A practitioner’s commentary on Stephen Evans’ “Just wanna give you guys a bit of an update”: Insider perspectives on business presentations in Hong Kong (2013)

Abstract

Evans (2013) analyzed the nature and frequency of Hong Kong professionals' workplace presentations as well as the challenges they faced when delivering these presentations. This commentary analyzes the pedagogical significance of Evans’ (2013) findings, recommends relevant classroom activities, and suggests directions for future research. Specifically, the commentary offers pedagogical activities to address each main challenge Evans (2013) identified from a robust needs analysis: “engaging the interest of the audience through the selection of relevant content, handling questions spontaneously and authoritatively, communicating in a natural spoken style, and integrating clearly designed slides into the flow of a presentation” (p. 205). As an initial step to narrowing the research-pedagogy gap which exists in business English, the commentary underscores the importance of a robust needs analysis which triangulates quantitative and qualitative data from multiple sources to identify learner needs. To address these needs, practitioners can implement research-informed activities using authentic materials. Since some of the challenges identified by Evans (2013) have been discussed in other studies about oral presentations and are likely shared by learners in other contexts, it is hoped that the pedagogical activities targeting these challenges offer practitioners new ways to help learners hone the skills needed to excel at workplace presentations.