Teaching Presentation Skills
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This article draws on materials originally used on our Delta Module One course and looks at three areas:
a) why learners might need to produce the genre;
b) what organisational and linguistic features they would
need to be able to control in order to do so;
c) how you would teach this area.
a) Why might learners need to produce the genre?
1. Learners
in a wide variety of professional and academic contexts might need to
give presentations. Their audience may be native speakers, or they may be using
English as an international language. Typical contexts include:
2. Business
people working for a multinational company who might need to give
presentations to colleagues working in branches in other countries during
international meetings. Alternatively, if they work for a company with clients
in other countries they may need to present their products/services to them.
This would also be true for other professionals, such as architects, who might
similarly need to present a project proposal to overseas clients.
3. Overseas
doctors working in an English speaking environment might need to present
patient details in case conferences with English native speaking colleagues.
4. Any
type of professional person may wish to present a paper at an international
conference – this could range from doctors to nuclear scientists to NNESTs.
5. In
academic contexts, lecturers working in a university where English is
the medium of delivery for some or all courses – as happens in many
universities from Maastricht to Milan – will need to prepare and deliver
lectures in English. Similarly, their students may be asked to prepare and
give a presentation of a topic in tutorials.
b) What organisational
and linguistic features would learners need to be able to control in order to
do give presentations?
6. Organisation:
The exact structure will differ depending on whether the presentation is given
by a single speaker or is a team presentation. However, typical sections will
be : Introduction – Topic 1 – Topic 2 –
etc – Summary and Conclusion - Questions. Variations are possible – eg
questions may not be left until the end (though this is common) but invited
after each topic has been discussed.
The linguistic features will again depend on the presentation
structure, and also on the aim and topic
of the presentation. Typical features include:
7. Functional
areas and related exponents (examples given) such as:
- introducing oneself (and any other speakers in a team
presentation) if not already known to the audience: My name is and I’m the representative of … / This is my colleague XXX, our sales manager, … - explaining how the presentation will be structured and stating
topics to be covered: First I’d like to
talk about XXX, after which I’ll go on to YYY - introducing the first topic: Right,
let’s start by looking at XXX - referring to slides or other visual aids: As you can see from this graph…
- transition: indicating a move to subsequent topics (and
speakers in a team presentation): OK, that’s all I have
to say about XXX. Let’s now move on to YYY. / Thank you David. I’d now like to
hand over to Jean who’ll talk about… - making recommendations with different degrees of directness: I think this shows that we definitely need
to XXX / I recommend that we XXX / I’d like to suggest that we consider…. - summarising the main points: OK,
so we’ve looked at XXX, YYY, and ZZZ - concluding and inviting questions: Well, that’s all I have to say. Does anyone have any questions.
8. As the
examples above show, in all types of presentation
the speaker will need to use discourse markers (OK, Right, Well…) and sequencing connectives (First, Secondly, Next, Finally etc). Other
connectives (for addition, concession, cause and effect, exemplification,
etc) will also be more or less important depending on the topic of the
presentation.
9. The
topic of the presentation will determine the lexical fields that the
speaker needs to control. Eg a medical presentation will involve the presenter in
using scientific medical terminology, while a marketing manager will need lexis
describing trends (rise, fall, drop,
remain stable, plummet etc).
10. If
presenting to a native speaker audience, the presenter will need to control
certain features of intonation which the audience will be expecting such
as a rise in pitch (or “key” – Brazil, Coulthard and Johns) at the start of a new topic. For example, the pitch of ….I think this is the most crucial point. Turning now to the other problem of… will show a rise before Turning:
Turning now to the other problem of…
….I think this is the most crucial point.
or a drop in pitch to
show equivalence to or explanation of something already said, followed by a
rise for the continuation:
we were expecting a certain drop in sales
but not to the degree we actually experienced…
it was inevitable given the situation
c) How would you teach this area?
through the use of a recorded model.
A videoed model or teacher demonstration may be preferable to an audio recording, and is
necessary to focus on non-organisational or non-linguistic features such as effective body
language.
12. The model can be exploited using a
text-based lesson format and functional approach:
a) First,
comprehension work is done on the text
b) Presentation: the teacher then focuses the learners’
attention on the feature to be presented and practised – eg they are given a
gapped transcript with all the “transition” exponents gapped. Ls predict what
the speaker will say, and the T. accepts all the possible exponents (listing
them on the board and correcting/discarding the incorrect ones). The Ls then
listen again for the actual exponent used.
c) Controlled practice can then be done
of all the exponents elicited using activities such as repetition work, “put the verb in the correct form” gapfills,
matching activities etc. (Eg matching the beginning and ends of about ten sentences
including eg: Beginnings: I look forward
to… / First, I’d like to… Ends: … talk about XXX / …answering your questions).
d) Production: Whether the Ls are immediately asked to transfer the expressions to a
presentation of their own, or whether they need to work on other features
before incorporating them in freer practice will depend on the level.
13. Contrastive models: Instead of
using one “effective” presentation as a model, two can be shown to the Ls – one
effective and the other not. The Ls can then analyse which they prefer and why.
Focus on and practice of the features of the effective presentation can then
continue as above.
14. As learners studying this performance
skill will probably be at least at intermediate level, a test- teach – test
format can be used. The Ls can first be asked to prepare and give a
presentation for which all the necessary information is provided. They can then
identify where they had problems and, by comparing their own presentation with
an effective recorded model, decide where they could have improved their
performance. Work on the features identified can then proceed as above.
15. Individualised work : In a 121
course, or in in-company courses where all the participants come from the same
department, it may well happen that the Ls wish to prepare for a specific
presentation that they need to give in the near future. In this case they can work
together with the teacher first to decide the overall structure of the
presentation, and then on the content and language of each successive section –
with the T. incorporating the analysis of models and practice activities as
necessary and as specified above.
A point to note:
A lot of
learners may need to understand presentations without necessarily needing to
produce them. – ie conference attendees would need all the knowledge mentioned
above in order to understand the
conference presentations, but only receptively. For this type of learner, the same approaches could be used, but the items presented left on a receptive level without asking the learners to use them in presentations of their own.
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