Speaking Situation: Giving a Short Presentation or Work Update

The Situation

Your manager asks you to present a five-minute update at the team meeting, or you have to present a project in class. You know the content — the challenge is to guide your audience so they can follow easily. Listeners can't go back and re-read, so good presenters tell them where they are all the time.

The Structure

1. Open — greet, purpose, outline
2. Body — two or three points, clearly signposted
3. Close — summary, key message, next steps
4. Questions

Key Phrases

Opening

• Good morning, everyone. Thanks for having me.
• Today I'd like to give you a quick update on...
• The purpose of this presentation is to...
• I've divided my talk into three parts. First,... then,... and finally,...
• It'll take about five minutes, and there'll be time for questions at the end.

Moving between points (signposting)

• Let's start with...
• Moving on to the second point,...
• That brings me to...
• Now let's look at...
• Finally,...

Referring to slides and numbers

• As you can see on this slide,...
• This graph shows...
• If you look at the figures on the right,...
• The key number here is...
• Sales went up by 12% — that's the highest in two years.

Emphasizing

• The important thing to remember is...
• What this means for us is...
• I'd like to highlight...

Closing

• To sum up,...
• So, the key takeaway is...
• Our next steps are...
• Thank you for your attention. I'm happy to take any questions.

Handling questions

Model: A Four-Minute Team Update

"Good morning, everyone. Today I'd like to give you a quick update on the customer support pilot. I've divided it into three parts: what we did, what we found, and what we recommend.

Let's start with what we did. For six weeks, we added a live chat option on the website, available from 9 to 5.

Moving on to what we found. As you can see on this slide, chat now handles about 30% of all customer questions. The key number here is response time: it went down from four hours by email to under five minutes by chat. Customer satisfaction also went up by 12%.

That brings me to our recommendation. We'd like to extend chat to evenings, which means hiring two part-time agents.

So, to sum up: chat is faster, customers like it, and extending it would cost around $40,000 a year. Thank you — I'm happy to take any questions."

Dialogue: Questions After the Presentation

Director: Thanks, Nadia. How does that $40,000 compare to the savings? Nadia: That's a great question. Chat questions take about half the time of emails, so we estimate the team saves around 15 hours a week. I can send the detailed calculation after the meeting. Colleague: Did customers complain about anything? Nadia: A few said the chat window was hard to find on mobile. We're fixing that this month. Director: And what about weekends? Nadia: I don't have weekend data yet, but I'll find out and get back to you by Friday.

Tips

• Tell them what you'll tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them. Repetition helps listeners.
• One idea per slide. Don't read your slides — talk about them.
• Slow down on numbers and repeat the most important one.
• Pause after key points. Silence feels long to you but helps your audience.
• Practise out loud at least twice, with a timer.

Common Mistakes

• "I will present you..." → I'll present to you... / I'd like to show you...
• "On this slide you can see..." repeated on every slide → vary it: This graph shows... / If you look at...
• "Sorry for my English" at the start → don't apologize; just begin confidently.
• Ending with "That's all." → close with a key message and Thank you.

Your Turn: Practise Speaking

1. Prepare a three-minute update on something you know well (a project, your studies, a trip) using the open–body–close structure.
2. Record it. Count how many signposting phrases you used — aim for at least four.
3. Ask a friend to ask two questions, including one you can't answer, and practise the phrases.