Presentations

Today I’m going to make a few comments about giving presentations. Please, please, when you deliver your presentation, give an angle on your topic. In this context angle means point of view. This word is often used in newpaper reporting – when a reporter writes a story he or she writes from a particular viewpoint focusing on a particular part of the subject. This will make us see the topic in a new light and be more interesting. Above all, your presentation needs to have a message. If you choose to do a presentation on a common topic such as the health dangers of smoking then to be honest it is unlikely that you will get a very high mark. Even if your language is very good what new things are you telling your audience? Don’t we all know that smoking is bad for you? There is no new message in your presentation, so what is the point of the presentation at all? But, did you know that 20% of the cigarettes that are smoked in this country have been smuggled into the UK? That means that smokers are contributing to organized crime. Talking about how smoking is actually funding criminal gangs is definitely an angle on smoking that would get you higher marks than talking about its health risks.

The second thing I wanted to mention is the official UK government site on statistics about the UK. It’s here. This site is just fantastic. It is full of accurate figures about the UK. How many people are there in the UK? How many people get married? How many people get divorced? How much do people get paid? This is the best place for all sorts of info and statistics about Britain.

Editing your work – using articles

Another area where students make a lot of mistakes is in using ARTICLES – ‘the’ or ‘a’ or nothing at all! Generally the rules about articles are so difficult that teachers cannot explain them all, or if they did the students would have fallen asleep by the time they finished. (That’s why teachers don’t like doing articles in class!) You cannot learn about articles in a few minutes. It takes a long time. You need some awareness raising activities to help you think about nouns in general and what sort of nouns take articles. I have found a really good exercise on articles from the University of Southampton just here. It will take you some time to work through it. Get yourself a drink and a snack and settle down with a notebook. Turn off your mobile and give yourself a good hour or ninety minutes to work slowly through this interactive exercise. I am sure that by the end of it you will have a better understanding of articles.

The other exercises in the EAP toolkit from Southampton University are not available because you have to pay to use them. This exercise is a freebie, just to show us how good the exercises are. Well, the exercise is good but this blog is about showing you good resources for free on the Internet so we will never know about the other exercises!

Editing your work – subject and verb agreement

I am always quite surprised when even my good students make what I think are simple mistakes in their writing. One mistake which I see again and again is when the verb in the sentence doesn’t agree with the subject.
Example:
Many immigrants who come to Britain works either in highly-skilled or unskilled jobs.
The subject of the verb, immigrants, is in the plural, so the verb works must be in the plural form too. The correct sentence would be:
Many immigrants who come to Britain work either in highly-skilled or unskilled jobs.
It is difficult to explain the effect that mistakes like this have on the reader. The reader often has to stop, think, try to understand, and then carry on – the whole reading experience is made harder and your mark will go down! When you have finished work you should edit it, that means checking it for mistakes. Don’t just read it through, but check it for a particular type of mistake each time.

How to check for subject-verb agreement:
1. Take your first sentence.
2. Circle the subject. Think: is it singular or plural?
3. Circle the verb which goes with that subject. Does it agree? Correct it if you need to.
4. Do the same with the next sentence or clause.

This technique is also good for checking that you have got a subject and verb in your sentence. If you can’t find the subject and verb then you need to think again about your sentence.

I’ve got a good online exercise to help you raise your awareness of subject-verb agreement here. It is rather nicely designed with feedback provided. (Use the NEXT button at the top right to continue to the next question.) Finally, make sure you edit your work for subject-verb agreement each time you think you have finished your work!

The link I’ve given you today comes through a website called English Language Resource Website produced by Damian Rivers in Japan. Wow! It’s now in my list of favourite links on the right-hand side of my page because it is such an impressive collection of resources. I suspect I will often be linking through to Damian’s site! You really should take a long hard look at this site. The links are categorised clearly into different skill areas so if you know what you want to practice (e.g. listening) you’ll find a whole list of online exercises ready to go.

Some of my students in Plymouth are keen to know the answer to the brain teaser that I left you the other day. The man cannot ask ‘Which way is it to the city?’ because he doesn’t know whether or not he is speaking to the woman who always lies or the woman who always tells the truth. The question he asks is:
‘If I ask the other woman which way to go, which way will she send me?’
Then, the man goes in the opposite direction! Think about it!!

Tentative academic language

One feature of academic writing which overseas students often find difficult, and that is using tentative language. Tentative means cautious, or careful. Let me give you an example of language which is NOT tentative:
The Queen of England is very popular and is loved and respected by her subjects.
This sentence is too factual. It sounds like every single of her subjects loves and respects her. Probably there are some people who don’t love and respect her and she might not be popular with everyone.
A better sentence would be one using tentative language, for example:
The Queen of England appears to be very popular and seems to be loved and respected by many of her subjects.
This is much better academic style. You are being cautious, you are ‘hedging’. Of course now I have to show you a link which gives you examples of hedging language and an exercise. Here’s the link to Andy Gillett’s exercise at his fantastic site at the University of Hertfordshire. Choose the HEDGING link at the top of the page you come to. Read his introduction to hedging , his language examples and do the exercise at the bottom. Finally, make sure you try to use this feature in your writing.

I am such a fan of this site that it appears on my list of permanent favourite links on the right-hand side of my page.

I promised you something else to think about. I am going to leave you with a brain teaser – a problem for you to solve. It is not directly relevant to Academic English – but you have to understand the problem and try to solve it in English! Take it away, struggle with it and I’ll give you the answer next time, it’s a good one to try out on your friends. Here it is:
A man is walking along a road in the countryside. He is walking to the city but he doesn’t know his way. He comes to a place where the road divides into two. He doesn’t know which way to go. There are two old women sitting by the side of the road at the junction. He has heard about these two women: one of them always tells the truth and one of them always lies. He doesn’t know which one is which. He wants to ask which road to take to the city. The women tell him that he can ask ONE of them only ONE question. What is the one question that the man can ask to one of the women to be sure of finding the right road to the city? Remember he only has one question, and he doesn’t know which one tells the truth and which one lies and there is a choice of two roads to take.