Exercise 4. Match the parts of the phrases:

1. I’m afraid I didn’t

2. Could you rephrase

3. If you don’t mind

4. Let me go back and explain

5. Unfortunately time won't allow me

6. How do you say that

7. I’ll be happy

 

a. To answer your questions at the end.

b. to describe the details of the graph.

c. in English?

d. Quite catch that.

e. I’ll come back to this question later.

f. how we solved the problem.

g. your question, please?

 

Exercise 5. Look at the suggested questions and try to make them more polite.

1. Are there any other options?

2. What would that mean for us?

3. How do we compare with other projects?

4. Will we cooperate with other Universities of the UK?

5. How did she arrive at these results?

6. Are there any figures to back this up?

 

1. May I ask if there are any other options?

2. Do you mind telling me _______________?

3. May I ask___________________________?

4. Can you tell me______________________?

5. Would you mind telling me_____________?

6. Could you tell me____________________?

Exercise 6. Now match the questions from above to the answers.

a. Of course. Basically we have two alternatives…

b. Well, first of all, more work for each of us.

c. Yes, we will. I’ve already contacted the London University.

d. Yes. As I said earlier, I’ll be passing out handouts with the latest data.

e. Very well. At the moment we are on the top.

f. Not at all. They are based on the latest study.

Exercise 7. Decide whether the sentences below are correct or not. Put С if they are correct and I if they are incorrect. Try to correct them.

Model:.I... I'd prefer to answer your question in (at) the end.

 

a. ___ What's the word I'm looking of?

b. ___ I'm afraid that's not my area.

c. ___ I'll just explain this last point shortly.

d. ___ We only have a little minutes left.

e. ___We've almost run out of time.

f. ___That was the wrong word. Let me do again.

g. ___We’ve heard you attentively.

h. ___ Sorry, what should I have said was the following.

 

Exercise 8. Put the following sentences into the correct order.

Model: I’ll be very glad/questions/any/ to answer/ at the end

I’ll be very glad to answer any questions at the end.

1. conclude with / Let me / this very point

________________________________________________________
2. describe/ the key points /Let me / to you

________________________________________________________
3. About the new installation/ I suggest/ I’ll speak to you

________________________________________________________
4. I’m going / actually/ later/ to speak to you about that.

________________________________________________________
5. perhaps/after the presentation/ we could deal with this.

________________________________________________________
6. that /sorry /my /is not/ field

_______________________________________________________

 

UNIT 6

Presenting report

1. Read the text paying special attention to its structure. Identify the main compositional parts.

 

It is a great pleasure for me to attend this session and to have an opportunity to give a talk here.

We cannot expect to remember everything we perceive and despite the advantages of training our memory, why not to take notes. Well, in my talk today I am going to deal with note-taking problems. Though the subject I believe, might be both of theoretical and practical interest. I am going to focus on its practical importance.  

In this talk I shall first present main aspects concerning note-taking. I shall then turn to the discussion of the requirements for note-taking. And finally I shall comment on the ways of encouragement used by the teachers.

I am planning to be brief and take some ten minutes of your time. There will be time for your questions at the end of my talk.

First then, the leading scholars agree that there are two main aspects concerning note-talking: it involves the combination of different skills and it requires the selection of relevant information. Moreover, most authors see note-taking as a complex activity which must be approached gradually.

This brings us to the next point: are there any requirements if we want to take faster and more effective notes. The answer is ‘yes’ First we should have our own set of meaningful abbreviations and symbols. Second, we need to anticipate the sort of information we are going to receive and be ready to write what is really new and important. Third, we need to have a clear purpose and a definite sense of organization for the notes to be taken. We recommend using two methods: ‘Heading and Statements’ and ‘Pre-class outline’.   

  Now I’ll pass over to the problem of note-taking encouragement. Usually, the teacher encourages anticipation before the lecture. If the topic of the lecture is unknown students may use ‘branching notes’. The topic of the lecture is placed in the centre of the page and the rest of the topic branch from it.

In conclusion, I’d like to stress that the last requirement for achieving better notes is to speculate and predict what will be heard or read. Finally, I’d like to highlight one key issue: these strategies pave the way for clearer note-taking.

Thank you very much for your attention and if there are any questions feel free to ask.   

 

2. Study various ways of:

 

a) stating the problem and its importance

 

In my paper I am concerned with…. As is known, in recent years a considerable number of works have appeared on various problems of …. However, no detailed information is so far available on the phenomenon of … which is very important for …. Our research has been undertaken with a view to understand the mechanism of …. Now I will report the data we have obtained.

 

The purpose of my talk today is to consider …. In recent years much interest has been centered around the phenomenon of … because it is very important for clarifying the nature of …. We have performed a series of experiments in order to determine …. Now I will present the results obtained from the experiments.

 

My task today is to report about …. Consideration of these phenomena is highly important as it may help to clarify the nature of ….

 

In this paper I would like to raise some questions related to …

 

b) outlining the structure of the report

 

To begin with, I will consider the theory of ….Then I will concern myself with the methods used. In conclusion, I will make an attempt to ….

 

I’ll start by considering some aspects of …. Further, I’ll pass over to the discussion of …. To conclude, I’ll make some comments on ….

 

I’ll divide my talk into two parts. First, I’ll consider some aspects of …. Then, I’ll concentrate on ….

 

First, I’ll describe …. Then, I’ll be concerned with …. Further, I’ll analyze …. Finally, the results of … will be presented.

 

c) connecting the parts of the report:

 

In general…

In addition to …

With regard to …

It proves that …

Assuming that …

It follows that …

Apart from this …

As a result of …

From the point of view …

Therefore it is reasonable …

Thus…

Furthermore …

 

3. The following phrases may help you:

 

a) to make the composition of the text distinct:

 

At this point I’ll speak in more details about…

Let me now make some comments on …

Let us turn (back) to …

Now, I’ll pass over to …

I would now like to make some remarks on …

I would like to say a few words on …

 

b) to specify and clear up the points being discussed:

 

From this it follows that …

Consequently, it is possible that …

Namely …

On the contrary …

On the one hand … on the other hand…

In other words …

To make it more clear…

This can easily be understood if …

 

c) to draw the attention of the audience to the most important points:

 

It is essential that …

It is particularly important that …

It should be notices that …

I’d like to draw your attention to …

It is interesting to note that …

I should like to emphasize that …

 

d) to conclude the report:

 

From this it can be concluded that …

In conclusion, we will say that …

To sum up, it is evident that …

On the bases of these considerations we may …

 

UNIT 7

Discussing the report