Do you give English presentations at work, but feel that you could communicate your message in a more objective, fluid way?
Maybe you have an English presentation coming up and want to make sure that your speech is clear and structured so that your audience doesn’t lose concentration and stays with you all the way to the end.
A technique that can help you achieve objective, clear, and structured English presentations, is to use linking phrases that join the separate parts of your presentation together.
English presentations normally consist of an introduction, the main body, individual parts of the main body, and the ending or conclusion.
To help maintain your audience’s attention, you need to signal when you are going from one part to another.
In this article, I teach you 52 phrases that do exactly this – linking the different parts together, and therefore, making your presentation flow better. You’ll find that these phrases will act as ‘signposts’ for the audience when you finish one part and start another.
All good presentations start with a strong introduction.
There are a number of different ways you can begin your English presentation. Here’s a simple, but effective introduction structure which works for most types of business presentations:
Introduce – Introduce yourself and greet your audience.
Introduce the presentation topic – Explain the reasons for listening.
Outline – Describe the main parts of the presentation.
Question policy – Make it clear to your audience when they can ask questions: during or at the end?
Here are some phrases which you can use to structure the introduction in this way:
Introduce
1. Good morning/afternoon (everyone) (ladies and gentlemen).
2. It’s a pleasure to welcome (the President) here.
3. I’m … (the Director of …)
Introduce the presentation topic
4. By the end of the talk/presentation/session, you’ll know how to… /
…you will have learned about… /
5. I plan to say a few words about…
6. I’m going to talk about…
7. The subject of my talk is…
Outline
8. My talk will be in (three parts).
9. In the first part…
10. Then in the second part…
11. Finally, I’ll go on to talk about…
Question Policy
12. Please interrupt if you have any questions.
13. After my talk, there will be time for a discussion and any questions.
Now that you have finished the introduction, we now need to transition to the main body, and its individual parts in a smooth way.
There are three parts of the main body of a presentation where linking phrases can be used:
Beginning the Main Body
Ending Parts within the Main Body
Beginning a New Part
Here are some phrases which you can use for these parts:
Beginning the Main Body
14. Now let’s move to / turn to the first part of my talk which is about…
15. So, first…
16. To begin with…
Ending Parts within the Main Body
17. That completes/concludes…
18. That’s all (I want to say for now) on…
19. Ok, I’ve explained how…
Beginning a New Part
20. Let’s move to (the next part which is)…
21. So now we come to the next point, which is…
22. Now I want to describe…
23. Let’s turn to the next issue…
24. I’d now like to change direction and talk about…
If you need to talk about goals, challenges, and strategies in your English presentation, listing phrases can help link these together and improve the flow of your speech. If you have to explain processes, sequencing phrases are helpful:
Listing
25. There are three things to consider. First… Second… Third…
26. There are two kinds of… The first is… The second is…
27. We can see four advantages and two disadvantages. First, advantages…
28. One is… Another is… A third advantage is… Finally…
Sequencing
29. There are (four) different stages to the process.
30. First / then / next / after that / then (x) / after x there’s y.
31. There are two steps involved. The first step is… The second step is…
32. There are four stages to the project.
33. At the beginning, later, then, finally…
34. I’ll describe the development of the idea. First the background, then the present situation, and then the prospect for the future.
After you have presented the main body of your English presentation, you will want to end it smoothly.
Here are typical sections transitioning from the main body to the ending of the presentation, and then inviting the audience to ask questions:
Ending the Main Body
Beginning the Summary and/or Conclusion
Concluding
An Ending Phrase
Inviting Questions and/or Introducing Discussion
Thanking the Audience
Here are some phrases which you can use for these parts:
Ending the Main Body
35. Okay, that ends (the third part of) my talk.
36. That’s all I want to say for now on (the 2017 results).
Beginning the Summary and/or Conclusion
37. To sum up…
38. Ok, in brief, there are several advantages and disadvantages.
39. To conclude…
40. I’d like to end by emphasizing the main points.
41. I’d like to end with a summary of the main points.
Concluding
42. I think we have seen that we should…
43. In my opinion, we should…
44. I recommend/suggest that we…
45. There are three reasons why I recommend this. First, … / Second, … / Finally,…
An Ending Phrase
46. Well, I’ve covered the points that I needed to present today.
47. That sums up (my description of the new model).
48. That concludes my talk for today.
Inviting Questions and/or Introducing Discussion
49. Now we have (half an hour) for questions and discussion.
50. So, now I’d be very interested to hear your comments.
Thanking the Audience
51. I’d like to thank you for listening to my presentation.
52. Thank you for listening / your attention. / Many thanks for coming.
Linking phrases are like the skeleton which holds your presentation together.
Not only do they improve the flow and help guide the audience, but by memorizing them they can also help you remember the general structure of your presentation, giving you increased confidence.
To help you memorize, I recommend saying the linking phrases on their own from the beginning to the end of your presentation while you practice.
I also suggest memorizing the introduction word for word. By doing this, you will get off to a great start, which will settle your nerves and transmit a positive first impression.
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Steven is a business English coach, a certified life coach, writer, and entrepreneur. He helps international professionals build confidence and improve fluency speaking English in a business environment.
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