VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* DƢƠNG LAN HƢƠNG A STUDY ON AN EXAMPLE OF NON – VERBAL INTERACTION BETWEEN THE PRESENTER AND AUDIENCE FOR ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT THE SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES – THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Nghiên cứu tƣơng tác ngƣời thuyết trình khán giả sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh Khoa Ngoại ngữ - Đại học Thái Nguyên M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 Hanoi, 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* DƢƠNG LAN HƢƠNG A STUDY ON AN EXAMPLE OF NON – VERBAL INTERACTION BETWEEN THE PRESENTER AND AUDIENCE FOR ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT THE SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES – THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY Nghiên cứu tƣơng tác ngƣời thuyết trình khán giả sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh Khoa Ngoại ngữ - Đại học Thái Nguyên M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 SUPERVISOR: DƢƠNG ĐỨC MINH, PhD Hanoi, 2014 DECLARATION This thesis is a presentation of my original research work Wherever contributions of others are involved, every effort is made to indicate this clearly, with due reference to the literature, and acknowledgement of collaborative research and discussions The work was done under the guidance of my supervisor, Duong Duc Minh, PhD at the University of Languages and International Studies, VNU Student’s name Duong Lan Huong In my capacity as supervisor ofthe candidate’s thesis, I certify that the above statements are true to the best of my knowledge Supervisor Duong Duc Minh, PhD Date: Hanoi, Ausgust 19h 2014 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I particularly acknowledge my heartfelt gratefulness to my supervisor – Duong Duc Minh, PhD for his extensive knowledge, guidance, patience, invaluable advices as well as useful comments It would have been impossible to conduct this thesis for me without his great support Secondly, I would like to express my thankfulness to Faculty of PostGraduate Studies and the lecturers at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University - Hanoi for giving me a great opportunity to conduct a study on the subject of interaction in presentation Especially, I also wish to thank all lecturers of the English Department of presentation subject or other subjects that practice presentation who helped me many worthwhile lessons and essential skills on presenting in general and interaction in particular Last but not least, I would like to send my great appreciation to all my family, my friends as well as the students who have always encourages me to complete the thesis Ha Noi, August 2014 ii ABSTRACT This study is an investigation into the non-verbal interaction between the presenter and the audience for English majored students at the School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University with the purpose of indicating factors influencing the interaction in students’ presentation This investigation is conducted on forty fourth-year English majored students at upper-intermediate level of English proficiency in the School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University The main data collection instrument of this investigation is a questionnaire named Interaction Inventory for Language Presenting The supplemental instrument is the Process questionnaire designed mainly to gain the subjects’ background information The results of the study are analyzed and discussed to table out how students use these factors to improve their interaction skills From the results, some suggestions for students and teachers at the School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University are offered to intensify the interacting quality in presentation iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL: English as a foreign language SFL: School of Foreign Languages TNU: Thai Nguyen University IILP: Interaction Inventory for Language Presenting Q&A: Question-and-Answer iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Topic selection and audience analysis 20 Table 2: Dealing with nervousness 21 Table 3: Using visual aids 23 Table 4: Using body languages 24 Table 5: Making interest 26 Table 6: Question-and-Answer section .28 v TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv LIST OF TABLES v TABLE OF CONTENTS vi PART I INTRODUCTION .1 Rationale of the Study Aims of the Study Research Question Scope of the Study Significance of the Study Design of the Study PART B DEVELOPMENT .5 CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Fundamentals of Presentation 1.1.1 Definition of Presentation 1.1.2 The importance of Presentation 1.2 Interaction in Presentation 1.3 Factors influencing interaction in Presentation 1.3.1 Topic selection 1.3.2 Audience analysis 1.3.3 Organization 1.3.4 Stage fright 1.3.5 Visual aids 10 1.3.6 Making interest 11 1.3.7 Eye contact and facial expressions 12 1.3.8 Body language 12 vi 1.3.9 Voice 12 1.3.10 Question – and – Answer periods 13 1.3.11 Language 13 1.4 Summary 14 CHAPTER METHODOLOGY 15 2.1 Paticipants and Setting of the Study 15 2.1.1 Paticipants 15 2.1.2 Setting of the Study 15 2.2 Data Collection 16 2.2.1 Data collection Instruments 16 2.2.2 Data collection Procedures 17 2.2.3 Data analysis Procedures 18 2.2.4 Summary 19 CHAPTER FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 20 3.1 Findings and Discussion 20 3.1.1 Students’ preparation before the presentation (Question 1- 6) 20 3.1.2 Students’ performances in the presentaion (Question 7-12) 24 3.1.3 Students’ activities after finishing presenation (Question 13) 28 3.2 Pedagogical implications 29 3.2.1 Suggestions for students 29 3.2.2 Suggestions for teachers 31 PART C CONCLUSION .33 Conclusion: 33 Limitations of the Study 34 Suggestions for further Study 35 REFERENCES 36 APPENDIX 1.1 Interaction Inventory for Language Presenting (IILP) I APPENDIX 1.2 The analysis of the subjects’ responses in the IILP Questionnaire III vii PART I INTRODUCTION Rationale of the Study In today’s world of cooperation and trading, being capable of mastering a variety of skills is more necessary than ever Among those vital skills, presentation has recently emerged as a phenomenon addressing concern of many people In the book Presentation Zen, Garr Reynold states: “The ability to stand and deliver a powerful presentation that engages each audience’s whole mind has never been more important than today Some have called our modern era “presentation generation” Presentation skills are highly expected by both employers those who look for a skillful labor force of the company and employees those who always desire for an ideal job in their life Moreover, presentation passes the range of need to become an area of interest While ones people make presentation as an assigned task, others make this simply because of their passion Not only does getting acquainted with this area help people develop in their academic careers and become much more confident but it also plays an important role in perfecting their essential skills and expanding social network One thing which marks the breakthrough of the way the teachers teach their students and the ways the students learn things is the appearance and development of the Oral Presentation Students are asked to make presentation in many subjects Therefore, learning presentation skills is, without any doubt, very useful for students to initiatively acquire and practice the languages that they are studying As the matter of fact, for many foreign language learners, presentation is one of the most difficult tasks they encounter during their learning session; because through subjects that require students to make presentations, there are a number of problems related to presentation skills that they confront with such as overload of information, body language, interaction between audiences and presenters, illustration, etc Typically, the biggest problem that presenters are facing is the interaction with their audience; many presenters cannot lead their audiences to be interested in the speech for many reasons use visual aids or some other activities in the body of their presentation but not much these students This point shows that creating interest is a very important method in delivering a presentation From the very beginning students need to create interest and continue doing so throughout the speech in order to best perform and effectively interact with the audience in their presentation Also shown in Table 5, the majority of the students just stand still while delivering a presentation with 42% occasionally true and 15% never true Conversely, the minority of the totals know how to move while talking to their audience in a presentation with just 8% usually true and 5% always true There are 12 students corresponding with 30% of the totals who sometimes properly use their movement The findings indicate that there are many students who are not aware of the importance of movements with 57% of the totals The opinion of (James, 1995, p.89) is that, “Movement, actually moving the presenters’ body from one spot to another, tells the audience several things” Movement also benefits the students because moving around uses up some nervous energy and provides a positive way to release natural tension that usually causes students’ anxiety Therefore, the group of students who always stand still in a spot while presenting should master these importance things of movement to improve their interaction with their audience in presentation Moreover voice can have great effect on presenters’ performance It can help people believe in what speakers have to say or conversely it can start to undermine their message or make people doubt speakers’ credibility It takes skill to make full use of speakers’ voice; create the impact they really want; and be able to enjoy the powerful effect it can have on the audience Therefore, in order to find out how students create vocal effects on their listeners, the following question were raised up The above table demonstrates that nearly a half of the students can take full advantage of their voice and control their vocal delivery effectively with 17% always true and 25% usually true On the other side, more than a half of the totals cannot 27 make use of their voice even it is their nature with 38% sometime true and 20% occasionally true There are no students who choose the option never true The numbers in Table also indicates the voice has endless emotional capacity, and is able to make deepest impressions upon its listeners This is the great perspective because vocal delivery is able to create suspense, enthusiasm, and excitement to complement the message, to make the presentation much more vivid and easier for listeners to follow These students not talk at the same pace all the time They pause from time to time and sometimes keep silent in a few seconds just as effective as words Most of them can adjust their voice to the size of their audience suitably 3.1.3 Students’ activities after finishing presenation (Question 13) 3.1.3.1 Question and Answer section (Question 13) There will be a Q&A section after a presentation” These words may strike fear into the hearts of many students because they worry about being surprised or caught off guard A Q&A section is a question-and-answer time following a presentation The last question in IILP questionnaire aims at figuring out how students prepare for and deal with this stage Table 6: Question and Answer section Option Question 13 Always Usually Sometimes Occasionally Never true true true true true 8% 21% 37% 28% 6% The table shows that the minority of the students prepares answers to questions that their audience may ask them after a presentation and practices responding to these questions There are 37% sometimes prepare answers for anticipated questions at the end of a presentation Contrary to this, there are 34% students who never or occasionally prepare any answers for possible questions of listeners 28 The two major steps in preparing are working out answers to possible questions and practicing the delivery of those answers Students should practice their speech in front of friends, family, then ask them to jot down any questions they may have Keep track of all the questions and take the time to formulate answers Students should write their answers in full to make sure they have thought them through completely As students rehearse, they should work on making their answers brief and to the point Some people will ask questions this presenter had not anticipated, and some of the questions he or she anticipated may not get asked at all But if students go into the Q&A period fully prepared, they will find it much easier to adapt to whatever occurs 3.2 Pedagogical Implications This section consists of two implications; firstly, some suggestions for students are discussed; secondly, some suggestions for teachers are also presented 3.2.1 Suggestions for students According to experts on oral presentation skills, in order to become effective presenters, students should set up good speaking habits, namely, they should adopt good presentation strategies, such as, selecting topic, analyzing audience, organizing content and language, using the voice, body language, eye contact and facial expressions, applying visual aids, making interest, dealing with nervousness, practicing answering anticipated questions in the Q&A section, and learning from their presentations (Gregory, 2005) because presentation strategies are the tools to improve one’s presentation competence Students need to comprehend that a presentation is divided into three stages, pre-presenting, while presenting and post presenting In each stage, there are some strategies that students can apply to improve their interaction skills particularly and presentation competence generally Before going to prepare for any presentation, it is necessary for students to investigate who their audience are; what their needs and desires are; if their listeners will find their topic important, enjoyable, or useful; and how their audience might react to them All of these questions need to be answered 29 carefully by students before any presentation Besides analyzing the audience, students also need to select a suitable topic that is appropriate not only to the audiences’ desires but also to their interest themselves Organization will help students prepare their presentation As the students organize their presentation, they will be able to see if they have adequately and fairly supported each of their main points and if they are devoting approximately equal time to each of their main propositions Organization will also help students to remember their ideas more easily Another efficient strategy that students also need to pay attention to is the language use in their presentation Moreover, students should think about what they are going to say and how they can express them clearly and accurately Students should practice the talk three times orally in front of a mirror, with someone listening, or with a video or tape recorder, they can evaluate themselves: they can hear what their voice sounds like and observe their nonverbal communication Body language has the great deal on the interaction between students and their listeners It includes gestures, postures and movement Students should learn how to direct the audience by their eyes, facial expressions, especially their smiles because the smiles can make listeners feel comfortable and relaxed even they are listening to an academic or serious topic There are many kinds of visual aids used in presentation such as chalkboard, posters, handouts, slide projectors, etc Students should learn the advantages and disadvantages of each one to make use of it Most of the students surveyed in this study usually use handouts, posters and slide projectors as the most effective visual aids Before going to use any kind of them, students must consider whether it is suitable to their message and their listeners In addition, one of our students’ great obstacles to presenting in English is to overcome nervousness Students should be relaxed because relaxation can help anxiety, students can choose to take a deep breathe or smile at the audience and this increases their 30 confidence Students should be interactive because interactive exercises will help to create a positive dialogue with participants where they have opportunities to share their own knowledge Finally, students can draw experiences by learning from their presentation Students are supposed to learn how to evaluate their own presentations As for evaluation, here, the term should be understood as self-evaluation Students themselves use clear criteria to evaluate their own performance as objectively as they can In doing so, students can formulate the idea of their level of proficiency, know their weak and strong points and set the targets for their next presentation In turn, by planning the directions of progress for themselves, students are more likely to consider the targets they own and feel responsible for reaching them To sum up, there is an old saying that “practice makes perfect” Students should keep practicing all the above strategies to become the successful presenters 3.2.2 Suggestions for teachers Firstly, students think that teachers should focus them on the language use for presentations, giving them models of language, useful expressions, and model presentations Most of students expect teachers to provide them with model presentations, including necessary vocabulary and functional language for an effective presentation or introduce the organization, format and criteria of a presentation in English Also, they want the teachers to give them regular checklists to help them put the advice into practice Secondly, students believe that the teachers should teach them the verbal skills necessary for an effective presentation Many students think that the teachers could this by demonstrating for them when is needful to raise the voice, when is necessary to use pace and pause their voice in delivering a speech The teachers could ask students to practice speaking then record their voice and analyze it to indicate students’ weak and strong points This makes students not only to practice speaking, improve their oral fluency and accuracy but also to learn from experiences 31 Finally, students comment that the teachers need to help students to improve their pronunciation Most of them believe that it is the teachers’ job to insist the students to focus on their pronunciation Some of them suggest that before they start their presentations, the teachers should draw their attention to their pronunciation, for example, emphasizing the key words, using appropriate intonation patterns Also, the teachers should give the students as much as practice as they could so that the students would be able to apply the teacher’s advices into practice According to them, one of the pronunciation practices is to help the students notice the correct pronunciation of a word or phrase in English 32 PART C CONCLUSIONS Conclusions: This study aimed at indicating the importance of non – verbal interaction between the presenter and the audience in presentation In addition, this study mostly focused on investigating factors influencing interaction skills to help the fourth year English major students at the SFL, TNU to interact with the audience as the successful presenters during the presentation skill Moreover, the study has provided readers with a detailed description of students’ difficulties in oral presentation The study reveals that second year English majoreds at the School of Foreign Languages have different problems with different categories While it can be inferred that not many students put up with difficulties in preparation and organization, they get into trouble with oral presentation delivery Specifically, students share the common point that it is very tough for them to deliver an oral presentation confidently without having any pronunciation or grammar errors Additionally, they find keeping in contact with audience not very easy to maintain In addition, the study is conducted to particularly analyze possible factors that most students experienced in presentation including topic selection, audience analysis, organization, stage fright, visual aids, eye contact and facial expressions, body language, voice, Q&A period, and language use in presentation Students can all know these factors before but they not really know how to master and take full advantages of them As can be seen from the results, analysis and discussions, there are different uses of these factors between different subjects with different levels The effective presenter is the person who can make use of such factors in delivering a presentation and know each factor’s advantages as well as disadvantages Followings are the implications, limitations of the study and some suggestions for further studies The study is an attempt to figure out the definition of interaction between the presenters and the audience in presentation process, its importance and factors 33 influencing interaction The intention of this study is for students at the SFL, TNU who may have interest in improving interaction skills in particular and presentation skills in general In conclusion, interacting with the audience in the presentation involves various techniques that are quite easily comprehended if well learnt and regularly practiced Interaction helps to improve the quality of the presentation, involve the audience to participate in the presenters’ speech, and build the presenters’ skills as well as competence Moreover presentation is a typical part of a language, consequently, when delivering presentations in English, particularly students at School of Foreign Languages, cannot avoid certain problems However, with the discovered difficulties and proposed solution, it is hoped that the circumstance will be improved Limitations of the Study It is said by Murray and Beglar (2009) that no study is perfect; however, it can be conducted as perfectly as possible For that reason, some limitations of the current research need discussing so that further research can be improved to produce more trustworthy and accurate results Firstly, it is the matter of participants In comparison with the total number of more than 200 English majors, the number of 40 students participating in the study might not be convinced enough to represent all the students of English at the School of Foreign Languages Secondly, the subjects are students who have only been studying presentation for one term with the oral presentation subject in the last semester They have not been exposed to wide range of practical experience in interacting with the audience in presentation Thus, it is hard to require them to have deep knowledge about the skill, which is mainly gained through practice not theory In addition, the subjects’ answers to the IILP questionnaire may be less trustworthy because their responses were decided on the basis of their own experience Therefore, it is difficult to determine whether it is completely authentic or not Furthermore, the results analyses are based on the writer’s personal evaluation of tables And these figures only indicate the students’ subjective viewpoints, not 34 their real practice of presentation It is impossible to reach an explicit conclusion about the level of presenting acquisition of the students Suggestions for further Study With the aim of overcoming such limitations, there should be a qualitative research for further study with the larger amount and different levels of the subjects because it could provide stronger evidence by the real presenting practice Thereby, several data collection methods should be combined in order to have better information Furthermore, the skills in presentation are not merely interaction between the presenter and the audience, they can also be many other things, and all of them should be cared about 35 REFERENCES Al-Issa, A (2005) The place of English language culture in the Omani ELT system: An ideological perspective Language, Culture, and Curriculum, 18, pp 258-270 Al-Issa, A (2006a) Ideologies governing teaching the language skills in the Omani ELT system Journal of Language & learning, 4, Al-Issa, A (2006b) Language problems facing Omani learners of English ORTESOL, 24, pp.19-26 Al-Issa, A (2007a) English language teaching at the College of Law-Muscat, Sultanate of Oman: Analyzing needs and understanding problems Asian Journal of English Language Teaching, 17, pp.65-68 Al-Issa, A (2007b) The implications of implementing a “flexible” syllabus for ESL policy in the Sultanate of Oman RELC Journal, 38, pp.199-215 Al-Mutawa, N., & Kailani, T (1989) Methods of teaching English to Arab students London, 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true very true of you We are looking forward to seeing the way you present English and how you interact with your audience Please read the statement carefully and circle the number that best describes you.Your answers will be studied and, if they are frank and accurate, they will be an invaluable help in my research presentation I communicate ideas with enthusiasm I put all information and ideas of the presentation in my slides I 5 I use both energy and composure in delivering a Never presentation I throughly analyze my audience before a Occasionally I usually choose a topic that I like best Sometimes Question Usually No Always Thank you very much for your assistance! I rehearse so there is a minimum focus on notes or slides (reading from them) and maximum 5 5 5 5 attention paid to my audience 10 11 12 13 I maintain good eye contact with the audience at all the time I keep my facial expressions natural and friendly My gestures are natural and not constrained by anxiety I use illustration or real life story in my presentation I usually move around class and closer to the audience My voice is strong and clear is not a monotone I prepare answers to anticipated questions and practice responding to them II APPENDIX 1.2 The analysis of the subjects’ responses in the IILP Never Sometimes Usually Always Question Total No Occasionally Questionnaires N I usually choose a topic that I like best % N % N % N % N % 40 18 44 20 20 16 0 40 10 10 13 32 16 40 40 13 32 11 28 12 30 40 16 14 35 19 10 25 40 11 13 19 10 25 13 32 40 10 20 13 32 10 26 12 I thoroughly analyze my audience before a presentation I use both energy and composure in delivering a presentation I communicate ideas with enthusiasm I put all information and ideas of the presentation in my slides I rehearse so there is a minimum focus on notes or slides (reading from them) and maximum attention paid to my audience III I maintain good eye contact with the audience at all the 40 10 16 40 12 30 15 40 17 11 27 10 25 23 40 10 20 15 38 12 30 40 12 30 17 16 40 40 12 30 17 42 15 40 17 10 25 15 38 20 0 40 8 21 12 37 11 28 time I keep my facial expressions natural and friendly My gestures are natural and not constrained by anxiety I use illustration or real 10 life story in my presentation I usually move around 11 class and closer to the audience My voice is strong and 12 clear is not a monotone I prepare answers to 13 anticipated questions and practice responding to them Key words: No= ordinal number N= number of students IV ... in the body The body is the largest part of a presentation in which the presenters place their arguments and ideas, their substantiation and examples, and their proofs and illustrations The goal... analysis The preparation for a presentation must include gathering information about the audience and their needs It is critical that preparation efforts include some amount of audience analysis As... provide them with model presentations, including necessary vocabulary and functional language for an effective presentation or introduce the organization, format and criteria of a presentation in English