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Presentations are part of school projects, university seminars, job interviews and many ordinary working weeks. The good news is that a presentation in a second language does not need difficult vocabulary. What makes a talk easy to follow is structure: the audience always knows where you are, what comes next and why it matters.

Listeners cannot go back and reread a sentence, so spoken English repeats the structure more openly than written English. You tell people what you are going to say, you say it, and then you remind them what you said. Short phrases that mark these moves are called signposts, and they are the most useful language in this lesson.

Structure

1. Opening. Greet the audience, introduce yourself if needed, and name the topic. Say in one sentence why it matters to these listeners.
2. Outline. Give an outline of the main parts, usually two to four: First I'll…, then I'll…, and finally…
3. Main part. Cover each part in order. Mark every change with a signpost, and use your slides to support what you say rather than to repeat it.
4. Summary. Repeat the two or three key points in a few sentences.
5. Close and questions. Thank the audience and invite questions.

Practical rules: one idea per slide, few words on each, large numbers and simple charts. Speak to the room, not to the screen. Speak more slowly than in conversation and pause after each main point. Contractions (I'll, let's, that's) are normal in a spoken presentation even when the topic is serious.

Useful phrases

Model text

The opening of a student presentation in a seminar.

Good morning, everyone. Today I'm going to talk about how students use their phones during lectures, and what that means for learning. It's a topic that affects all of us, because almost everyone in this room has a phone on the desk right now.

I've divided my talk into three parts. First, I'll present the results of a short survey we carried out with 120 students last month. Then I'll look at what recent research says about attention and multitasking. And finally, I'll suggest three simple rules that could help us all. I'll try to keep it to about ten minutes, and there'll be time for questions at the end.

So, let's start with the survey. As you can see on this slide, more than two thirds of the students we asked check their phones at least five times in a single lecture.

Common mistakes

• ✗ Today I will tell about our project.
  ✓ Today I'm going to talk about our project. / Today I'm going to tell you about our project.
  Tell needs a person after it (tell you), and going to sounds more natural for a plan you are about to carry out.
• ✗ The theme of my presentation is climate change.
  ✓ The topic of my presentation is climate change.
  Тема is usually topic in this sense; English theme means an idea that runs through a work, such as a novel or a film.
• ✗ Let's pass to the next point.
  ✓ Let's move on to the next point.
  Перейдімо / перейдём is not pass in English; the fixed signpost is move on to.
• ✗ Thank you for attention.
  ✓ Thank you for listening. / Thank you for your attention.
  Дякую за увагу / Спасибо за внимание needs your in English, and thank you for listening sounds more natural in most settings.
• ✗ Ask your questions.
  ✓ I'm happy to take any questions. / Are there any questions?
  An imperative sounds like an order to an English-speaking audience, so invite questions instead.

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