How to give a presentation in English

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, we are the three English experts. I'm Rebecca. I'm Dave. I'm Birgit. And welcome to this episode. Three English experts is your English podcast to help you speak better English and create a positive and happy mindset for your English learning journey. Hello everybody. Hello back again, listening to the three English experts. And today we are talking about presentation phrases. A lot of people in a business context need sometime one or the other to hold a presentation. And I think that's not too easy. So especially Dave, he's giving seminars on this webinars, and he's prepared a lot of stuff, useful information and phrases for people that should help them to talk the way through a presentation. Of course, remember this when you asked or were asked to hold a presentation, people know you know your stuff very well, so you know what to talk about. But sometimes if you have to talk in a different language, maybe you don't know how to talk about it. And we will come back to presentations again and talk about it in other or another episode. But today, as I said, it's helping you to have some more phrases, more variety, maybe to talk you or to talk people through that. So Dave, what is it exactly? What do you do? What do you offer? And how do you help people improve their presentation skills? Yeah, thank you, Birgit. So it's not just presentations. I'm a communication trainer generally. So I'm here to help people, companies, CEOs, team members to improve their communication skills, OK, so that they communicate better. It saves a lot of time and stress within organisations if people can communicate a lot better, clearer, more impactful and also persuasive. I use different kinds of tools, communication tools that they can fill their toolkit with and in that way then improve their basic communication skills. You have some of the simple ones like the rule of three. And then you have more complicated ones like, for example, the seven C's when you're looking at emailing. But we can talk about all of those maybe in later episodes. But as you said today, we want to focus on presentation skills. So that's one thing I also look at. And today we're looking at the phrases for presentations. So what we did was put a, we got a nice PDF with loads of phrases that you can use in your presentations, which we'll link up to in the show notes. So if you have the time, maybe get that now and then you can read it as we are going through it. If not, then maybe come back to it later. Don't worry, we're not going to read through every single thing because we would be here until next Christmas, as we say, but we will just go through some various things, point out what's good, what you can use and maybe a few tricks and tips, but also things to be aware of when you're giving your presentations for the first time maybe, or if you're not giving presentations very often or you don't always know the English phrases, etc. So shall we begin? With the first part, I've put in the basic structure, so the backbone, and I've divided this into seven main parts. Okay, so there's the welcoming and introducing a topic. There's giving your presentation a backbone, so like just a structure you could say instead of a backbone, but structure. Introducing different sections, referring backwards and forwards in a presentation, concluding, and then the last two when it deals with questions, so firstly understanding questions that people ask you from the audience, but then also how could you possibly deal with them. At this point, I'd like to ask Rebecca and Birgit to also jump in when we go through the different sections. So the first one is the welcoming and introducing topic. So it goes without saying, you welcome people to your presentation with phrases like, good morning, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our company, our event, or whatever it might be. These are quite simple phrases to get you started. What do you like? What phrases caught your eyes, Birgit and Rebecca, from this one? Which ones did you particularly like? I like the sort of, you know, I'm excited to be here, I'm really happy to be here to present today. I don't love ladies and gentlemen, because I think then we get into this gender issue. But these days, it's good morning, everyone. I don't know, you have to be careful these days with these kind of phrases. Yeah, I would just go with morning, everyone. I would be like, thank you for inviting me. I think you should always be grateful people are giving you their time. That's the most important thing. So I appreciate your time and I'm not going to waste it. That would be my first tip. Yes, and I like that mentioning you that you said, oh, I'm excited to be here, maybe for German natives, that might sound over the top, but it's not. It's just being polite. And it's a nice phrase. I'm really happy. I'm excited. And also that helps you to get into a good mood, into a good spirit, because the way you get started in a presentation that will also probably part the way how it's going to be later on. Yeah, so that's good. Motivate yourself, motivate the listeners. Positive. I think that's the phrase. Yeah, I think that's a good point. Bigger than the Germans would be like, oh, I can't say excited. That's too much. If that's too much, you can just say I'm happy to be here. I'm glad to be here. You don't have to go over the top. Yeah, but good presentations are about people who are passionate about their subject. If you're passionate about your subject, if you're not interested. Oh, yes, I'm here today. Do you want to be here today? Exactly. Good to show a bit of passion about your topic. Yeah, I think that depends on the subject and where you work. Some people might say, oh, I'm not passionate. I need to do this. And somebody has to do that. But still, as Rebecca said, it's a kind of attitude you bring into it. And obviously you were asked to do that so you know what to talk about. And that's a very good thought. Yeah. Cool. So let's move on to the second bit. Maybe you also want to listen out to the phrases that we use when we connect the different parts as you're listening. So let's move on to the next bit with giving the backbone and it's looking at the topic of when. So you say maybe you want to divide your presentation into three parts. This is a common one that you have an introduction, maybe a main part. And then, of course, a conclusion at the end. So in this slide that we have, this chart that we have, we talk about the when. So what you want to do firstly, secondly, thirdly, and also the phrases for explaining what you want to do. So I would like to, we will, want to, I'm going to, etc. And here, I think it's important we talk about formality, guys, because I think nowadays people are becoming a lot less formal. You don't necessarily always have to say the phrases out. I would like to. You're going to also hear a lot of people saying I'd like to or I wanna or I'm gonna, which may sound strange in people's ears. But if you hear native speakers giving their presentations, they will give it in that way as well. Yeah, and that's something interesting when you hear it. But now we are sort of for learners. Are they going to use it? You can, of course, do that the same. Yeah, I'm gonna, I wanna just do it. It's the shortening and that's OK. That's a good way of introducing shortening sentences. Very natural. Yeah, I would just add as well, I think it's always good if I'm listening to a presentation, I want to know where are we going? Am I going to be here for an hour or is it going to be 15 minutes? What are you going to tell me? What am I going to learn? I think that's important is where are we going to tell people? It will probably be here for about 20 minutes. And I'm going to explain how this and this works. And I know upfront what to expect a little bit. I think that's always good, rather than just this guy starts talking and you think, oh, my goodness, where are we going? Yeah, I think that's always good. Absolutely. One, I've also got a little piece of advice when we're talking about the German translations. So often I hear people saying at least when in actual fact they mean finally or last but not least. So please be aware of that with these little translation things as well. But Rebecca hit the nail on the head. And that's another point that we can look at. So giving the presentation a backbone by using phrases like what, how long they've got, of course, maybe if there's going to be some breaks in there. And I think also very important at this stage, especially given your audience, is to tell them what you want to do with questions. I don't know how you guys work with this, but my advice is always to say if they have a question, let them ask it, because if they don't ask the question, then they've always got it at the back of their mind. And I think it's easier just to get people to ask the questions when they have them. They get them off their chest, so to speak, and you can deal with it and then move on. OK, I don't know what you guys think. I think it depends how confident you are. I think someone who's confident can do that. If someone's a bit nervous and then people start putting their hands up, that could really throw you off your kind of train of thought. I think it really depends. Some people like that. Other people would say, no, I'd rather just deal with it all at the end. But like you say, there's a danger people forget the question. But if they know the Q&A is at the end, you could also add that in and say Q&A will be at the end, but maybe just jot down. So I really want to have questions. So please don't forget the questions at the end. Depends on the person, I think. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. OK, moving on to each section. Some phrases for linking up the sections. Very useful phrase. I think the big one here is this word let's or let me or let's. Let's start with let's move on to let's turn our attention to. So if you can just try to learn, as Birgit said, maybe at the beginning one or two little phrases and then with time try to learn some more and just to expand and then also to vary your English when you're giving presentations a little bit later on. Interesting, because now thinking about it is such a common phrase, let's just let us, but still people were not used to that and native Germans might think I'm not asking them together sort of. So I'm doing that now. Maybe that could be something that doesn't come up naturally. And that's a good idea here to stress that out. Let's is very common. Yeah, let's just look at that. Yeah, I think that's one of the best phrases when you're presenting. I always have that as my top phrase. Let's OK, so now let's look at this or let's turn to this or let's come back to that later. Let's review what we've talked about so far. I think let's is a brilliant phrase and it's very underrated by a lot of my clients. I think they just don't either think about it or maybe you're right being it. Maybe they think last ones, we're doing it together. And it's like, well, we're not doing it together. I never thought about that. That's a reluctance. I haven't just came to my body. You could be right. I think it's this. Well, we're not doing it together, but it's so common and it's so easy. It's just such an easy thing to use. I'm a big fan of let's. OK, when we move backwards and forwards in presentations, sometimes maybe, especially if somebody's asked you a question and you have to go back a little bit, or maybe you'd like to say that you would like to also cover something a little bit more in the future. Then there are some useful phrase like I mentioned or I touched on something earlier or I'll expand on that a little bit more later on. So these are quite useful phrases for going backwards, but also going forwards. But also these referring words are also quite good. And again, here, I think there's some more formal and some more less formal. Maybe it's good to just talk about them a little bit. So we have things like regarding, with regards to, I would consider a little bit more formal. Concerning, as something is concerned, again, a little bit more formal. But that's my two favourites and my two, I would say, go-to ones, less formal ones are the as for and also in terms of. And I think if you listen to native speakers in particular, you'll hear a lot of this phrase in terms of something. OK, they would be phrases I would use giving my presentations, referring backwards and forwards. OK, then let's move on to the closing part. Of course, I always recommend that as you are going through your presentation, every now and again, you stop, just explain what you've looked through in the past. So just repeat a little bit what you've said before, summarise a little bit what you've said before. And that's a phrase that you can say. So let's sum up again what we've looked at so far, and then maybe present what's coming up next. So you're signalling, as Rebecca said earlier on, I think it's not just at the beginning, but also during the presentation, it's good to come back and just give a quick summary where if you've, what you've done and where you're going to go in the future. So these are very useful phrases, and of course, then telling the people that it's nearly over. And of course, then they can be happy as you get to the conclusion part of it. Yes, but what you've just explained about the going back and forward, that includes some grammar phrases. Let's look at what we've just looked at and I will talk about that. So maybe that's tricky sometimes. That might be not too easy. And some people might feel, oh, this is going to be too difficult. So not so well trained people who haven't got much experience in presenting in English might not want to do that too much. But yeah, again, with this sheet of paper, what we've just said, if you're trained and understand that and feel confident then and you can go back and forward, that should also add to your confidence. Yeah, but it's not too easy. That seems easy, maybe for you. I don't know, but maybe that's something learners find rather difficult going back and forth. Because of the grammar aspect. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They might stay in there because if you give a presentation and you talk about something in general, then about the subject, so it's mostly it will be like present tense or not so much what I've just said or what I've just said. Oh, yeah, I'm just imagining. Might be difficult, I don't know. I think when people stress about presentations, I would follow the same strategy as Dave, that I would always have these phrases because and when you're learning these phrases, you're not learning grammar, you're just learning the phrase as it is. So it's like learning vocabulary almost. You learn the full sentence. So you've got these phrases, these sentences and just having a sheet like this, you kind of preparing a presentation because you just need to choose a few from each box in a way. And then you're filling in the stuff around and keeping it simple. I would say keep the other information simple and base it around these kind of good phrases. And then if you're not so experienced, that gives you a sort of thing to follow. Definitely a good idea, a good point. And then I would say that's definitely one of the important one. What we've just talked about, what I've just said. I think that should go in there. And it could just go as a phrase then. So you don't have to think about. Just as a phrase, just as a phrase. Yeah, it's present perfect. Just this is how you say it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. OK, so moving on to the question part. So finishing off now, the questions. First of all, you will possibly get questions anytime or at the Q&A session at the end. First of all, you need to understand what questions are being asked of you. So we've got a sheet or a chart in there where it describes the kind of things that people would say to find out the information that they want. So first of all, pinpointing a reference, I call it a little bit complicated, but it means basically that they say where they are coming back to in your presentation, what points they are specifically wanting to ask about. Again, it's not all that difficult. Just remember things like you mentioned, blah, blah, blah. Could I go back to the point you made about, et cetera? OK, so this is one way of, first of all, pinpointing the reference. Where are you in the presentation? And then what do they want to do? Maybe they just want to ask a simple question or maybe they say, could you expand on that? So that means to say more of it. It's a bit more formal. Or could you explain that or clarify that or something like that? Or as I said, they have the basic question. Just ask the question. And there to close up, I would say dealing with the questions. It's always a good strategy to, first of all, thank them for the questions in a sort of a positive way. That's a great question or interesting question. Thank you. And then to know how you're going to deal with it. And here we've got three main ways. You answer it straight away if you can. OK, secondly, maybe you delegate it to another person or tell people to ask other people or write to other people. Maybe you don't know the answer or you can't know the answer. Or maybe you answer it later, maybe in a personal email or after the presentation, you talk to the person personally. And then finally, I think it's important you just ask the person who asked the question, if you answered it, let's say, is that OK with you? Whatever you did, are they happy with the answer that you gave them? And then most of the time they say yes. And that's all good and dandy. Most of the time. That would be the best case. Best case scenario. Then you just switch off your mic and go. Yeah, exactly. Just that wasn't clear or anything. I don't know. Hope for the best. If you find that difficult again and understanding maybe the natives, ask a question. Or it's always good to have some phrases again. So sorry, could you repeat that? I didn't understand you or hang on a second or let me just check something or I will get back to you after. So if you have these at hand, that would help you. Just in case you felt not confident enough to answer it straight away and deal with it or. Absolutely. I think some of my clients, that's their biggest fear is the question section because they can prepare everything else. They can prepare the speech. They can prepare the slides. You cannot prepare. I mean, some people do prepare like you're only allowed to ask certain questions. But generally, yeah, you can't prepare that. So they're always like, what if I don't understand what they've asked? And that is the biggest fear. So I think spending a bit of time, like Birgit said, with some good responses to show if you don't quite understand, to clarify is definitely a good will give you a bit more confidence with that section. Yes. And what Dave has got on offer, I think it's just started to offer a webinar. What's that, Dave? The seminar online for presentation skills, presentation phrases, the whole lot. Yeah, it's a four hour webinar, which will actually be on the 26th of March on a Wednesday afternoon from one to five. And it's called Mastering the Basics of Effective English Presentations. It will allow you to use these phrases in your own presentations to practise them a little bit, but also with some of the other aspects of presentation skills, the introductions, the closing, maybe also answering questions, some more techniques for answering questions when you give presentations. So just focussing on the more phraseology. So if you've never done a presentation before in English or you're still not quite confident with your English or you just want to practise for whatever reason, so that would be one of my four hour, I call them short and sweet webinars, because it's only four hours and it gives you a chance just to practise a small part of various communication skills. So I've also got one emailing. I've got one on intercultural awareness, small talk, sales, communication for sales people and building them out more and more as I go along. And where do I go to book these, Dave? How do I find out more? Very good question, Rebecca. Thank you very much. My website is businessenglishacademy.de and there you'll find out all the information about those webinars. Wonderful. That sounds like a great boost of your skills. And as I know, David, there will you will get lots of information and documents to go with your skills and learning. Wonderful. Thank you very much. The Golden Nugget. So this week's Golden Nugget is also related to presentation skills. My Golden Nugget for this week is a book recommendation called TED Talks, the official TED guide to public speaking. And it's by a guy called Chris Anderson, who when he wrote this, I'm not sure if he still is, but when he wrote this, he was head of TED. Anyone who doesn't know what TED Talks are, I think a lot of people know them. But these short presentations where an expert talks about a specific topic. And the good thing about them is they're limited to 18 minutes. It really has to be short and sweet. And the people that do these presentations are really, really good presenters. So when you watch them online, if you want to know how to do a good presentation, watch a few TED Talks and you're going to get amazing tips. And the book is really good because it kind of gives you this history of TED. But it also talks about basic stuff like building ideas, storytelling, visuals, how to use diagrams and slides, opening and closing, using your voice and presence. So it's really kind of the nitty gritty. Very good book, fun to read. And my recommendation. Thank you. And also TED Talks are great, guys. As Rebecca said, if there's any place you want to go to practise or to train your presentation skills, TED Talks is the one. Absolutely. OK, thank you very much, Dave, for this wonderful insight into presentation phrases and all that's involved in that. And next time we're going to talk about linking words. That's a very interesting topic. That's little words people often forget about and they connect phrases or parts of phrases. So if you have a thought, you want to put it all in one sentence, you probably want to use a linking word. And that's going to help you make your sentences longer, more elaborated, if you like. And that's what a lot of my learners at least want to do. OK. OK. 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