Our Effective Speaking courses provide doctoral students with practical training in successful oral communication. The courses focus on aspects of speaking such as audience awareness, voice control, vocabulary control, signposting, and body language. They give you the space to rehearse speaking activities such as presentations, vivas and seminars, as well as the day-to-day interactions of academic life. The aim is to upgrade your oral communication through intensive practice and detailed feedback. 

All Effective Speaking courses run for 4 weeks (90 minutes once a week).

  • Each week there will be materials, accessed remotely, to prepare you for the scheduled live session. The remote session is not timetabled, but you are expected to spend a minimum of 30 minutes on the activities. 
  • The group will then meet for a 90-minute live session in which you will have the opportunity to speak (usually in small groups), receive feedback and develop the effectiveness of your oral communication. Sessions focus on both specific tasks and key speaking skills. 
  • After each session, you will be encouraged to reflect on feedback received in class (from your peers and your teacher), to build on this and to further practise in order to hone your skills. This can take a further 30 minutes.

Please make sure you register for the course that corresponds to the stage of your doctoral programme (e.g. if you're in your final year, you should register for Effective Speaking 3). 

Effective Speaking 1 and Effective Speaking 2

Students collaborating on a shared projec

Effective Speaking 1

To guide and support first-year doctoral students during the early months of their doctoral programme.

You will focus on:

  • explaining your research in a coherent, accessible way
  • rehearsing for discussions that may take place as you develop your project plan 
  • explaining key concepts orally
  • adapting explanations and content to the knowledge base of the listener, and
  • negotiating politely.
A student takes part in a discussion during a class

Effective Speaking 2

To prepare doctoral students who have completed at least 5 months of their programme for activities in the run up to their Early Stage Assessment (ESA).

You will focus on being both precise and concise in:

  • speaking about your research area and identifying connections with the research of others
  • discussing gaps in the literature
  • outlining methodologies you plan to adopt
  • giving a detailed technical explanation of your work, and
  • practising answering questions.

Effective presentation skills and Effective Speaking 3

a staff member asking a question

Effective Speaking 3

To prepare 3rd or 4th year doctoral students for a range of activities in the final stages of their PhD.

You will have the opportunity to:

  • practice networking and consider how to use networking as an opportunity to further your career
  • prepare for attending conferences (asking questions and presenting)
  • prepare for your viva and use this viva preparation to explore how to deal with challenging questions, and
  • practise through role play, prepared speaking tasks (the elevator pitch) and discussing approaches to these through pair work and group discussion.
MSc Statistics poster presentation 1

Effective Presentation Skills

To help doctoral students achieve confident and competent communication of their science to a live audience.

The course focuses on:

  • voice control
  • building confidence
  • designing effective PowerPoint slides
  • responding flexibly to your audience 
  • improving pronunciation of key terms, and
  • performance evaluation.

Spring term 2025 classes

Course Day Dates Time Course registration link
Effective Speaking 1 Thursday 30 January - 20 February 2025 14.00 - 15.30 Register now!
Effective Speaking 2 Thursday 27 February - 20 March 2025 14.00 - 15.30 Link will be added when registration is open. Sign up to be notified in this form. 
Preparation for Academic Writing

 

The Business School requests that their students and staff contact their Global Skills Development team about their equivalent to the Centre for Academic English provision. 

CfAE term dates

Autumn term

21/10/24 - 13/12/24

Spring term

27/01/25 - 21/03/25

Summer term

06/05/25 - 27/06/25

Vacation term

07/07/25 - 29/08/25