Giving a pre-flight briefing, the obvious question is what - as the instructor - am I giving that couldn't be obtained from reading a Jeremy Pratt book or watching a King video? The answer to me is that I provide interaction: the student is able to question the descriptions as we go through things, ask for clarification, or discuss something that they have trouble understanding.
A pre flight briefing is a run through of what is going to happen during tbe air exercise( including the taxi and local area plan) not an aerodynamic theory lesson that can be found in a textbook. The student is supposed to turn up with the aerodynamic and theory side already pre studied. A preflight briefing needs to be tailored to the lesson, the instructor, the airfield, the aircraft and the school so it wont be found in the textbook.
Its a shame that so many older instructors are unable to grasp the benefits of Powerpoint or even that a picture is worth a 1000 words. You can spend all day describing the primary controls on the aircraft but showing a picture of tbe actual cockpit, the column and the control surfaces adds much more weight to tbe brief.
You can cover much more in less time with slide briefings as well as focusing attention on what is being taught at the point of verbal delivery. By the time you have got a part one and even a part two Ex 4 on the board youve lost visual attention with too much information being presented to tbe student to look at, with a slide briefing you can isolate that information to that part of the exercise only.
The owner of a group of flying schools once said to me" I can never understand why an instructor goes to the time and trouble to put a briefing on a board to then rub it off and then an hour later put the same briefing back on the board!
If you are in doubt to which method to use try pretending your student is a customer and ask them what method they prefer!