English Presentation Skill 1

English Presentation Skill

A Question

Do you have to make presentations in English in your job?

Imagine you have to give an important presentation in English tomorrow.

How would you feel about it?

In this lesson, you will learn to

• Introduce yourself and your topic

• Make a strong start

• Use signposting language

• Deal with problems,

• Respond to questions from audience members

1. How to Introduce Yourself and Your Topic

If some people in the audience don’t know who you are, you should introduce yourself and your position.

In a more formal setting, you could say something like this:

• Good morning everyone. For those who don’t know me, my name’s Simon, and I work in the marketing department.

  
  

• Hello everybody. Before we begin, let me introduce myself briefly: I’m Reese and I’m the head of HR.

  
  

If you work in a more informal company, you could say:

• Hi guys; if you don’t know me, I’m Sylvia and I work in digital marketing.

  
  

• Hello! I see some new faces, so I’ll introduce myself first: I’m Julia and I’m one of our customer service team.

  
  

Introduce your topic

• Today, I’m going to be talking about our new HR policies and how they affect you.

  
  

• I’d like to talk to you today about quality control and why we’re all responsible for quality control, whichever department you work in.

  
  

If your topic is more complex, you might add more detail to break your idea into stages. For example:

Today, I’m going to be talking about our new HR policies and how they affect you. I’ll begin by outlining the policies, and then I’ll go on to highlight what they mean for you and your working habits. Finally, I’ll briefly discuss why we feel these new policies are necessary and beneficial for us all.

Here’s another example:

I’d like to talk to you today about quality control and why we’re all responsible for quality control, whichever department you work in. First of all, I’ll explain why ‘quality control’ has a broader meaning than you might expect. I’ll continue by giving examples of real quality control, and why this matters for all of us. To finish, I’ll be asking you to think of ways you can incorporate quality control into your working habits.

You can use these as templates to begin your presentation:

• I’ll begin by… and then I’ll… Finally, I’ll…

  
  

• First of all, I’ll… I’ll continue by… To finish, I’ll…

  
  

• Okay, now you can practice! We’d like you to do two things.

  
  

Practice Time

• First, practice introducing yourself informally, and explaining your topic in a simple way, with one sentence.

  
  

• Then, practice introducing yourself formally, and explaining your topic in a more detailed way.