All the phrases in italics below are appropriate when giving a formal talk on your research. Read extracts 1-8. Then listen and underline the phrase Milan uses in each one (Recording 2.3).

1. Good afternoon, everybody. / Welcome, ladies and gentlemen.

2. To start, thank you / I’d like to start by thanking you all for coming to my

talk today.

3. I’m Milan Poborski and at present / My name is Milan Poborski and I’m a

PhD candidate at Northumbria University.

4. I’m going to talk today / My talk today is about my recent research

investigating...

5. I’ll begin by explaining / To start with, I’ll explain briefly how T-cell responses…

6. After that, I’ll / I’ll go on to describe the alternative method I have been investigating...

7. Finally, I will discuss I I’ll conclude by discussing why this method could be useful as a way...

8. I plan to talk for about 40 minutes, leaving plenty of time for /1 will talk for about 40 minutes and then I’ll answer any questions at the end of my talk.

 

Match each pair of phrases (1-8) from Exercise 3 to their correct function (a-f) below. Note that one of the functions may be expressed with three different pairs of phrases.

a. Give instructions for asking questions b. Greet the audience.

с. Introduce the topic of the presentation d. Introduce yourself

e. Outline the structure of the presentation. f. Thank the audience for coming.

Think of a piece of research you have done recently. Use the words and phrases in Exercise 3 to help you plan the introduction to a presentation about your research.

Below are five extracts from the main part of Milan's presentation. Match the beginnings (1-5) to the endings (a-e).

1. A number of potential vaccine types have been developed and	a. counting IFN-γ secreting cells has been the preferred method to date.
2. As I have already said,	b. using flow cytometry to detect MIG secretion gives us a more accurate way of measuring immune responses.
3. As you can see from this image,	с. I will be returning to those shortly.
4. Let's begin by looking at the size of the malaria problem.	d. Malaria kills over one million people every year in 109 countries.
5. That's all I have to say about the vaccine itself,	e. so now I'd like to move on to looking at judging the response of the immune system to the vaccine.

 

The underlined phrases in Exercise 6 help speakers to organise their presentation clearly and guide listeners through the information. Write the correct underlined phrase to complete the advice below.

Use:

a. ______________________: to introduce a new part of the talk

b. ______________________: to conclude one part of the talk and then

begin another

с. ______________________: to refer back to an earlier part of the talk

d. ______________________: to refer forward to a later part of the talk

e. ______________________: to refer to a visual aid

 

Read the text below. Why are signposts important?

HOW DO SIGNPOSTS WORK?

Signposting helps you structure and shape the main content of your presentation. Signposts create ‘verbal paragraphs’ or 'verbal signals’ and raise the attention curve at the beginning and end of each point of your presentation. The technique allows you to guide the audience through the structure of your presentation linking one point to the next. The audience can’t see your notes and can’t look forward to see what is coming. You know where you’re going on your journey and you need to guide your audience by telling them exactly where you are on the roadmap of your presentation. This is a simple but highly effective technique that adds clarity to your presentations.

 

Phrases 1-22 below are examples of signposts. Read them and check any vocabulary you don’t know.

	Moving on now to...		So, we’ve looked at...
	I would like to begin by...		That completes my overview of
	Let’s now turn to...		Let’s just recap...
	Let’s start with my presentation.		So, that’s pretty much...
	So, first of all...		And finally...
	Now, turning to...		Next we come to...
	Now, what about...?		So, that was...
	Let me move on to...		My next point is...
	So, that’s the general picture for...		That’s all I want to say about...

Milan has come to the end of his presentation. In pairs, look at the list (a-e) and decide on the best order for him to do these things. Then listen and check your answers (Recording 2.4).

a. □ let the audience know his presentation has finished

b. □ offer the audience the chance to ask questions about his presentation

с. □ reach a conclusion based on his research

d. □ summarise the main points of his talk

e. □ thank the audience for listening to him