ESL Podcast 896 – Preparing a Speech

 　　Lourdes: I need help.

　　Valery: Sure, what’s up?

　　Lourdes: I’m supposed to give a speech at the start of the conference next month and I don’t know what to do.

　　Valery: It’s not that hard to plan out a speech. You start with an attention getter using humor or telling a personal story.

　　Lourdes: Okay, I guess I can do that.

　　Valery: After that, in your introduction, you should tell the audience what your speech is about in a thesis¹ statement. Along the way, you should establish your credibility by mentioning why you’re qualified² to talk about this topic.

　　Lourdes: All right.

　　Valery: Then, in the body of your speech, you want to state your main points, using supporting ideas, giving examples, and maybe using visuals.

　　Lourdes: Okay.

　　Valery: And finally, in the conclusion, you restate your main points and make some closing remarks. Simple, right?

　　Lourdes: Yeah, simple. One last question.

　　Valery: Shoot.

　　Lourdes: What are you doing the morning of June 20th, and how do you feel about standing³ in for a coworker who plans to be deathly ill?

1 thesis   

n.论题，论点，论文

参考例句：

• His thesis is being finished off.他的论文快写完了。
• He argued his thesis well.他为他的论点进行了有力的辩论。

2 qualified   

adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的

参考例句：

• He is qualified as a complete man of letters.他有资格当真正的文学家。
• We must note that we still lack qualified specialists.我们必须看到我们还缺乏有资质的专家。

3 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。