ORAL PRESENTATION ENHANCEMENT

Clare You
University of California Berkeley
Introduction
When a foreign language instructor stands before students, he/she is faced with
two basic questions: what to teach (content) and how to teach (pedagogy) in
order to achieve the desired goals for the students. The general assumption of
what to teach in foreign language courses has been focused on developing four
skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing, based on prescribed dialogues
and stories that are largely culture-neutral, thus most language books' content
and curriculum are indistinguishable from one language to another. It usually
starts from the basics of conversational necessities expanding through the
intermediate and then on to the advanced levels. In more recent years, the
integration of the target language's cultural entity into the content came to play
an important role, as Kramsch points out, as to why it can no longer be left to a
background seat in language teaching.
"Culture in language learning is not an expendable fifth skill, tacked
on, so to speak, to the teaching of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. It is
always in the background right from day one, ready to unsettle the good
language learners when they expect it least, making evident the limitations of
their hard won communicative competence, challenging their ability to make
sense of the world around them." (Kramsch 1993: 1)
And she goes further to say that rather than keeping the teachings of the
traditional four skills separate from the teachings of 'culture,' it should take
cultural context as its core, by bringing in authentic materials, including literary
texts, into the classrooms.
Language teaching methods have journeyed through various paths
under the dichotomous notions of the old (traditional) versus the new
(innovative); we find grammar-based vs. function-based, teacher-centered vs.
student-centered, cognitive vs. experimental learning, and learning-based vs.
acquisition-based pedagogy and technological approach vs. self-directed
teaching (Nunan and Lamb 19936: 120). On another path, as the professionals
tried to look for an ideal language teaching method, they found it in the
audiolingual approach in the l940's which was superceded by the functional
approach in the 1970's, and again then by the proficiency-based approach in the
1980's, and by the communicative approach of today. Out of the morass of the
methodologies and philosophies on language teaching, we realize that there are
occasions in which any one of the above methods can be best suited for
satisfying certain goals in a given context.

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However, it is generally believed today that the student-centered communicative

approach helps students to perform best and retain more when students elect
what to read, write and talk about based on their interest and needs. Also,
working as a group, they are encouraged to work cooperatively and support each
other in their endeavor of learning a foreign language within the cultural
context, drawing different ideas from each member of the group. With these
premises in mind, we will show how the following task-oriented oral
presentation enhancement activity project was implemented.
Oral Presentation Enhancement Project Using Transparencies
Why and how the activity project came about
In our student satisfaction surveys, the most often mentioned words are, "not
enough conversation," "not enough improvements in speaking," and "more
cooperative work." It is clear, whether it is the perceived or the real needs on the
part of students as we felt their oral skills were better than reading and writing,
that we need to address this issue in a different way from what has been tried
(skits, mock interviews, self introduction, short speeches, discussions, debates)
along with various activities contributing to develop oral fluency, as
summarized by Parrott (1993:201).
a. Information-gap activities
b. Ranking activities
c. Jigsaw activities
d. Guessing activities
e. Problems-solving activities
f. Role play
g. Group discussion
h. Project-based activities
I. Prepared monologues (reporting, explaining, narrating, describing,
etc.)
This activity project, falling in the two types of the above categories, h (projectbased) and i (prepared monologues) initially aimed at enhancement of students'
oral skills was also found to be useful for evaluating their final oral fluency and
writing skills because the project was completed at the end of the second
semester (of the intermediate level).
Preparation
Before implementing this task-oriented group project, we considered the
following questions:
1. What are the objectives of the project task?

Oral Presentation Enhancement 183

2.
3.
4.
5.

What activities will help to reach these objectives?

What resources are needed and available?
What would be a reasonable time period to complete the project?
What kind of assessment could tell instructors and students that the
objectives have been achieved?

Objectives
To enhance oral fluency and develop culture knowledge.
Theme
Any topic related to Korea.
Resources
Korean books, magazines, newspapers, TV programs, videos, films,
interviews with Korean speakers.
Materials
1. Transparencies for the individual student's topic prepared by the
students.
2. Worksheets and evaluation sheets for students prepared by the
instructor. (See attached.)]
3. (Optional) Key vocabulary lists for each group prepared by the students
and finalized by the instructor.
Time
1.
2.

Project guidelines are given two to three weeks in advance for

preparation.
4 to 6 minutes for individual presentation and 20 minutes for each
group.

Procedure
1. Divide the students into groups of three or four. The grouping may be
based on certain attributes (interests, class level, gender, their language
proficiency, or their preference) or it may be a random mix (by
drawing, alphabetic order, or sitting proximity). Instructors need to
weigh both approaches as they may have positive and negative
consequences in the students' performances.
2. Each group will select a topic, an object or idea that is related to Korea
in any way after conferring with the members of the group.
3. Each student of the group is then to select a sub-topic of the main topic.
4. Each student will make one picture/photo transparency representing
his/her talk.
5. Each student will write a one-page summary of his/her findings on the
topic. It can be turned in for correction by instructors or have it looked

184 Clare You

6.
7.

over by a Korean speaker at least one week before the presentation

date.
As a group, each student gives a 4 to 6 minute talk on his/her findings
using the transparency without notes or summary texts.
Optionally, each student prepares a list of 5 to 10 key words important
to his/her talk and hands it out to students before the presentations.

Evaluation
1. After each group presentation is finished, the audience asks questions
or makes comments using their notes on the worksheet. The students
make an informal evaluation of the presentations on the workevaluation sheet which is turned in at the end of the class.
2. All presentations are recorded and students are asked to submit their
summary sheets on which their oral presentations were based, for
further evaluation by the instructors. (To provide a more secure and
less intimidating environment, our instructors did not evaluate the
students during their presentations.)
Follow-up comment
This task was aimed initially not so much at evaluating student performances but
at encouraging and promoting oral fluency beyond their basic skills, drawing on
the cultural information. As evidenced in their sample works, students were
creative, interested and highly motivated. Their performances in speaking and
writing were more informative, interesting and serious than the usual skits and
other forms of oral presentations in the previous projects.
As participants in this project, the students, either as speakers or as an
audience, engaged in the following activities that the pedagogical theories of
foreign language teaching/learning promote:
1. writing
explaining/describing Korean related stories, ideas, interests, facts
or things.
summarizing the research on a Korean related thing.
jotting down information, facts, comments or questions (as an
audience)
2. producing/selecting transparencies
related to Korean custom, history, people, culture, data, and maps.
in a logical or sequential order of presentation.
collaboratively put together materials for co-participation.
3. speaking/orally presenting
explaining/describing/narrating/reporting his/her findings through
reading, watching, asking, interviewing, or participating in events
(as a presenter).

Oral Presentation Enhancement 185

answering questions, clarifying ambiguities, and/or adding

explanations based on his/her presentation (as a presenter).
asking questions, making comments and/or adding information (as
an audience).
listening
to their fellow students' presentations.
to the follow-up questions and answers.
watching
the transparencies on many aspects of Korean life, custom and
culture.
discussing/comparing
individual students' findings with those of co-participants and
group members.
as a class discussion.
evaluating
student's informal evaluation on the presentation.
teacher's evaluation on the presentation.

4.

5.
6.

7.

This task engaged the students in the role of 1) a initiator as they needed to
initiate their own research for the speaking. 2) a researcher as each had to
research his/her topic, and 3) a negotiator as they worked collaboratively in
selecting the topic and negotiating who was to do which part, pooling their
knowledge together to present as a team.
For this project there were other technologies available (videos, TV and
radio programs, audiotapes, CDs, etc.) but using transparencies had the benefits
of:
being affordable and available anywhere and for any student.
being simple to make.
providing visual cues/support for the speaker
providing a comfort zone for some speakers by diverting the stare of
the audience away from the speaker to the transparency.
being helpful to the audience in understanding the presentation
/speaking.
Having to read, watch or hear about their topic and selecting the most
meaningful item by searching through photos, pictures, drawings or data, the
students had a greater experience in learning and an impact on retaining the
information about Korea than having it handed out to them. Their transparencies
were full of cultural or factual information, their writings on the topics were well
organized and quite advanced compared to what was expected of them. This led
us to believe their potential should not be underestimated in language teaching
classrooms as in any other classes.

186 Clare You

This experience also led us to agree with Macdonald & RogersGordon's statement that "students perform best and retain a foreign language
more successfully when they involve themselves in choosing what to say, what
to read, what to write in a secure, supportive environment."
This talk will conclude with presenting one or two student works.
References
Parrott, M. 1993. Tasks for Language Teachers. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Macdonald, M. and S. Rogers-Gordon. 1984. Action Plans: 80 Student-Centered
Language Activities. Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers.
Kramsch, C. 1993. Context and Culture in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford
University Press
Nunan, D. and C. Lamb. 1996. The Self-Directed Teacher: Managing the
learning process. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hadfield, J. 1992. Classroom Dynamics. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Oral Presentation Enhancement 187

Student Questions and Comments Worksheet

Presentation title: ____________________________________
Transparency #1
(one word description)

Presenter's name: __________________________

Comments or Questions:
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
How well did you understand his/her talk?
100-80%
70-50%

40-20%

What was easy/difficult to understand?

___________________________________________
What was interesting/not interesting in the talk?
___________________________________________

Transparency #2
(one word description)

Presenter's name: __________________________

Comments or Questions:
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
How well did you understand his/her talk?
100-80%
70-50%

40-20%

What was easy/difficult to understand?

___________________________________________
What was interesting/not interesting in the talk?
___________________________________________

Transparency #3
(one word description)

Presenter's name: __________________________

Comments or Questions:
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
How well did you understand his/her talk?
100-80%
70-50%

40-20%

What was easy/difficult to understand?

___________________________________________
What was interesting/not interesting in the talk?
___________________________________________