Teaching as a Way to Learn

When delivering a structured monologue, one of the ways to begin your presentation is to outline its structure, using one of the following  phrases:

Introduction

About yourself

• Hello, My name is…
• I come from the city of… (the settlement … of ______ region, town, the Republic of..)
• Now I study at …..
• As one famous person once said “Education is the best friend”.

About your presentation

• Today I would like to talk about ________
• I’ve divided my presentation/speech into three (main) parts.
• In my presentation/speech I’ll focus on three major issues ____________.

Effective Openings

In order to grab the attention of the audience you may employ one of the following devices:

Rhetorical questions  

• Is market research important for product development?
• Are children and teenagers watching too much TV these days?
  Interesting facts
• According to an article I read recently, ___________ .
• Did you know that _______ ?
• I’d like to share an amazing fact / figure with you.  

• Stories and Scenarios

• Let me tell you what happened to me …
• Suppose ...
• Imagine ...

• Problem to think about

• Suppose you wanted to … .
• How would you go about it?
• Imagine you had to … .
• What would be your first step?

• Quoting a well-known person

• As _____ once said, _________ .
• To quote a well-known writer, _________ .
• To put it in the words of ________ . 

Introducing a Point

When delivering the presentation on the particular subject it is relevant to introduce the key points. You may use one of the following phrases:

• First of all I'd like to point out . ________ . 
• The main problem is ________ . 
• The question of ________ . 
• Speaking of ________ . 

Enumeration of points

If you are asked to provide several reasons, factors or arguments in a row, you have to organize them in the logical way. In order to structure your answer properly enumerate the main points using one of the suggested phrases: 

• first of all, I’d like to say ...
•  in addition to that ...
•  moreover, ...
•  furthermore, ...
•  another example of this is ...
•  first, second, third ...
•  Finally, ... 

Moving to the next point

• This leads directly to my next point.
• This brings us to the next question.
• Let’s now move on / turn to …
• After examining this point, let’s turn to …
• Let’s now take a look at … 
• Going back As I said / mentioned earlier, …
• Let me come back to what I said before …
• Let’s go back to what we were discussing earlier.
• As I’ve already explained, …
• As I pointed out in the first section, …

 Stating something as a fact

Do not be afraid to state some information as a well-known fact, if it is justified by the subject of discussion. However, you should be very careful when applying one of the following phrases: 

• As everyone knows ...
•  It is generally accepted that ...
•  There can be no doubt that ...
•  It is a fact that ...
•  Nobody will deny that ...
•  Everyone knows that ...

Giving Your Opinion

There exist a variety of ways how to express your opinion when speaking English. The choice of an expression to be used in the particular situation depends on how strong your opinion is, i.e. how sure you are about a particular thing.

Giving Your Opinion Neutrally

• I think…
• I feel that…
• In my opinion…
• As far as I'm concerned…
• As I see it…
• In my view
• I tend to think that…
• From my point of view…

Giving a Strong Opinion

• I'm absolutely convinced that…
• I'm sure that…
• I strongly believe that…
• I have no doubt that…
• There is no doubt that …
• I am absolutely certain that …

Expressing Uncertainty

• I definitely doubt if that …
• I am not sure that …
• I am not certain that … As far as I know …
•  It is very doubtful whether …

Giving reasons

• These standard phrases are useful in a variety of situations, when you are asked to explain something providing additional information or giving the reasons.

• The reason for this is (that) ...

• I base my argument on ...
• I tell you all this because ...

Rephrasing Expressions

Sometimes we say things that other people don't understand, or we give the wrong impression. If you are asked to explain or clarify your idea, do not use the same expressions and/or phrases, try to reformulate it starting your answer using one of the following phrases:

• What I meant to say was…
• Let me rephrase that…
• Let me put this another way…
• Perhaps I'm not making myself clear…
• The basic idea is…
• One way of looking at it is…
• Another way of looking at it is… What I want to say is…

Indicating the end of your talk

• I’m now approaching / nearing the end of my presentation.
• Well, this brings me to the end of my presentation.
• That covers just about everything I wanted to say about …
• As a final point, I’d like to …
• Finally, I’d like to highlight one key issue. 
• Drawing conclusions and summing up
• The obvious conclusion is ...
• Last but not least ...
• The only alternative (left) is ...
• The only possible solution/conclusion is ...
• In conclusion we can say that ...
• To cut a long story short, ...
• Just to give you the main points again, ...
• In conclusion I would like to say that