The mother of all demos: signposting language for demos and tech talks
About this lesson
In demos and tech talks, signposting language tells listeners where you are, and this B2 English for IT lesson plan teaches it.
- Grammar
- Signposting for each stage of a demo (Let me start with…, That brings me to…, To sum up…), let me + base form and look forward to + -ing.
- Topic
- A product demo at the sales all-hands of a fictional payments startup, and Douglas Engelbart's 1968 demo, with words such as walkthrough, backup video, screen share and takeaway.
- Activities
- A story and a demo script to read, a rehearsal to hear, self-checking drills, a chat full of interruptions, a presenting wheel, and a demo script to write and record.
What's inside
Chapter 1Warm-up: Show and Tell
Chapter 2The Story: The Mother of All Demos
Chapter 3At Work: Ten Minutes at the All-Hands
Chapter 4Listen: The Rehearsal
Chapter 5Grammar: Moving On to Signposts
- Study the scheme: signposting in a demoGrammar schemeTry it
- Sort the phrases into the stages of a demoSort into columnsUnlock
- Choose the correct option to complete each signpostChoose the optionUnlock
- Rewrite the notes as signposts: fill in the gapsFill in the gapsTry it
- Drag the words into the gaps in Iryna's sprint demoDrag and dropUnlock
- Choose the best signpost for each momentQuizUnlock
Chapter 6Speak Up: Can I Jump In?
Chapter 7Homework: Your Three-Minute Demo
Presentation vocabulary
12 words and phrases from the lesson, each with a picture and audio in edio.
+9 more with pictures and audio in the lessonMore words
- an all-hands
- a screen share
- hypertext
- an interruption
- a takeaway
- rehearse
- move on to
- come back to
- go back
Grammar: signposting language for demos
On a screen share, the audience sees the screen change but not the plan behind it. Signposts fill that gap: short phrases that say where the talk is and what comes next. Working from a product demo for a sales team, learners name each stage before they show it, then check the small grammar inside the phrases.
Signposting: tell people where you are
Signposts are short phrases that tell the audience where you are in a demo and what comes next.
Signposts for every stage
Every stage has its phrases: Let me start with… opens, That brings me to… moves on, As you can see here… points and As I mentioned earlier… goes back. A close needs a summary and a handover: To sum up…, then I'm happy to take questions.
| Stage | Phrases | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Opening | Today I'm going to show you… / Let me start with… | Let me start with the problem. |
| Moving on | Moving on to… / That brings me to… / Next, let's look at… | That brings me to the live part. |
| Pointing | As you can see here… / If you look at the top… | If you look at the top, you'll see the time. |
| Going back or ahead | As I mentioned earlier… / I'll come back to that in a minute. | As I mentioned earlier, the list is read-only. |
| Summing up | To sum up… / So, the key takeaway is… | To sum up, refunds now work with no signal. |
| Handing over to Q&A | I'm happy to take questions. / I look forward to hearing your questions. | That's all from me. I'm happy to take questions. |
Let me show, moving on to testing
Let me and Let's take the base form: Let me show you the list. In moving on to and look forward to, to is a preposition, so a noun or -ing follows: Moving on to testing…, I look forward to hearing your questions.
| Phrase | What follows | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Let me / Let's | the base form (no “to”) | Let me show you the list. / Let's look at it. |
| Moving on to / That brings me to | a noun or -ing | Moving on to testing… / That brings me to the summary. |
| look forward to | -ing (here “to” is a preposition) | I look forward to hearing your questions. |
| As you can see | here, or on + a place | As you can see here… / As you can see on the screen… |
| come back to | a noun or a pronoun | I'll come back to that in a minute. |
Four slips to avoid
Watch for an extra to (Let me to start), a missing one (Moving on the next point), on before here (As you can see on here) and a bare verb after look forward to. All four are traps in the choose-the-option drill.
Let me to start with the problem.
Let me start with the problem.
let me + base form, no “to”
Moving on the next point.
Moving on to the next point.
moving on to + a noun
As you can see on here, the phone has no signal.
As you can see here, the phone has no signal.
no preposition before here
I look forward to hear your questions.
I look forward to hearing your questions.
look forward to + -ing
Mix them, then pause
Saying moving on at every step turns a demo into a list. Rotate That brings me to…, Next, let's look at… and Now for…, and pause for a second after each. The examples follow one demo from its first line to So, the key takeaway is this.
Mix your signposts
Signposts work best when they change: don't say “moving on” at every step. Use That brings me to…, Next, let's look at… or Now for… instead, and pause for a second after each one, so the audience can follow you.
From today's lesson
- Today I'm going to show you the new offline refunds list.Beatriz opens her demo.
- Good question. I'll come back to that in a minute.Beatriz, when Daniel interrupts.
- As you can see here, the phone has no signal.Beatriz points at the screen.
- That brings me to the last step: going back online.Beatriz moves on.
- So, the key takeaway is this: the merchant has an answer, signal or no signal.Beatriz sums up.
Try the signposting language exercises
Try them yourself: these are the same exercises your students do in edio.
What's in the lesson
- 13 auto-checked exercises
- 2 games
- 2 teacher-checked tasks
- 1 real-life document
- 2 articles
- 1 grammar scheme
- 1 set of word cards
- 1 audio clip
- 1 picture
- 1 transcript
The main objectives of this lesson are to:
- start a presentation or demo with a clear plan: Today I'm going to show you the offline refunds list. Let me start with the problem.
- move on and point without repeating yourself: That brings me to the live part. If you look at the top, you'll see the time.
- use the right form after each signpost: Let me show you…, Moving on to testing…, I look forward to hearing your questions.
- give a three-minute demo that survives interruptions: Good question. I'll come back to that in a minute.
The mother of all demos is lesson 13 of English for IT B2 · Beyond the Code and opens unit 5, Demos and tech talks, which builds up to a short demo or talk with a clear structure, emphasis and confident answers to questions. The base form after Let me and Let's goes back to A2.1 lesson 23, A night on Broadway, which teaches suggestions with Let's. Lesson 14 adds cleft sentences for emphasis, and lesson 15 closes the unit with a five-minute demo and questions from role cards.
Students open boxes of questions about demos at work, learn twelve words with pictures and audio, from a live demo to come back to, and name pictures in a quiz. The story follows Douglas Engelbart's live demo of December 1968 in San Francisco, run on a computer about 30 miles away. Beatriz's script for the sales all-hands comes with a true-or-false check and its stages to put in order; in the AI-voiced rehearsal, Daniel plays the sales team and keeps cutting in. Five self-checking drills follow the scheme, among them notes to rewrite as signposts. In the chat, students handle a sales manager's interruptions, and a wheel sets one-minute presentations.
Homework opens with a phrase bank, then a choose-the-option drill on Diego's demo and sentence halves to match, which check themselves. Students then write a three-minute demo script with a backup plan and record its first two minutes, imagined interruption included, for the teacher to review.
- Grammar:
- signposting · let me + base form · to + -ing
- Topic:
- demos · tech talks · Douglas Engelbart
Teaching tips
- Turn the rehearsal into a live game: one student demos an app on their phone while classmates cut in with questions, and every reply must use I'll come back to that or Let me go back a step.
- Ban moving on for one round: pairs retell Beatriz's demo from the phrase bank and must use That brings me to…, Next, let's look at… or Now for… at each step.
- With an in-company group, demo the real tools: each learner walks colleagues through a screen they use daily, with a new signpost at every step and one key takeaway at the end.
- One-to-one, rehearse on a real screen share: the learner demos for two minutes on your video call while you interrupt twice, and then you list together the signposts they used.
Liked it?
Teach the whole lesson in edio
25 exercises in 7 chapters, ready to teach. edio is an online platform for language schools and teachers: ready-made interactive lessons, live classes, homework and student progress in one place.
Start a free trial
7 days, no credit card.
Open the lesson
Find it in the library of 621 ready lessons. Teach it as it is, or copy any chapter into your own lessons.
Teach it live or as homework
Students work in their own accounts, in sync with you during the lesson, and the practice exercises check themselves.
The whole course: English for IT B2 · Beyond the Code
24 lessons at B2 for software teams, in American English. A year on at Kestrel Cloud, a fictional payments startup, Iryna and her team estimate work, write docs and postmortems, argue trade-offs, give demos and negotiate scope. Each lesson starts from a real case, from the Apollo 11 alarms to Conway's law.See the course
Unit 1 Planning and estimates
estimates and deadlines: approximating numbers, the future continuous and perfect, likelihood
Unit 2 Docs people read
specs and design docs: modals for requirements, participle clauses, plain English
Unit 3 Incidents and postmortems
telling an incident without blame: narrative tenses, the passive, the third conditional
Unit 4 Architecture and trade-offs
comparing options and recording decisions: contrast linkers, modals of deduction, mixed conditionals
Unit 5 Demos and tech talks
a clear structure on stage: signposting, cleft sentences, describing trends
Lesson 13 · you're hereThe mother of all demosSignposting language for demos
Lesson 1420 slides, 15 secondsCleft sentences for emphasis
Lesson 15Numbers that tell a storyDescribing graphs and trends
Unit 6 Stakeholders and scope
saying no and finding yes: diplomatic language, as long as and unless, negotiating
Unit 7 AI, security and ethics
AI tools, passwords and team rules: be used to and get used to, past modals of deduction, purpose linkers
Unit 8 Growing your career
feedback, retros and goals: phrasal verbs, reporting verbs, wish and if only
