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Business EnglishIntermediate

Presentations and Public Speaking in English

Eleven lessons of the English you say out loud in front of a room: openings, transitions, numbers, charts and questions from the floor

Presentations and Public Speaking in English

About this course

A course for people who have to stand up and present in English at work. It is not a course about slide design and not a course about confidence: it is a course about the sentences you actually say. How you open without apologising for your English, how you move from one part of the talk to the next, how you point at a chart, how you read the numbers on it out loud, and what comes out of your mouth when somebody asks a question you did not understand.

Two things break most presentations given in a second language, and both are here in detail. The first is numbers: 1,500 in English is one thousand five hundred, not one and a half, a billion is a thousand million, and increased on 20% is not English. The second is the question session, where a monologue you prepared turns into a conversation you did not. Nine lessons contain a fragment of a real talk with questions from the room, which you can listen to and read. After each module there is a short test, and a final test at the end. Level B1-B2.

Course curriculum

  1. Getting ready: one message, one room, one clock

    The single sentence your talk is about, the people you are saying it to, the time you really have, and the shape problem - solution - next steps.

    • 1.One message, the room, and the clock15 min
    • 2.Problem, solution, next steps - and what stays on the slide14 min

  2. The language of the talk

    Opening, moving from part to part, pointing at a slide, marking the sentence that matters, and closing with an ask.

    • 1.The first ninety seconds15 min
    • 2.Transitions, and pointing at a slide16 min
    • 3.Emphasis, repetition and the ending15 min

  3. Numbers and charts out loud

    Reading numbers, percentages, money and dates aloud, describing growth, falls and flat lines, comparing figures and keeping a data slide short.

    • 1.Numbers out loud: the traps17 min
    • 2.The language of change: up, down and flat16 min
    • 3.Comparing, and not drowning in data15 min

  4. Questions and difficult moments

    The pause before an answer, the question you did not understand, the off-topic and the hostile one, an honest I don't know, and what to say when you lose your thread, the screen dies or the time runs out.

    • 1.Taking questions, and the one you did not understand17 min
    • 2.Off-topic, hostile, and the answer you do not have16 min
    • 3.When it goes wrong: fillers, a lost thread, dead technology, no time16 min