7. Practice 2

There are some techniques for getting the immediate attention of the audience. If you want to “hook” your audience:

- give them a problem to think about;

- give them some amazing facts;

- give them a story or personal anecdote.

Prepare effective openings using the frames below.

1. Problem technique

1. Suppose…………………………………………………………………………..

How would you………………………………………………………………….?

2. Have you ever wondered why it is that ………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………….? You have?

Well, if I could show you ……………………………………………………….

…….……………………………………………………..would you be interested?

3. How many people here this morning/ afternoon/ evening ………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………?

Well, imagine ……………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………. . Do you think that’s possible?

2. Amazing facts technique

1. Did you know that……………………………………………………………….?

2. According to the latest study, ……………………………………………………

3. Statistics show that ……………………………………………………………….

4. I read somewhere the other day that ……………………………………………...

3. Story / anecdote technique

1. You know, ……………………………………………………………………….

When I think about ………………………………………………………………

I’m reminded of …………………………………………………………………

2. Have you ever been in the situation where ……………………………………...?

I remember when ……………………………………………………………….

It turned out ……………………………………………………………………..

Practice 3

Read the beginning of the lecture on climate change and underline all the techniques used in this introduction. Answer the following questions: Is it a good introduction? What are its strong/weak points?

I’m going to talk to you today about climate change, because I think it’s one of the most serious problems that faces humanity at the beginning of the 21^st century. Climate change seems to be on everybody’s lips these days. Quite frequently in the news media we hear about extreme weather events, floods, droughts, strange snowfalls, and increasingly people are questioning whether these are actually natural events or they ‘re perhaps the result of the impacts of Man’s activities on the Earth’s climate. But what I want to know is if there’s apparently such widespread concern and belief about climate change, why is it apparently so difficult for international governments to tackle? So in this talk I’m going to start off by reviewing the evidence for believing that climate change is a real phenomenon and is actually happening. And then I’m going to go on to think about why is it so difficult to get international action to address climate change.

8. Practice 4

Analyze the following introductions and make a list of useful techniques.

Introduction 1

Good morning! Before I get down to the serious business of the presentation, I’d like you to think for a few seconds what the letters, C and A, stand for …

No, it’s not the famous store! In this case the letters stand for chocolate addiction, which is the subject of my presentation. My first point will be to define what chocolate addiction is, in the scientific sense, that is. Then, I’ll give you some clinical data about chocolate addiction - this, I’m sure, will be of particular interest to those of you involved in the area of hyperactive children. And finally, I’ll describe the treatment suitable for acute forms of addiction.