Lesson Plan Activities for ESL Teachers: Presentations

Lessons in business English often involve teaching students how to give effective presentations in English. One particular aspect of giving presentations that requires some special vocabulary is turning to and from different topics within a presentation. Help your students learn how to change subjects within their presentations easily by utilizing some of the following ideas in your presentation lesson plans.

Vocabulary often used in presentations to turn to a new topic include the following:

move on (to a new point)

change direction (to a new subject)

Let's continue/proceed (on/to a new point or subject)

Let's turn to (a new subject)

If a presenter wants to tell the audience more about a specific topic, he or she may say something like:

I'd like to elaborate on this.

I want to expand on this point.

Let me tell you more about that.

A speaker may also want to reiterate or elaborate on an earlier point and tell the audience:

Let me go back to (my earlier point).

I want to return to (an earlier point.)

Activity #1

Write out the various vocabulary phrases and sentences on strips of paper. Cut them in the middle of the phrase or sentence. Mix two sections of each phrase or sentence up on a table, and have students match the correct halves together

Activity #2

Repeat Activity #1 above, but have students only match one set of strips. Each student will then have one complete phrase or sentence in his or her possession. Tell the students to find another person in the class that has the same category of phrase or sentence as he or she does. For example, a student with "Let's move on to the next point" might find the student in the room who has "Let's continue on to a new topic."

Activity #3

Write a phrase or sentence on the board from each vocabulary category, but mix up the words in each one. Have students break up into three teams (one for each category). When you give the signal, a student from each team races to the board and rearranges each phrase or sentence and writes it in the correct order.

Activity #4

Students give a short presentation about themselves to the class. They can choose two or three topics to tell the rest of the class about themselves, and they should use the vocabulary discussed during class. For example, a student can tell the class where he was born, then say, "Let me tell you more about the city where I was born," and go on to discuss his favorite parts of his hometown.