Presentation Skills

Contents
Page

2 Pre-course preparation

3 Two-minute presentation sheet

4 Ten-minute presentation sheet

5 Audience expectation

6 Preparing a presentation

7 Introducing a presentation

8 Language for presentations

10 Visuals

11 Answering questions

12 Exercise answers

13 Presentation preparation form

14 Presentation feedback form

Environmental English Page 1 of 14

 Pre-course preparation

Presentation 1
Please prepare a brief (2-minute maximum) presentation about yourself, your organisation
and your job. This is a way of introducing yourself to the rest of the students at the beginning
of the course. Please note that PowerPoint, flip-charts, etc. cannot be used for this
presentation.

Please see the Two-Minute Presentation sheet below.

Presentation 2
Please prepare a 7-8 -minute presentation on any aspect of your work, organisation or any
topic that you wish to tell us about. There will also be chance for 2-3 minutes of questions
afterwards. This makes a total of 10 minutes (maximum!) for your presentation. We will be
very strict on time keeping and will stop you if you talk for too long! For this second
presentation, PowerPoint, flipcharts, etc. may be used.

Please see the Ten-Minute Presentation sheet below.

Environmental English Page 2 of 14

 Two-Minute Presentation
Name
E.g. Hello, my name is ...
Good morning, I am...

Nationality/Home town
E.g. I am from ...

Family
E.g. I’m married ...
I have two children...

Background
E.g. My background is ....
I studied ...
I have worked...

Organisation/Company
E.g. I work for ...
They are ....

Job
E.g. My job is ...
I am responsible for...
I have been working for ... years

Hobbies and interests

E.g. I like ...
In my spare time...

Environmental English Page 3 of 14

 Ten-Minute Presentation
Introduce yourself
E.g. Hello/good morning
my name is ...
I work for...

Introduce the subject

E.g. today I am going to talk about...
I would like to describe...

The presentation:
E.g. I am going to talk about three things...
I am going to divide my talk into three sections...

First part
E.g. firstly...

Second part
E.g. secondly...
next....

Third part
E.g. thirdly...
finally...

Conclusion/summary
E.g. In conclusion...
To summarize

Invite questions
E.g. Does anyone have any questions?

Environmental English Page 4 of 14

 Audience expectation

What does an audience expect from a presentation?

a)

b)

c)

d)

e)

What do you not want?

a)

b)

c)

d)

e)

Environmental English Page 5 of 14

 Preparing a presentation

SET

PREPARE

IDENTIFY

PLAN

TAILOR

PRODUCE

REHEARSE

TEST

ANTICIPATE

Environmental English Page 6 of 14

 Introducing a presentation

What should be in an introduction?

1) Get attention

2) Welcome / thanks

3) Your name and position / job

4) Topic

5) Purpose / Why the audience should listen

6) Main points

7) Length (time)

8) Questions

Environmental English Page 7 of 14

 Language for Presentations

Introducing yourself Good morning everyone.

Let me introduce myself. My name is…
I’m a specialist in…

Objective/purpose I’m going to talk about ...

present ...
give you an overview of ...
inform you about ...
The subject of my presentation/paper/speech is ...

Length I’ll take about ... minutes of your time.

I plan to be brief. I’ll only take ... minutes of your time.
This should only last/take ... minutes.
My presentation will take/last…
(about/roughly) ... minutes.

Outline/overview Let me give you an idea of what I’m going to talk

about....
I’ll be speaking about these/the following main points ...

My presentation will focus specifically on ...

Questions during presentation I’d be glad to take your questions while I’m speaking/
at the end.
Please ask questions and comments at the end of the
presentation.
Please interrupt/stop me if something isn’t clear/you
need clarification.

Structuring the presentation I m going to divide my talk into four parts.

First I’ll give you; after that;
To start with, / then, I d like to consider…
First of all, I d like to look at…
Finally, …

Giving background information I’ll give you some background information.

Let s start with the background.

Referring to existing knowledge As you know, …

As you are aware, …
As you may be aware, …

Finishing a point Those are the main points on…

That’s all I have to say about…
Now we've looked at/dealt with…

Environmental English Page 8 of 14

Starting a new point Now let’s turn to/move on to…
I d like now to consider/examine…
Next we come to…
Turning now to…
The next point I’d like to make is…
That brings me to…

Referring to what you have said As I said at the beginning, …

I told you a few minutes ago that…
In the first part of my talk, I said…
As I mentioned earlier, …

Referring to what you will say I’ll come to that later.

I’ll return to this point in a few minutes.
I’ll talk about this in the next part of my presentation.

Referring to visuals If you look at the graph, …

Could I draw your attention to the figures/chart/graph?
If you take a look at the figures in chart one,
you'll see…
I’d like you to look at this, …

Concluding To sum up, …

So to summarise, …
So now I’d just like to summarise the main points.
That concludes my talk.
I think that covers most of the points.
To conclude/wrap up/summarise, I've just described ...
I'll just recap on the highlights of this presentation.
As you can see ...
Briefly ...
Thanks for your attention.
Please pick up ... (material, samples, information) on
your way out.

Inviting questions If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

I’ll be glad to answer any questions (at the end of my
talk).
Does anyone have any questions?
Any questions?

Responding to comments/questions That's an interesting comment. Let me say that ...

I'd be glad to clarify that point ...
Thanks for your query. I'll have to check on that and get
back to you.
I'll be interested in finding out more about this ...

Environmental English Page 9 of 14

 Visuals
A) General

1) Do not over use (hiding behind them)

2) Allow audience time to read - then talk

3) Use key words, not whole sentences

4) Check screen is legible

5) Talk to audience, not the wall / screen

6) Don’t distribute handouts until the end – they will read them rather than
concentrate on you.

B) PowerPoint

1) Know how to use it!

2) Maximum of 40 words per slide

3) Maximum of 4 bullet points per slide

4) Use build slides to control flow

5) Use remote control

6) Tips:

Press B to make screen black

Press W to make screen white

Press 8 ENTER to go to slide 8

C) Flip charts

1) Keep it simple

2) Big letters

3) Colours

4) Prepare in advance

5) Start with blank sheet

6) Use two – one prepared, one for free writing

Environmental English Page 10 of 14

 Answering questions
Difficult questions:

1) Pause

2) Repeat the question

3) Ask for the question to be repeated

4) Invite the audience to answer

5) Offer to check the answer later

6) Answer indirectly

7) ‘‘I don’t know’’

What NOT to do:

1) Answer too quickly

2) Be arrogant and too clever

3) Bluff (or lie!)

4) Answer in a low voice

5) Answer before the question is finished

6) Make the questioner feel stupid

Environmental English Page 11 of 14

 Answers
Page 5

Audience expectation
What does an audience expect from a presentation?

(possible answers: information, confidence, clarity, interesting, prepared, entertainment, . . .)

What do you not want?

(possible answers: negative, unpleasant, boring, slow, irrelevant, too long, . . .)

Page 6

Preparing a presentation

SET objectives

PREPARE necessary information

IDENTIFY key points (3 - 5)

PLAN content

TAILOR to audience level

PRODUCE materials / visuals

REHEARSE presentation

TEST equipment / visuals

ANTICIPATE questions

Environmental English Page 12 of 14

 Presentation preparation
Name: Date:

Title of presentation:

Target audience:

Objective:

Stage Key points Key language

Introduction

Body

Conclusion

Signposting and linking

phrases

Visuals

Environmental English Page 13 of 14

 Presentation feedback
Name: Date:

Title of presentation:

Content
• purpose?
• interest?
• appropriateness?

Structure
• structure?
• organisation?
• signposting?
• linking?

Grammar
• accuracy?
• appropriateness?

Vocabulary
• accuracy?
• appropriateness?
• pronunciation?

Delivery
• pronunciation?
• projection?
• eye contact?
• body language?
• communication?

Other comments

Environmental English Page 14 of 14