Lesson 4 – Introduction to presentations 1) Discuss your experience with delivering presentations: 1. On what occasions did you have your presentations? What were the topics? 2. What did you manage to do well during your presentation? 3. What didn’t you manage to do so well? 4. What advice can you give from your experience? Make a list of do’s and don’ts for a successful presentation. 2) Watch the video and make notes of tips which you consider important https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghsBFT-HQ04 3) Discuss the following statements with a partner. Are they true or false? a) It is a good idea to write your speech in advance and to read from a prepared script. b) You can improve your delivery by recording yourself as you practise your speech and then watching or listening to the recording critically. c) You should find out as much as you can about your audience in advance. d) It can help to have a drink before you give your speech. e) What you wear when speaking in public is very important. f) Starting your speech with a joke will relax both you and your audience. g) You will give a better speech if it is more spontaneous and less carefully planned. h) There is no point in using visuals. i) It can help give you confidence if you imagine your audience are all chickens. 4) Vocabulary and phrases. Adapted from Academic Vocabulary in use, OUP 2008. A) Rewrite these sentences by changing the words in bold so they are less formal. a) We need to consider family income too, but I will return to that later. b) So, to proceed to the next point, I will omit item 4 on the handout and instead talk about number 5 in greater detail. c) I will try to finish by 3.30, but do not feel you need to ask permission to leave if you have a class or other appointment to go to. d) There is a handout being distributed and I have some further copies too if anyone wants them. e) We did not want to make people uncomfortable by having a camera in the room. Nevertheless, we did want to video as many of the sessions as possible. f) So, I believe our experiments have been successful. I shall end there. Thank you. g) I will try not to exceed my time, so I will speak for 30 minutes, to allow time for questions at the end. B) Write six sentences using appropriate combinations of the words given in A and B. You may use words in A more than once. A present take raise make give B issue presentation results overview comment questions a) ……………………………………………………………………… b) ……………………………………………………………………… c) ……………………………………………………………………… d) ……………………………………………………………………… e) ……………………………………………………………………… f) ……………………………………………………………………….. 5) Presentation structure. a) Which parts should be included in a presentation? 1 2 3 4 5 b) Attention Span Curve. Draw a curve indicating the audience attention in the course of a standard presentation. 6) Watch the introduction to a short presentation that is part of a series of student presentations on aspects of technology. Note down the information for points 1-7. Adapted from Oxford EAP, A course in English for Academic Purposes, OUP 2012 a) The semester theme: ________________________________________ b) The speaker’ s research interest: _______________________________ c) The presentation topic: _______________________________________ d) Why speaker selected this topic: ________________________________ e) Two questions to be addressed in the presentation: __________________ f) _________________________________________________________ g) __________________________________________________________ h) Limitations of the presentation: __________________________________ i) How the presentation is structured: ______________________________ 7) Watch again and note down the language the speaker uses to introduce the information in 1. · As you know, our theme for the first part of this semester is technology… · So, ……………………………………………………is modern speech technology · And speech recognition systems are …………………………………………………… · I’ve been interested in speech recognition systems for some time, and ……………………………………………………………………………………… · These are the two …………………………………………………………………… · Now, as we only have about five minutes ……………….………………………… · So, firstly………………………………………………………………………… 8) Language focus – study these examples and supply appropriate headings for the groups of phrases: Questions, Title/subject, Length, Purpose/objective, Greeting, name, position, Reference to the audience, Outline/Main parts. Decide which phrases are rather formal and which are more informal. a) Good morning. My name is (…). I am the Finance manager. Ladies and gentlemen. It is an honour to have the opportunity to address such a distinguished audience. Good morning. Let me start by saying just a few words about my own background. I started out in …. b) I would like to talk to you today about … I am going to present … explain our position on … inform you about… The subject/focus/topic of my talk/presentation/paper/speech … c) We are here today to decide/agree/learn about… The purpose of this talk is to update you on… put you in the picture… give you the background to … This talk is designed to act as a springboard for discussion/start the ball rolling d) I shall only take (…) minutes of your time. I plan to be brief. This should only last (…) minutes. e) I have divided my presentation into four parts/sections The subject can be looked at under the following headings: … We can break this area down into the following fields: firstly, secondly/then/next… Thirdly/and then we come to… finally/lastly/last of all….. f) I would be glad to answer any questions at the end of my talk. If you have any questions, please feel free to interrupt. Please interrupt me if there is something which needs clarifying. Otherwise, there will be time for discussion at the end. g) I can see many of you are … I know you have travelled a long way… You all look as though you have heard this before. 9) Complete this presentation introduction with words from the list. talk about look at points of view questions brief finally hear act as go along Good afternoon and thank you for making the effort to be here with us today. My name’s Rachel Rawlins and I’m responsible for public affairs. What I’d like to do today is ………. our recent corporate campaign. This ……………….. talk will hopefully ………………… a springboard for discussion. I’m going to ………………….. the corporate campaign from three …………………….. : firstly, the customers; secondly, the financial institutions; and ……………, the shareholders. If you have any ……………., just interrupt me as I …………….. Your point of view may well be different, and we’d like to ………….from you. 10) Introductions can become repetitive. It’s important to have a choice of words and expressions at your fingertips. Use one of the following expressions to replace each of the expressions in italics in this introduction. don’t hesitate a chance I take care I’m delighted sections go through in more depth my purpose is divide Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It’s a pleasure to be with you today. My name’s Gordon Matthews and I’m in charge of corporate finance at our headquarters here in Brussels. We are here today to review some key figures to outline financial strategy over the next five years. So what I intend to do is to break down this presentation into three parts: first, the financial review; second, the options facing us; and, finally, the strategy I propose. If you have any questions, please feel free to interrupt me, but I should say there’ll be an opportunity to discuss issues at greater length after my talk. 11) Watch a talk given by a theoretical physicists. How does he capture the audience´s attention? Which phrases did he use to do that? https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_adams_the_discovery_that_could_rewrite_physics#t-266628 12) Prepare a short introduction to a presentation including all important parts and using phrases we have discussed today. You can choose from these topics: a) Studies at the Faculty of Science b) An interesting lecture/seminar you have attended recently c) Whatever you want to talk about