Giving Presentations – Expressions and introductory phrases

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Giving Presentations – Expressions and introductory phrases


Thank people for coming

Good morning afternoon etc.
I’d like to take the opportunity to thank you for coming here today…
Beginning and stating objectives
Right, let’s make a start.
Let’s begin I’m going to begin by…
I’m here today to…
The object/subject of today’s talk is to…
Organization
My presentation/talk is divided into three parts/sections…
I’d like to begin by…
I have four main points…

Introduce another speaker

I am going to/I’d like to hand you over/pass you over to Julian who is going to talk you through/present…
Annie will be telling you about…
Paul is now going to take over…

Recap what the previous speaker has said

Keith has given you an overview of…
We have just heard from Keith…
As Paul said…

Recognising knowledge

You are certainly aware… / As you know…
You’ve probably heard some of this before…

Refer to a diagram/figures

(So) Let’s look/have/take a look at…
I’d like to draw your attention to…
As you can see…
If you’d like to turn to page 6 of the handout … I’ll…….
It’s worth noting/It’s interesting to note…

Enumerate points

To begin with/First of all/Firstly/Next/afterwards
Finally/To conclude/In conclusion

Moving to another topic

This brings me/us to the key issue …
I’d now like to turn to…
Now let’s look at/consider…
I’ll now move on to my next point which is…
Before I move on, does anyone have any questions/queries?

Describe the stages of a process

Rhetorical questions

(So) what can we learn from this?
How should we interpret these figures/statistics?
You’re probably asking yourselves what this all means.

Setting guidelines for questions

I’m happy to answer your questions at the end of my presentation.
Please feel free to interrupt if you have any questions.
I’ll deal with questions at the end of the talk…
I’ll come back to that at the end if you don’t mind.

Summarizing

So to recap…
In conclusion…
I’d like to finish/end/wind up by saying…
Before I finish I’d finally like to say…

Vocabulary

(i) Verbs
outline, inform, brief, update, clarify, highlight, stress, urge you to do X, handle
Phrasal verbs
talk through, run through, hand you over to, turn to, go into, take over, carry on, sum up, put forward, wind up, deal with, focus on
Verbs to describe movements and trends
go up, rise, soar, jump, peak
fluctuate
go down, fall, drop, tumble, collapse, bottom out
stay steady, level, flatten out

N.B.
There has been a slight fall in the rate.
The rate has fallen slightly.

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Helping Students Give More Effective and Memorable Presentations
Parts 1,2 & 3.

February, 2012


By Jon Naunton

Many schools and universities require students to give presentations. It is difficult enough to present successfully in one’s own language, let alone a foreign language. A shy and timid learner in his or her own language will not miraculously become a fantastic presenter in English!

This article will examine how we can help students become better presenters by developing their confidence and improving their preparation. Good presenters say something interesting, which they communicate in a lively and memorable way – it is a true performance art. Nevertheless, I sincerely believe that good presenters are made, not born, and that even those learners who lack self-confidence can be transformed into acceptably confident, albeit not brilliant presenters.


Confidence building

Use sub-groups

The stress presenters feel tends to grow with the size of the audience they address. In most cases, during the training process, the audience will be other class members. Recently, I have taught larger groups of up to thirty, so breaking them up into sub-groups can be useful. Speaking in front of six people is usually less intimidating than speaking in front of thirty. Arranging the classroom into different zones means three or four students can present simultaneously. Not only is this a more efficient use of classroom time, but it shifts the focus away from a sole individual. I generally play background music to reduce distraction between groups.

Choose familiar topics

When students start to present, I believe they should begin with familiar, everyday topics which require little preparation. The aim is to get them on their feet and overcome the block of standing up in front of other people. I often give them a menu of topics to choose from, which require little specialised knowledge or vocabulary e.g. public transport in my town, a national celebration etc. (The first few sessions, I don’t ask them to prepare anything for homework as they can worry too much.) Students who have picked the same topic from the menu can work together in pairs or groups. I allow them a few minutes to write down a few key ideas, and move round the class ready to provide a missing expression or quick translation. Then they present to the other members of their sub-group – making sure that the same topic isn’t dealt with at the same time as this can be distracting!

Poster presentations

Poster presentations are a great way of providing students with lots of practice in a less-threatening environment. Again, it is a useful activity for those of us who teach large classes and a common approach at conferences. I usually treat it as a collaborative activity with three or four people working on the same poster. I show a model of the kind of thing I expect – you can see an example on page 94 of ProFile Upper Intermediate. Students produce a poster on one or two large sheets of paper – pages from a flip-chart are ideal. This will usually mean meeting up for one or two sessions before the exhibition. They make the poster as visually interesting as they can and include the main points of their presentation – you need to emphasise that the poster is not a script which they simply read aloud.

Six or seven posters are enough for a small exhibition. Display the posters in different parts of the classroom or a reception area or school cafeteria. Student takes it in turns to stand by their poster and talk visitors through it while the other members of the poster team move around freely. Invite people from other classes to visit and ask questions. This will give students a taste of speaking to people outside their immediate class. Telling students that the head of department is coming provides a further incentive!


Preparation and research

Most good presenters readily admit that their success is a result of careful preparation and practice. Generally speaking, a presentation is a piece of carefully constructed writing delivered as an extended monologue and is often the result of research. However, expert speakers understand that there is no point in reading out detailed information or research findings. Instead, they recognise the need to keep their message simple. They will regularly summarise, return to their main points and say the same thing in different ways, so listeners have several opportunities to catch their message.

Lazy or unaware students sometimes think it is enough to find an interesting article and read it out to the rest of the class. This is usually catastrophic for the following reasons:
•Articles often contain rare and difficult vocabulary and expressions unknown to the audience. This is frequently made worse by the reader’s poor pronunciation.
•Articles may assume some kind of shared background knowledge with the reader. (A story which has been running for some time will often just add what is most recent to the tale.)
•Articles are not meant to be read aloud. The information load is dense and there is little repetition or redundancy. Remember that when we read, we can return to the text as often as we need. Simply reading the text once does not allow listeners extra chances they need.

Presentation as a process

I believe the most important thing we can do as teachers is to make students aware of the process they need to engage in to produce an effective presentation from source material.

I often follow these steps:
1.I find a text and read it aloud, making many of the typical mistakes of pronunciation, poor delivery and absence of eye contact common in these cases! I then ask the class what the article I have just read was about. Few, if any, can answer confidently!
2.I hand out examples of the text and get them to read it. Then we begin the business of paraphrasing and simplification. We re-phrase complex sentences, identify rare or unknown words, idioms and expressions, either eliminating them altogether, or substituting items which our listeners are more likely to know.
3.We then identify the main and subsidiary points of the article and decide which key ideas we are going to use.
4.Perhaps most importantly, we then discuss what background knowledge the article assumes, and how we can supply this with a more general and clear introduction.
5.Finally, we re-assemble the text into a coherent summary which can form the basis of a presentation.

Problems with language

Of course, how well a student presents will be linked to their general level of English. Furthermore, the language they need to move sure-footedly through will be different according to the type of presentation. A presentation which deals with facts and figures or trends will require different words and expressions to a presentation which describes a process. Even good students may stumble moving between points, because they are unsure with the introductory expressions and phrases.

Ideally, I would always try to find the time to provide students with some kind of model of the presentation type, and then analyse the language used to move from point to point, enumerate, refer to date, make contrasts and so on. For instance, if I want my students to describe a process, then I will give a short talk on how to make home-made beer! I will then go over it and isolate and teach/revise the key phrases used for describing a process.

These I will drill and practise in the normal way, and expect to see in their own presentations at a later date.

Problems with delivery and overdependence on the text

This is largely a matter of encouraging students to be independent of their text/script. A way of doing this is to use a memory aid such as cue cards, OHP transparencies or PowerPoint technology which both the presenter and audience can follow. We have all heard of ‘death by PowerPoint’ so I insist that slides are kept to a minimum and that they never read aloud what has appeared on a slide. In addition, I do my best to discourage students from using the distracting gimmicks in software packages. I also tell them to avoid complicated graphs and statistics. It is better to have these on a separate handout which people can refer to at their leisure.

Eye contact

Even if a talk is carefully prepared, the convention is that we have to pretend that we are talking to the audience. Even if they are reading from a script, speakers need to raise their heads and look at their audience. One technique is to choose three people in their audience e.g. someone near the front, someone in the middle right, and a third person in the far back. Shifting your gaze between these points will create the impression that the whole audience is being addressed.

Memorable speeches

Once we have dealt with the basics it can be fun to teach students a few rhetorical devices to make their speeches and presentations more memorable. The study of rhetoric – a way of speaking or writing meant to influence or impress people – was once at the heart of a classical education. Nowadays the only people who seem to employ it are politicians. So why not teach our students a few rhetorical tricks which they can easily put into practice?

Here are some ideas you may like to draw on or add to.

(i) Lists of three

For some reason, human beings seem to be hard-wired to use lists of three. There are numerous examples which we can draw from a range of languages:
•“Veni, vidi, vici” (I came, I saw, I conquered) – Julius Caesar
•“Liberté, fraternité, egalité” – motto of the French people
•“Government of the people, by the people, for the people” – Lincoln
•“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few” – Churchill on the pilots of the Battle of Britain
•“My foundations support people in the country who care about an open society. It’s their work that I’m supporting. So it’s not me doing it. But I can empower them. I can support them, and I can help them.“ – George Soros (financier and philanthropist)

Remember that in English when we say lists we tend to use a rising intonation on the first items, and a falling intonation on the final item to denote completion.

(ii) Contrasts and paradoxes

Skilled communicators often bring two conflicting notions into collision.

“Man is born free and everywhere is in chains” – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Often this is used to humorous effect.

“On the Continent people have good food; in England people have good table manners. Continental people have a sex life; the English have hot water bottles” – George Mikes (Hungarian writer and humourist)

(iii) Rhetorical questions

Rhetorical questions are a useful device for moving from the statement of a problem or situation, to your proposals.

“So what is to be done?” – Lenin

(iv) Adverbs to reinforce an argument

Have you ever noticed that when politicians are giving opinions with little or no foundation in fact that they use adverbs to demonstrate the force of their convictions or sincerity?

I strongly urge you to act now…
I sincerely/honestly believe…

(v) Use of metaphor / simile

Speakers and writers need to use these sparingly unless they can come up with images which are arresting and memorable. Otherwise, it is easy to fall into cliché.

The office was a beehive of activity.
(metaphor – something is transformed into something else)

His horse was as black as coal.
(simile – with as/like – something is compared to something else)

(vi) Extended metaphor and analogy

Analogies and extended metaphors are a good way of reducing difficult concepts to more familiar notions which are easier for most of us to grasp. They are particularly useful for backing up, or illustrating big numbers or statistics.

Sales of her books could circle the globe/go to the moon and back etc. (More memorable than simply stating how many millions of books which have been sold)

The water wasted by farmers in unnecessary irrigation could fill ten Olympic swimming pools. (Better than giving a dry statistic)

$1 million dollars in $100 bills is nine feet high.

Metaphors are common in the world of business and finance. Metaphors associated with sport, war and conflict are often used. Water is popular too: we talk about cash flow, company liquidity and flotation. Sometimes it may be hard to sustain a metaphor through a speech or piece of writing and we should take care that we do not mix them. However, one metaphor which does work effectively is for money laundering.

Money laundering takes dirty money with a criminal history and transforms it into clean money, which looks legitimate. We can talk about the pre-wash, heavy soaping and spin dry of money laundering.


Source: www.oupeltglobalblog.com