CONFERENCE SKILLS
Welcoming the audience is by its nature a fairly formal speech event. However, there
are degrees of formality. Chairs of small-scale events will tend to use less formal
language than they might at larger events.
Activity 1: The following are all expressions used by Chairs to welcome the audience.
Which do you think come from large scale meetings and which from small-scale ones?
Write F for formal and L for less formal.
I would particularly like to welcome
the distinguished guests...
A very warm welcome to
this seminar on...
Thanks very much for coming to our
seminar on ...
May I just take this opportunity to
welcome you to our symposium on ...
I’d just like to thank you for showing
up...
Welcome everyone. Nice to see so
many familiar faces ...
On behalf of the University, I would
like to extend a warm welcome to
everyone here today.
A big welcome to all of you. Thanks
for being here today.
Activity 2: What makes the phrases formal and less formal? Work in pairs and discuss
the main differences.
Activity 3: Practice welcoming an imaginary audience in the following situations.
1. A workshop session in which you know most of the 20 participants.
2. A formal plenary session with an audience of 200 academics.
3. A professional interest meeting at your home university; the audience is made up of
colleagues.
4. An Erasmus visiting teacher being welcomed to the class s/he wants to observe.
If you are the Chair of a particular conference or session, then one of your
responsibilities will probably be to introduce speakers to the audience.
Activity 4: You are going to listen to Professor Glen Hook, who has been a Chair in
many conferences and who explains how he introduces a speaker. Tick ( ) the
information he mentions.
Name
Current position/Title
University/Affiliation
Membership of professional bodies and organizations
Qualifications
Research interests
Current research record or profile
Books published
Articles published
Theories/Concepts the presenter is well-known/famous for
Topic or title of the presentation
Activity 5: Use the following phrases to introduce the presenters below.
It gives me great pleasure to introduce... Our first speaker today is ...
I’m sure we’re all pleased to welcome ... Our next speaker needs no introduction ...
We’re very honoured to have ... I would like to introduce ....
- Brian D. Farrell
- Professor of Biology
- Harvard University, Harvard Entomology, the
Farrell Lab
- Research interest: whether the diversity of species
on earth is a cause or consequence of the diversity
of roles different species play in ecosystems
- Rykken, J. J., and Farrell, B. D. (eds.) 2012. The Management of Insects
in Recreation and Tourism. Cambridge U. Press, Cambridge, UK.
- Clark, A. T., Rykken, J. J., and Farrell, B. D. 2011. The effects of
biogeography on ant diversity and activity on the Boston Harbor Islands,
Massachusetts.
- McKenna, D.D., and Farrell, B. D. 2010. 9-Genes Reinforce the
Phylogeny of Holometabola and Yield Alternate Views on the
Phylogenetic Placement of Strepsiptera. PLoS ONE 5(7): e11887.
Duane McKenna and Brian Farrell. 2009. Beetles (Coleoptera). Pp. 278–
289 in The Timetree of Life, (S. B. Hedges and S. Kumar, Eds.). Oxford
University Press.
Presentation: “Evolution of leaf mining in the beetle
family Buprestidae”
- Luke Robert Bergman
- Assistant Professor of Geography
- University of Washington, Department of
Geography
- Research interest: spatiality and the search for
Chinese modernity
Bergmann, L. (forthcoming). “Bound by Chains of Carbon:
Ecological-Economic Geographies of
Globalization.” Annals of the Association of American
Geographers.
Wallace, R., L. Bergmann, L. Hogerwerf, and M. Gilbert (2010).
Influenza and Public Health: Learning from Past Pandemics.
Earthscan: London, UK.
Presentation: “Globalizing Concepts: Ecology,
Political Economy, and China”
TAKEN FROM: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/learning_english/leap/conferences/