This course is intended for staff members who are currently working from home and who are interested in improving their spoken English related to giving public talks and presentations. The course is intended for non-native speakers of English who wish to hone their speaking skills in a safe environment.
Results
The focus lies on refreshing existing knowledge, building confidence, acquiring new formulaic phrases, structuring a talk, engaging an audience, practicing new skills, integrating coping and compensation strategies, and receiving constructive feedback.
By the end of this course, you can:
- Structure a talk
- Use appropriate connectors and signalling
- Engage an audience
- Confidently speak from notes
- Effectively deal with timing issues
- Use appropriate body language
- Have professional slides
- Prompt questions
- Answer questions
- Use persuasive techniques
- Hedge effectively
- Buy time to think
- Clearly indicate the parameters of the presentation
- Use compensation strategies when stuck
Duration and Investment
The course will consist of 4 sessions of 2 hours each – 60 min. instruction and practice, 15 min. break, 60 min. instruction and practice – over the course of 2 weeks. The first three sessions are regular classroom sessions. The last 2-hour session will offer the participants an opportunity to give a short presentation to the rest of the group and receive constructive feedback. In addition to the online classes, an extra investment of about 1.5 hours a week is asked of you to integrate knowledge, prepare a final presentation, and further develop your skills. The classes will be offered via Canvas. There is no need for pre-existing knowledge of the learning platform.