11 Presenting ee Presentations Communication skills 1 Complete the collocations by writing the nouns in the ph right hand boxes, They ate all things you might do in a presentation. graph point anisoue figures questions ‘Trends and change 2 Read the following news headlines and mark esch of the ‘etbs and nouns of change according to what describes: SA Td AAA The fist three have ben done for you as examples. a Housing slump [ +] as interest rates climb [“] to 7%. b Oil prices reach new peak [ ~] as fear of terrorism increases {| € Asion stocks recover [J after sudden fll{ _] to month towt 4 As China rises 1, pollution soars {—] to atime high C1 © Spanish market stabiizes [ J after two-month side ( f Wild fluctuations { _]in the price of paper destabilize [1 the publishing industry. & Stocks rebound | after substantial losses (Jin early trading. fh Steady decine {in white-collar jobs in the West caused by outsourcing boom |. 72 Past Continuous Affirmative/Negative Interrogative Was he | Wasnt she 1. Match the examples of the Past Continuous (a-d) to what they describe (1-4). ‘aI met my wife while I was working as a teacher in Barcelona, b He was studying to be a doctor when he dropped out of university and decided to go into business instead, © Wewere going to Vienna for a training weekend, but it ‘was cancelled. 4 You were always working late when you had that job in the City. 1. apast action which was interrupted or not completed 2 the background to a more important event 3. epeated actions in the past 4 previous plans 0000 11 PRESENTING 2 Corzect the following conversation. Three of the verbs in the Past Continuous should be in the Past Simple and Inge 4h, Peter. Iwas wondering if I could speak to you? Peter Hello, Inge. Er, sure, Ijust went out for lunch, but, er what was it about? Ingo Well, Iwas seeing Dieter the other day and he told me you're leaving. Poter Oh, well, yeah. Actually, was deciding a month ago, but I didn't think anybody was knowing about it yet. tnge Oh, yes. The whole department talked about it when I came in today. ‘They still talked about it when [left ‘The Past Continuous can suggest a continuing feeling oF arsitude, s0 you can use it when you want to put gentle pressure on someone to do something. + Iewas wondering f you could Belp me. (And I still ams, So will you belp me?) + Leaas looking for something cheaper (And I till am. So bave you got anytbing cheaper?) + Weawere hoping fora bigger dsscunt (And soe still are, So bow about a bigger discount?) Past Perfect Aflirmative/Negative + By the time Larvived atthe party, everyone had left (1) + Iwas bifvay tthe airport before I realized Td forgoten amy pasport. (2)3 Look at the examples on page 72. What happened first: my arziva atthe party or everyone else's departure? bp Put the events in chronological order: getting halfway to the aizport, forgetting your passport, realizing your mistake. ‘Thc Past Perfect is often used to look back from a time in the past to an earlier time. Past Simple, Past Continuous or Past Perfect 4 complete the following anecdote by underlining the most appropriate verb forms. Read the whole sentence before you make your choice. ‘Apparently, there was this guy working fora financial services company inthe City. Anyway, it (a) was being / had ‘been a really tough year, s0 he (b) decided / was deciaing to take a nice long holidey. He (0) just cleared / was just clearing his desk when he (d) suddenly remembered / had suddenly remembered what (2) was happening | hed ‘rapoened the last time he () was / was being off work He (g) was coming / had come back to an inbox containing hundreds of emails. So this time he (n) came up / fad come up witha bright idea to prevent it happening again. ‘What he @) die was doing was this: he () set / had set his computer to automatically sand a message to anyone emailing him, teling them that he (4) was / had been in the Caribbean for two weeks and not to email him again til he () got back / was getting back. Then, just as he (m) was leaving / had fet the office, he (n) thought / was thinking fhe would email his bestfriend and tell him all about his holiday plans. Unfortunately, his best fiend, who (0) was going / had gone on holiday the day before, (p) was setting up / had! ‘set up his computer in exactly the same way. So the two PCs (q) proceeded / were proceeding to emall each other every few seconds forthe whole fortnight, wile these two guys ( were enjoying / had enjoyed themselves ‘on holiday, totally unaware. (6) heard / had heard that so many messages () were finaly bulaing up / had finaly built yp on the company’s server that it (u) crashed / was crashing, costing the firm millions! True story. Austin in accounts told me.” Phrase bank: The language of presentations The following expressions are all useful in presentations, but some letters are missing from the final words. When you have completed them, the letters down the middle should make a good piece of advice for a presenter. Can everybody hear me Right, let’s get Let me introduce I've divided my presentation into three main Just to give you a brief. Tbe saying more about this in a Ym sure the implications of this are clear to ‘There's an important point to be made Okay, let's move Valike you to look at this As you.can see, the figures speak for ‘To go back to what L was saying... Are there any questions you'd like to ask at this Tike to look at this in more Let's just put this into some kind of Pechaps I should expand on that a ‘To digress fora So, to sum ‘That brings me to the end of my ‘Thank you. I'm suve you have many 11 PRESENTING 73