Part One   Introduction

In this unit, we are going to learn about how to improve presentation skills. Some people live for making presentations; others consider it their worst nightmare. But despite that, it’s a vital skill that every college student should make a point of learning. Presentation and communication skills are useful in all walks of life. It’s particularly noticeable once you enter the workforce and need to deliver presentations to clients and colleagues. Believe it or not, college is the best place to learn and to perfect these skills. Don’t worry if you’re a beginner because everyone has to start somewhere. Instead, teach yourself some key skills to get started. After learning this unit, you will gain some important presentation skills, learn how to overcome stage fright and develop your own presentation style.

In this unit, we will learn:

i. about 30 new words and expressions about presentation skills and how to use them in specific context properly;

ii. language skills including: how to rephrase in listening practices, how to identify the author’s tone and guess the meaning of words from the context clues in reading, and how to organize a group presentation;

iii. how to do a group presentation (Project 1). In addition, Project 6 is mainly designed for self-study. You need to study Passages B and C by yourself and learn the SPOCs about reading skills and grammatical competence.

At the end of this unit, we need to summarize the unit from three dimensions: language points, key language skills and intercultural reflection. We will have some language quizzes in class to assess your memorization and understanding. Then we will review the language skills in terms of listening, reading, speaking, writing and translation. Last but not least, you need to critically think about some intercultural reflection questions. The last dimension is the important output to assess your learning as you need to analyze and evaluate what you have learned.