Abstract
Oral presentations are a core component of many business English courses and yet they have been the subject of surprisingly little research in contexts where English functions as a business lingua franca. This article seeks to narrow the gap between the office and the classroom by examining the nature and frequency of English-language presentations in Hong Kong’s major service industries and the challenges that Cantonese-speaking professionals working in these industries experience when planning, organising and delivering presentations in a second language. The article draws on a substantial set of quantitative and qualitative data: two large-scale questionnaire surveys, 31 semi-structured interviews, four case studies and 10 English-mediated conference calls. The findings indicate that presenting in English is a regular part of local professionals’ lives, particularly those working for foreign-owned companies, and that they find four aspects of presentations particularly challenging: engaging the interest of their audience, dealing with questions spontaneously and authoritatively, communicating in a natural spoken style and incorporating PowerPoint slides smoothly into the flow of their presentations.
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