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B USINESS E NGLISH professional                                
Business skills 2
Presentatıons
Debbie Barton, Jennifer Burkart and Caireen Sever ask some questions
and suggest some solutions especially for those teachers new to business English.
I
t can be difficult to know where to
start when teaching presentations,
especially if you have never given
or been to one yourself. Yet giving
effective presentations is very important
for many of our learners and is,
therefore, one of the skills most
frequently requested on business courses.
Learners who are quite confident
giving a presentation in their own
language can suddenly be thrown into
panic when told they have to give one in
English. So, why this sense of panic?
Learners often tell us:
● they are scared that they will forget
what to say and, as a result, be seen
to be less of the expert.
● they think they might misunderstand
when someone asks a question or they
might not be able to express the answer
properly because this is the part they
have not been able to prepare for.
● they have so much to remember with
the language that they forget other
important things like body language
and delivery strategies.
● they can’t ad lib or be funny as they
would in their own language so they
feel their presentation is less effective
or even boring.
There is so much to teach.
What aspects of the skill
should I focus on?
From pre-intermediate learners
upwards, the key areas are:
1 preparation, 2 signposting, 3 visuals,
4 strong introductions and endings,
5 dealing with questions and 6 delivery.
• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 47 November 2006 •
Giving effective
presentations is very
important for many of
our learners and is,
therefore, one of the
skills most frequently
requested
How much time you spend on each
part depends on the format of the
training. In a three-day workshop, you
can cover each part in detail. If time is
limited, you may want to focus on
standard structuring phrases and
introductions and endings.
Here are some teaching ideas for
each of the six key areas.
1 Preparation
Get learners to brainstorm around the
subject of their presentation, for example
by using a mind map. Then help them
to organise their ideas into introduction,
numbered points of the main body and
conclusion. Make sure they can
pronounce key words and phrases
confidently. Also think about the target
audience of the presentation, bearing in
mind their background knowledge and
possible cultural differences.
2 Signposting
Give the learners the different sections
of a presentation (eg introduction,
giving an outline, main body, summing
up, concluding, inviting questions) and
get them to think of phrases they can
use in each. You can read a presentation
or watch one on video to get them to
add any more phrases, or simply give
them a list and ask them to choose the
ones they would be happy using.
3 Visuals
Introduce the learners to the names of
various types of visuals (eg bar chart,
pie chart, etc) and to language they can
use to draw attention to visuals (eg As
you can see here …, I would like to draw
your attention to …). Reviewing
language to describe trends can be
helpful for learners who have to
describe graphs.
4 Strong introductions
and endings
Listen to and analyse the introductions
and endings to some presentations,
looking out for devices such as
rhetorical questions, anecdotes and
famous quotations.
5 Dealing with questions
Cards are a useful way of introducing
language for responding to questions.
Give the learners cards with headings
such as Responding to difficult questions
or Asking the speaker to repeat the
question and brainstorm phrases they
could use. Get them to write these on
the relevant cards.
6 Delivery
Record the learners giving presentations
and do some work on pausing for effect,
sentence stress and intonation. Record
them again so that they can compare
with the original. 
33
 B USINESS E NGLISH professional                                
Business skills 2
Presentatıons
 How can I best input
new language?
Using the Test-Teach-Test method is an
effective approach. To ‘Test’ the learners,
ask them to give a presentation on a
subject of their choice (work or non-work
related). Then give them a self-evaluation
form to complete. With a good evaluation
list (available in most good business
English coursebooks) and some common
sense, even a teacher watching a
presentation for the first time ever should
be able to tell what areas need to be
improved, eg Was it interesting? If not,
why not? Could you understand it? If
not, why not? Was the problem
vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar or
linking and sequencing phrases?
Once the areas have been identified,
you ‘Teach’ the language which is
needed and then ‘Test’ the learners
again by getting them to repeat their
original presentation.
Now I’ve given them the
language, how do I get my
learners to practise it?
Once they have the language, include
regular opportunities to practise
making 3- to 5-minute ‘mini-
presentations’, eg on a project they have
just completed, or a recent holiday. A
fun way of practising the language of
presentations can be to get learners to
do mini-presentations about life in their
country, talking about food and drink,
tourist destinations, festivals, etc.
Remember to revise the structure of
presentations and some phrases used to
signpost each section before they begin.
Also ensure that you give the listeners a
task, such as to ask a variety of questions.
To practise strong openings, you
could get learners to write just the
introductions to presentations, focusing
on a particular technique, eg beginning
with some surprising statistics.
And what about reviewing
all this language?
Type out the structuring phrases the
learners chose with one word blanked
34 • Issue 47 November 2006 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •
out, eg I’ve ………. my talk into three
main parts (divided) and ask them to
try to fill them in. You can also give
them cards naming the sections of a
presentation and get them to quickly
come up with a phrase they can use in
each one. In a real presentation, they
will have so much to concentrate on
that if they can learn these structuring
phrases off by heart, they will have one
less thing to worry about.
Of course, after a few weeks, you can
ask them to give another presentation
and do the self-evaluation procedure and
the ‘golden rules’ checklist (see feedback
section) as before to check that they have
not forgotten anything.
Completing a feedback
form is a good idea
to help you structure
your notes while the
learners are giving
their presentations
There is so much material out
there – what if none of it is
appropriate for my students?
Find out what they do in their own
language and build on this. Begin by
getting them to tell you about the best
and worst presentations they have ever
been to (in any language), and discuss
what made them particularly good or
bad. This will make what you are
teaching seem more relevant.
Use the presentations that your
learners write and give at work as your
main source for content and follow-up
work. It is especially useful to give
learners practice in presenting charts and
graphs which are relevant to their jobs.
The subjects for presentation can
also come from you, to simulate being
given a more difficult task by their boss!
Getting hold of relevant presentations
to watch can be difficult, but it is possible.
Most good business coursebooks have
recorded material and may also have a
video. There are also video files and
transcripts available on the internet. With
a little searching you should be able to
find something related to the business
your learners are involved in.
How should I give feedback
and what should I focus on?
Get the learners to write a list of ‘golden
rules’ for giving presentations and
compare it with a list you have already
prepared. These lists can then be used as
the criteria on which to base feedback.
Completing a feedback form is a
good idea to help you structure your
notes while the learners are giving their
presentations. This can include everything
from comments on the presentation itself
(Structure: I was lost and couldn’t tell
when you had moved on from the second to
the third part. Dealing with questions:
I had a question but you did not give me a
chance to ask it!) to grammar, vocabulary
and pronunciation problems. Asking the
presenter what areas they particularly
want feedback on also works well.
Getting other learners to comment on
the presentation gives feedback from the
perspective of a real audience.
How can I ensure that the
learners are transferring this
learning and improving their
performance back in
the workplace?
During the course, give the learners
copies of a self-evaluation form and ask
them to fill it in after they have given a
real presentation, and to tell you about
the results. Follow up with further lessons
on the areas they are still finding difficult.
Record your learners’ presentations
throughout the course and discuss the
differences with them. They should see
(and hear) the progress they are making
and how much more effective they are
becoming in presenting in English. ETp
Debbie Barton, Jennifer Burkart and Caireen
Sever work for Linguarama Spracheninstitut,
Düsseldorf, Germany. They have a wide
experience of teaching business English,
including areas such as production, retail,
finance and human resources. As well as
teaching, all three are actively involved in
teacher training.
DHorsley@compuserve.com
joergpohlmann@tiscali.de
caireen@sever.com