Linguistic aspects of presenting research in English: Lessons in style, pronunciation and delivery

Instructors: PhDr. Veronika Quinn Novotná, Ph.D., Mgr. Šárka Císařová

Date & Time: 13th May 2022, 14-17 PM

Location: The lessons will be held either face to face or online, as per Covid-19 restrictions.

Course content:

1. Focus on linguistic and rhetorical aspects and style 
2. Focus on the art of efficient delivery, i.e. overcoming stage-fright, efficient body-language, and the music of English 

Course description

Do you want your presentations to sound authentic and convincing when presenting research at international conferences held either online or face-to-face? Do you wish to adapt your content and style to meet different cultural expectations and polish your pronunciation, and modulate your voice to keep your audiences engaged? This workshop will help you with the above and much more.

In the first part of this 3-hour workshop, we will start from the linguistic aspects of presenting in English; we will explore the means, skills, and tools of how to tailor one’s talk to a specific audience, modify one’s content, organise text clearly, and choose appropriate degree of formality. The linguistic analysis will be followed by a practical application, i.e. we will guide you through drafting your own short speech/presentation, encourage you to experiment with useful language chunks that facilitate delivering professional presentations in English, and give you constructive feedback on accuracy and communicative achievement. 

In the second part, we will pay attention to effective delivery and try out a number of strategies to overcome stage fright and use your voice, gestures, and body language effectively to optimise both your verbal and non-verbal communication skills. We will then learn how to best combine visual aspects with auditory input to make impact and avoid information overload. Finally, you will gain new insights into the music of English, improve the rhythm of your speech, intonation, stress-timing, pitch, linking, and pronunciation of difficult sounds in order to sound more fluent, convincing, and authentic. 

Upon completing the workshop, you will have learned several key principles of presenting successfully online and offline and will be able to boost the delivery of a (scientific/academic/professional) presentation in English to a variety of audiences. You will have received abundant feedback from two highly-experienced tutors and from your research peers. Last but not least, you will also be able to walk away with a fine-tuned summary of your current research project using an appropriate style.    

Level: The workshop will be held in English (recommended level is B1+ and above).

Length: 3 hours (+ two 10-minute breaks)

Instructors:

Veronika Quinn Novotná studied English and German philology at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, where she also earned her Ph.D. in English. She currently works as a lecturer in linguistics at the Faculty of Arts, University of West Bohemia. Since 2015, she has been teaching presentation skills and academic writing in English at the Centre for Academic Writing at the Czech Academy of Sciences. She delivers both online and face-to-face tailored presentations workshops at various research institutes, and universities. In her research, she specialises mainly in Global Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca.

Šárka Císařová holds an MA in English and Swedish philology and a Diploma in TESOL from Trinity College London. She works as a tutor and teacher in both online and face-to-face courses, specialising in developing academic literacy, editing academic texts and translating skills from Czech into English. She has worked for the Technological University in Peru, Oxford TEFL Barcelona, or the Centre for Academic Writing at the Czech Academy of Sciences, where she, among other activities, co-authored courses and workshops on EAP (English for Academic Purposes).