Professor Dalys Tamayo

E-mail address dalys.tamayo.8@udelas.ac.pa Cel: 6930-2796

Subject: LISTENING FOR THE SCIENCES ESP 450B
LESSON Nº3: SCIENCE TALK: INTRODUCING A TOPIC

Week N° 4 (3hours)

Learning Goal (Competence)

Develop speaking skills for a better communication among health professionals.

Learning objectives:
 Improve oral communication with semi-controlled activities
 Use technical words and relevant details when speaking.
 Organize ideas and information before doing the oral report.

TASKS SEQUENCE
Welcome to English for Specific Purposes (ESP) 450B

INTRODUCTION

Introducing a topic is to open a given topic to an audience. Clear speech is necessary to

convey meaning and have an effective communication. The introduction of a topic contains
three parts:
a. Capture the audience´s attention: quotations, questions,
facts/stats
b. Background information/antecedents: key points (other
studies) importance (country, community, groups, or region)
c. Thesis statement: general topic + because + 2 or 3
supporting ideas will be developed as evidence.
EXAMPLES:
a. “One apple a day keeps the doctor away”
b. Most children in Latin America suffer from malnutrition.
c. Malnutrition needs the attention from the medical community, because
It causes many deaths, feeding problems, and poverty.
APPLICATION
Watch and listen to this video:

Select a video on your own and construct your one minute science talk introducing a topic.

Speaking Task 5 : Organizing ideas for the Science talk

Topic: Bile Secretion
Length: 1 minute talk Number of words : 100 to 180
I. BEGINNING: Choose a beginning for your Science Talk

quotations
question
facts
statistical info

Writer your beginning here.

Did you know that bile is very important to your body?  

II. MIDDLE: Write the content for your Science Talk. Definition of key concepts,
background, other studies, importance
Write your middle part here.
Bile is a greenish-yellow liquid made up of water, cholesterol, lecithin, bile pigments,
bile salts, and bicarbonate ions. In turn, it is produced and secreted by the liver and
stored in the gallbladder, to later be released in the duodenum after food intake. When
we eat, the bile leaves the gallbladder through the bile ducts to the small intestine and
mixes with the fats in food to make them smaller and more easily attacked by digestive
juices.
(Christina C. Lindenmeyer, 2019)

III. FINAL: Write your concluding paragraph for your Science Talk. State your thesis
statement
The secretion of bile is very important because it emulsifies fats and facilitates their
absorption through the small intestine.