It is now widely recognized that most university students, especially in EFL learning context, have limited competence with regard to academic spoken English. Oral presentation skills are crucial in fulfilling academic requirements for study in higher education. Related courses, however, are usually not available, especially for students in scientific and engineering fields. Therefore, the current study prepared a workshop for graduate students majoring in science and engineering in a university in southern Taiwan. The aim was to improve the academic speech fluency through explicit instruction in the functions and the use of discipline-related formulaic sequences. The participants' oral performances, before and after the treatment, were evaluated and compared in terms of academic speech fluency via holistic and analytic rubrics. The results from both rubrics suggest explicit instruction in using formulaic sequences is effective in improving learners' academic speech fluency. Pedagogical implications for future curriculum design are provided at the end of the study.