Presenting to the Sharpest Person in the Room
Grammar: Discourse markers and connectors for structured professional speech
A Business English English lesson exploring business.
What's in this lesson
A Business English ESL lesson on business, practising discourse markers and connectors for structured professional speech. The worksheet has a reading, target vocabulary and discussion questions.
From the reading: Presenting to the Sharpest Person in the Room
Steve Yegge was a software engineer at Amazon who once had to present directly to Jeff Bezos, the company's founder and one of the sharpest critics of bad presentations in the business world. Bezos was notorious for reading documents faster than almost anyone in the room and for identifying gaps in thinking that weeks of preparation had somehow missed. Yegge knew, going in, that the odds were stacked against him.
Vocabulary
- peer-to-peer briefing
- spotted a missing
- stacked against
- white space
- catch out
- fill in
- strip out
- swallow up
- turn into
Discussion questions
- Who is the most intimidating person you have ever presented to?
- Do you think over-preparing for a presentation can actually hurt you?
- How do you usually react when someone catches a gap in your work?
Presenting to the Sharpest Person in the Room
Grammar: Discourse markers and connectors for structured professional speech
What's in this lesson:
Full lesson plan with reading, grammar, vocabulary, and discussion.
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