Resources: Notes on Life and Language in the United States

English Presentation Skills Part 3: The Main Body of the Speech

Posted by Lindsay McMahon on Wed, Apr 13, 2011 @ 09:29 AM

English presentation skills, English, business presentation

Do you need to improve your English presentation skills for an upcoming presentation at work?

Are you nervous about presenting in English?

This week we have talked about how to plan your business presentation in English and English phrases to use in the introduction of your presentation. 

Now it's time to move on to the body or the main section of your speech!       

 

The body of the presentation is important because you will be giving the main points of your speech. This is the "meat" or the substance of your presentation. 

Here are some phrases to get you started.

 

    1. If you want to give an example, you can say:

 

  • "For instance..."
  • "To illustrate this..."
  • " For example..."

 

   2. To summarize a point, you can say:

 

  • "To sum up what we've talked about so far..."
  • "To recap what we've gone over so far..."
  • "In short..."

 

   3. To quote an expert or a professional

 

  • "According to _____"
  • "In the words of _____"
  • "As ______ has said"

 

   4. To discuss something that you mentioned earlier

 

  • "As you already know..."
  • "As I mentioned before..."
  • "As we saw earlier..."

 

Remember this when you are presenting in the US:

 

  • Your audience members will have different learning styles.  Try to make it easy for everyone to follow along using visuals (charts and graphs).

 

  • It is good to be spontaneous and occassionally add a story or personal anecdote, but you should generally stick to your outline, especially with a corporate audience.

 

  • In United States culture, audience members will expect the presenter to smile and appear enthusiastic about the material being presented. So try to appear confident even if you feel nervous.
 
 
 
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(Photo credit- Bethan)

Topics: Business English Presentations, English Public Speaking

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