a year now I have been carrying a reusable cup in my bag. When I want a drink, hot or cold, I use my cup instead of a disposable plastic one. Lots of shops are happy to serve drinks in my tumbler instead of a disposable plastic cup. It saves them money! Sometimes it makes me a little sad because I can’t have something delicious, though. One example of this is Mt Ranier coffee, and I used to drink one almost every day. I know that I will only enjoy the coffee for a few minutes, though, before the plastic tumbler either sits for hundreds of years slowly degrading, or until it is burnt and adds pointless carbon to the atmosphere. Thinking about this makes me stronger in my decision not to buy it anymore!• I also carry a small spoon, some chopsticks and a cloth serviette in my cloth food bag. This means that when I want to eat a tub of yogurt or ice cream, I can say ‘no, thank you’ to the small plastic spoon that the person at the register tries to give me. I can pick up the treat, and put it directly into my cloth bag, which means that I don’t need a register plastic bag.• I’ve also been spending a few minutes each evening packing myself a lunch for the next day. I fill my lunchbox with rice, veges and a little meat left over from dinner, plus some mayonnaise or barbecue sauce. When I look at similar lunches in the convenience store, I know that my choice to bring a packed lunch means that one big plastic box, a little sauce sachet, and a plastic register bag is not being wasted.• In the previous bullet point, I mentioned that I use mayonnaise and barbecue sauce. By buying big bottles of sauce, I am reducing the amount of plastic that I cause to be made. One big bottle uses less plastic than several small ones, so it is better to buy a big one if you can. When I can find sauces that I like in glass jars, I buy those, too.• Finally, I have learned to say ‘no’ to lots of things. When I started this journey, it was quite difficult to say ‘no’ to the staff at the register who have been trained that they must provide plastic items to customers. I’m getting used to it, though, and so are the staff of the shops that I visit!I’d love to talk about these topics with you. Please come and visit in the Communication Room at OIC some time!Photo Credit: Leonid Danilov@pexels.comOlivia Kennedy
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01 .06How to find an apartment in Sydney, AustraliaFinding a place to live in Japan is a challenge for foreigners as they are new to the customs of Japan. It is the same when non-Australians try to find a place to live in Australia, especially for the first time, as non-Australians do not have any previous transaction records. This means the renter cannot refer to your previous rent payment history and cannot prove how reliable you are. So if you are in Sydney for studying, I recommend you try to get a dorm room first. However, eventually, you might have to get out of the dorm and find your own apartment one day.In that case, I am sure that you will have many questions, such as, “Where do I start? or “How much do I need to prepare?” Therefore I will let you know how you settle in Sydney.1. Look up the site and go see the rooms To begin with, you access https://www.realestate.com.au/rent/ Put the information of which area, the minimum number of bedrooms, and property type under “Rent.” Price is always per week in Australia, and rent payment is due every two weeks. So if you want to find an apartment for A$2,000 (about 150,000 yen) per month, you choose the price of A$400 to A$450 per week. After you enter the necessary information, you will see some candidates. In Australia, the realtors usually show properties on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Sometimes you need to make an appointment, but most of the time, the showing time is stated under the picture, so you can plan which ones to see before you leave home.2. Submit the documents After seeing some apartments and choosing a property, you have to submit some documents such as an application form (you need to indicate how long you want to rent), a bank statement, and a reference letter from your job (even you are a part-timer). It is quite a lot of work to submit, therefore, I advise you to prepare the bank statement and the reference letter beforehand. You have to submit the documents as soon as possible, as all the properties in Sydney move so fast. After you submit the documents, the realtor will pass them to the landlord. If you want to negotiate the rent, you can do so with an application form.3. Deposit A day or so later, the realtor will inform you if your application was successfully approved. If not, you have to start over from number one. If your application is accepted, then you have to deposit two weeks’ worth of rent. This is called a bond and it is like shikikin in Japan. You also pay the rent for your first two weeks.4. Walk through and signing Now, the realtor has acknowledged the bond. You have one more chance to walk through the property with the realtor to see if there are any places you want the realtor to clean or fix, for example, a stain on the wall or a smear on the floor. After the walk through, you will read the rental contract together with the realtor and sign it. Then you can get the keys.5. Set up the utilities and the date to move in Now you can access your property. Just a few more exciting steps! Set up your utilities and Wi-Fi, decide the date to move in, buy some furniture and finish up packing.6. Inspections Even if you don’t have many things to move, it still takes three weeks or so to settle into your new home. Even after you’ve settled, the realtor will conduct on inspection after three months, six months, and a year. The realtor makes a report to the landlord. Therefore, you need to arrange the inspection dates after you have settled in. As I mentioned before, the rent is paid every two weeks. You can set up automated payments with your bank. Enjoy, and good luck with your apartment hunting in Sydney!Mayumi Hashimoto
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12 .27A memorable place from travels in the USThe trip to Sedna was one of my most memorable experiences! You can count on a great view and a relaxed atmosphere. For me, personally, the point of the trip was to hike the four famous vortexes (red-rock mountains) that have been called “power spots”.Many believe that there are some magical powers that heal your mental fatigue or bring you some future happiness in these mountains. Actually, many Japanese people (especially young women? ) tend to hike up these mountains because they believe that they will be able to get some mystical energy or their worries will magically disappear. Therefore, a lot of tourists from Japan hike these power spots every year. I was one of them and went up there to have fun and get some mystical energy.Of course, there are travellers who embark just to enjoy the famous red rocks and not to get any mystical energy. Indeed, hundreds of hiking trails and Jeep tours will definitely lead you to some fantastic scenery and experiences. So, there were many travelers who came to just have these experiences.Anyway, I went up one of the famous red rocks for its mystical power and tried to think spiritual thoughts there. Then, nothing happened to me. I was just feeling that the sun shine was literally baking my entire body and my face was physically painful from that deadly heat of the sun (I went there with my husband in August). I was just getting nervous about my skin getting serious sunburn and wanted to go back to our hotel to lay on a couch in our room when something happened. My husband (who was 38 years old at that time with a PhD in statistics) just started crying. Tears were running down his face and he was weeping. I was getting really nervous this time not because of my skin getting burn but because my partner for life seemed to be going insane. So, I shook his shoulders and said to him “let’s get back to our hotel room.” But he didn’t want to go down the mountain and insisted on staying there a little bit more because he was feeling really good.Then this time I went insane. I yelled at him repeatedly saying “let’s get out of here.” I even punched his shoulder and almost screamed. Both I and he were really upset at that time. We ended up going down to the hotel while having a really bad fight. Everybody passing by on the way down the mountain was staring at us as both crying badly. My husband just turned normal after we came back to our hotel room. We had really nice Mate tea made by our hotel owner and just got back to peaceful feelings finally. However, I cannot forget that moment on the top of the red rock mountain (one of the famous power spots). I will never forget my husband’s crying (I have never seen his crying face before and from then. He didn’t even cry when our first daughter was born in the hospital). That was the most memorable place from our travels in the US.Photo Credit: Tim Mossholder@ Pexels.comThe BBP Staff
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12 .24Some ideas for delivering an effective English presentationHow do you feel when you are assigned to do an English presentation in front of the entire class? Feel anxious? Get nervous? Want to escape from it? If you haven’t had much experience presenting even in your native language, it might be extremely tough just to stand in front of people, let alone presenting “in English.” An English presentation assignment could put a lot of pressure on you.I know exactly how that feels because I went through the same difficulty myself when I was studying in high school in America where I was assigned to present something in front of the class almost every day. For the first few weeks, all I could think of was to finish my presentation and get back to my seat as quickly as possible. I wasn’t confident about my English and felt extremely embarrassed just to stand in front of the class and to make eye contact with my classmates. However, looking at my classmates speaking confidently and cheerfully every day, I started to wonder, “Is it really okay for me to remain shy like this?” Well, the answer was obviously no because it was clear that I wanted to enjoy presenting like them. I still remember the feeling I used to have then. I was feeling: “I need to change and I want to change!”So I gradually started watching and imitating my classmates’ performance and exploring how I can capture people’s attention with my presentation. “What do I need to do to communicate and deliver my message more clearly and effectively?” was what I used to think a lot about and I learned many effective delivery skills from that experience. Among them, there are three ideas on delivery that I found especially important in giving any type of presentation. I hope they will be helpful for you too.1. Think about an attention getter How you start your presentation matters. You want your audience to be interested in what you are going to present, so the first thing you say is very important. You can start with your own personal story that could also be familiar and interesting to your audience. You could begin with a famous quote or a rhetorical question that would stimulate the audience’ mind. Also, starting with a magic word “Imagine” can successfully invite your audience to take part in your presentation. I remember that one student used this word in his presentation (“Please imagine that you are now in…”) and it grabbed everyone’s attention in less than a second!2. Show your confidence and enthusiasm through speaking How you speak matters. If you speak in a small, unclear voice, your audience may feel that you don’t really want to share with them what you are presenting. They may also get the sense that you are not confident about what you are saying to them. If you speak too fast, they may find it difficult to follow what you are trying to deliver. And if your voice sounds flat and monotone, they may get the sense that you are not so interested in what you are saying. After all, no one wants to hear a presentation that lacks confidence or enthusiasm, right? So showing your confidence and enthusiasm through speaking is very important. You can start with trying to speak in a loud, clear voice. You don’t have to shout or yell, but you need to make sure that your audience can hear you effortlessly. You can also try to change your speech volume, speed, rhythm and intonation, depending on what you want to emphasize in your presentation. Having vocal variety helps your audience understand what you want to deliver through your presentation.3. Use body language How you use body language matters. When you give your presentation, do you use body languages (e.g., eye contact, gestures)? I’ve noticed that when making a presentation many students tend to stand still in front of their PC and present everything with just words—without using body movements. Quite often, such attitudes make it difficult for the audience to be interested in your presentation or understand your main point. For example, I’ve seen many people looking at their PC screens the whole time without making any eye contact with the audience. I’ve also seen people explaining a figure or a table on the screen without using hand gestures. Eye contact can help the audience feel included in your presentation and one single hand gesture can actually make a big difference in making your presentation clearer. If you haven’t tried it yet, please think about incorporating body language into your presentation.The ideas above are probably nothing new but might help stimulate your thinking about your next presentation. If you find them doable, please give them a try!Photo Credit: Christina Morillo @pexels.comThe BBP Staff