Practical Guide to English Presentations: Full Process Skills from Opening to Q&A

Presentations. Have you ever given a presentation in English? If you have, you know it can be quite difficult to think of the right words with the pressure of everyone watching. Don't worry, because in this lesson, you'll learn a number of English phrases that will help your presentations sound polished and professional. Let's begin with the introduction. At the beginning of your presentation, it's good to do three things. Introduce yourself and your topic. Give a summary or overview of your presentation and tell the audience how you will handle questions. To introduce yourself, say your name, what company you work for, and or what your specific job is. Good afternoon, my name is, and then say your name, and I'm the, and then say your job title, at, and then say your company. For example, good afternoon, my name is Shayna, and I'm the Marketing Director at ABC English School. You can say good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on what time of day it is, but do not say good night, because that is a phrase only used to say goodbye. Then you can tell the audience what your general topic is. Here are two phrases you can use. You can complete these phrases by simply saying the name of your presentation. My presentation is about, today I'd like to talk to you about, it's always a good idea to give the audience a summary or overview of your presentation. This means you quickly tell them the main points. You can use these phrases. Let me quickly take you through today's presentation. Let me give you an overview of the presentation. First, I'm going to talk about, after that we'll be taking a look at, then we'll consider, finally I'll explain. You can mix and match the phrases, for example, you can say first we'll consider, or first I'll explain. The phrases after that, and then are used to move to the next topic, and the word finally is used for describing the last topic in your presentation. Next, tell the audience if you want people to ask you questions in the middle of the presentation, or only at the end. Here's a phrase for each one. Please feel free to interrupt me if you have any questions. I'll leave some time for questions at the end of the presentation.

Let's learn some English for making transitions between topics. To begin the first topic, you can use these phrases. I'd like to start by showing you some data. Let's begin by looking at the project's history. In this context, the words start and begin are the same. Notice that after the word by, we use a verb in the ING form. As an alternative, you can use with and a noun or a noun phrase. For example, I'd like to start with some data. Let's begin with the project's history. To transition to another topic, you can use these phrases. Now we'll move on to. Now let's look at. Now I'd like to discuss. Now let me turn to. You'll notice that all of them begin with the word now. This is a signal to your audience that you're introducing a new topic.

Referring to slides and graphics. If you're giving a PowerPoint presentation, you'll want to refer to the slides, which can show pictures, maps, graphs, charts, tables, etc. This is a map. This is a graph. This is known as a pie chart. And this is a flow chart. You can also show a table. And here are some phrases you can use to refer to them. This slide shows a map of the area in which we plan to expand. Looking at this slide, we can see that the number of accidents has decreased significantly in the past year. As you can see from this slide, sales are gradually increasing among customers aged 18 to 24. In the next lesson, you'll learn more about how to describe numbers, trends, and statistics.

Our next topic is talking about cause and effect. One important element of your presentation is making logical connections between your ideas, especially cause and effect. The cause happens first and the effect is the result. For example, if it is raining and a baseball game is cancelled, the rain is the cause, and the cancellation is the effect. Here are some phrases to describe causes. The reason is that, for example, the last three issues of the newsletter have been published late. The reason is that there have been delays in the printing. This is due to, for example, our processing time has gotten 30% faster. This is due to improvements in the software. Since the employees went home early since there was no more work to do, because or because of, the difference is that because is followed by a subject and verb, and because of is followed by a noun. The game was cancelled because it was raining. It is the subject and was raining is the verb. Or the game was cancelled because of the rain, after because of, we use a noun, the rain. Here are some phrases to describe effects. Therefore, is usually used for a logical conclusion. For example, this product is more expensive to produce. Therefore, the profit margins are lower. A more formal word is consequently, for example, the company didn't get the proper construction permit. Consequently, we had to pay a fine for non-compliance. There's also, as a result, we've invested in better safety equipment and the number of accidents has gone down as a result. And finally, the word so. The advertisements were successful, so now we plan to expand the program. The words, therefore, and consequently, are typically used at the beginning of a sentence. As a result, can be used at the beginning or the end of a sentence. And the word so is typically used in the middle of a sentence.

Rephrasing and correcting. What do you do if you say something incorrect or confusing during your presentation? First, don't panic. Native English speakers make mistakes during presentations, too, so it's not the end of the world. Then, use one of these phrases to get back on track. Here are some phrases for saying something again using different words. Let me put that another way. Let me rephrase that. In other words. And here are some ways you can correct a mistake. I'm sorry, that's not correct. I meant to say that we've hired 15 new employees, not 50. You can also say, excuse me, and then say the correction with emphasis. For example, the school was founded in 1999. Excuse me, 1989.

Let's talk about the conclusion. At the end of your presentation, you can give a brief summary of your main points or the most important message. Here are some phrases for that. In conclusion. I'll close by summing up the main points. Let me briefly remind you what we've covered. And as your final phrase, you can say, thank you for your attention. Now, questions. To inform the audience that you are ready to answer questions, you can say, does anyone have any questions? That's usually said in a smaller meeting or group. Or, I'd like to open it up for questions now. That's usually said when presenting to a larger group. If someone asks a question, but you didn't hear the person's question, you can say, I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. Could you repeat it? If you heard the question, but you didn't understand it, you can say, I'm sorry, I don't quite understand your question. Would you mind rephrasing it? The expressions I'm sorry and would you mind are included for politeness. If the question requires information that you don't have at the moment, but that you could find out later, you can say this. That's an interesting question. I don't actually know off the top of my head, but I'll try to get back to you later with an answer. If you can't answer the question, but someone else can, then say, unfortunately, I'm not the best person to answer that, but I can put you in touch with the colleague of mine. Finally, if the answer to the question will be very long, you can say, I'm afraid that would take a long time to explain, but maybe you and I can talk about it more in depth afterwards. This means that you don't want to answer the question immediately, but you are willing to talk to the person about it after the presentation.

This concludes the listening material on business English courses, presentations, meetings, negotiations, and phone conversations collected by Xiao Wu from Qicai.com. I hope you gained something from it!