Investigating how to improve oral presentation skills for the second - year english majors of the department of foreign languages at hung yen university of technology and education Nguyễn Thị Bích Vân Trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English Methodology; Mã số: 601410 Người hướng dẫn: Trần Hiền Lan Năm bảo vệ: 2009 Abstract:In an attempt to investigate how to improve oral presentation skills for the second- year English majors of the Department of Foreign Languages at Hung Yen University of Technology and Education, the research was aimed at finding out: (1) the students’ as well as teachers’ perceptions of what a good oral presentation is, (2) students’ and teachers’ difficulties in their learning and teaching of oral presentations, (3) current methods the teachers use to teach presentation skills, and (4) suggestions for both the teachers and the students on how to deal with their difficulties in their teaching and learning of oral presentations. Specifically, the study has been conducted in the form of survey research, with the informants of the study being the fifty six students randomly chosen from four classes and the eight teachers teaching major English at the Department of Foreign Languages, Hung Yen University of Technology and Education. The two survey questionnaires completed by both the teachers and the students was the main instrument employed for the collection of data. The research reveals that the students’ low language proficiency including the inability to express themselves in English, the bad habit of using mother tongue at a point of difficulty, lack of confidence all made it difficult for them to be understood. Besides, the data from the study confirm the fact that the unsuitable methods applied by the teachers, the teachers’ critical ways of correcting the students’ mistakes, the infrequent and inadequate feedback and assessment from both the teachers and peers, and the institution’s lack of conductive facilities also contributed to these students’ poor presentation performance. For those reasons, the study, finally recommends that in order to improve the students’ presentation skills, students, teacher(s), and institution should make greater efforts in learning and teaching oral presentation skills. On the part of the teacher(s), for example, in order to give impressive and interesting lectures on oral presentations, they need to devote more time to train the skills themselves and think of motivating students by including topic discussion or teaching the students oral presentation skills. Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Kỹ năng thuyết trình; Phương pháp dạy học. Content: iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………i Declaration……………………………………………………………………………….ii Abstract………………………………………………………………………………….iii Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………… iv PART 1: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………1 1. Rationale:………………………………………………………………………………… 1 2. Aims and objectives of the study: ……………………………………………………… 2 3. Scope of the study:………………………………………………………………… …… 2 4. Methods of the study: …………………………………………………………………… 3 5.Design of the study: …………………………………………………………………………3 PART 2: DEVELOPMENT…………………………………………………… 5 CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………………5 1.1. Oral Communication…………………………………………………………………… 5 1.2. Oral Presentation…………………………………………………………………………6 1.2.1. Definitions and Characteristics……………………………………………………… 6 1.2.2. Oral Presentation Organization…………………………………………….……… 7 1.2.3. Teaching Oral Presentation Skills………………………………….………………….8 1.3. Prior Studies Related to Oral Presentations………………………………………… 10 CHAPTER II: PRACTICAL RESEARCH………………………………….12 2.1. Background of the study……………………………………………………………… 12 2.1.1. Description of the English course and its objectives in the department of foreign languages, HYUTE………………………………………………………………………… 12 2.1.2. The informants…………………………… 13 v 2.2. The Study……………………………………………………………………………… 14 2.2.1. The Research Questions………………………………………………………………14 2.2.2. Measurement Instruments……………………………………………………………14 2.2.3. Data Analysis ………………………………………………………………………….15 2.3. Presentation of Statistical Results……………………………………………… 15 2.3.1. Questionnaire for the Students……………………………………………………….15 2.3.1.1. Methodology…………………………………………………………………………15 2.3.1.2. Statistical results ……………………………………………………………………15 2.3.1.2.1. The students’ perceptions of the necessity of oral presentation skills……………15 2.3.1.2.2. The second- year students’ difficulties in learning presentation skills…… 17 2.3.1.2.3. Current methods used in teaching oral presentation skills to the second- year English majors……………………………………………………………………………… 21 2.3.1.2.4. The students’ evaluation of the teachers’ current methods………………………24 2.3.1.2.5. The students’ suggested solutions to improve the situations……………………… 24 2.3.2. Questionnaire for the teachers……………………………………………………… 28 2.3.2.1. Methodology…………………………………………………………………………28 2.3.2.2. Statistical results ……………………………………………………………………28 2.3.2.2.1. The teachers’ perceptions of the necessity of oral presentation skill…………… 29 2.3.2.2.2. The teachers’ opinion of presentation skills………………………………………29 2.3.2.2.3. The teachers’ difficulties in teaching presentation skills…………………………30 2.3.2.2.4. Current teaching methods applied for oral presentation skills…………… 32 CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATION………… 35 2.1. Findings………………………………………………………………………………… 35 2.1.1. The students’ and teachers’ perceptions of the necessity of oral presentation skills…………………………………………………………………………………… 35 2.1.2. What the teachers know about presentation skills…………………………………….35 2.1.3. The teachers and the students’ difficulties in their teaching and learning of oral presentations………………………………………………………………………………… 36 vi 2.1.4. The methods the teachers are currently using in teaching presentation skills……… 36 2.1.5. The students’ evaluations of those methods………………………………………… 37 2.1.6. What the students think should be done for them to improve their oral presentation skills………………………………………………………………………………………… 37 2.2. Suggested techniques for improving oral presentation skills………………… 38 2.2.1. Suggestions for the teachers……………………………………………………………………38 2.2.2. Suggestions for the students…………………………………………………………… 42 2.2.3. Suggestions for the department……………………………………………………………… 44 PART 3: CONCLUSION…………………………………………………… 45 REFERENCES APPENDICES Appendix 1: The questionnaire for the students Appendix 2: The questionnaire for the teachers Appendix 3: The topics/sub-topics for the fourth term for HYUTE majors of English Appendix 4: Oral presentations- Teacher evaluation sheet Appendix 5: Oral presentations- Student evaluation sheet Appendix 6: Model language for oral presentations Appendix 7: Sample of model presentations 1 PART1: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale: English has played an important role in dealing with international relations and in such fields as science and technology, business, commerce, and diplomacy. This is the reason why there has always been a big need for learning English in Vietnam. And these learners of English have various purposes of learning: some learn English for their future jobs; some learn it just for entertainment. The English major learners also have serious attitudes towards learning English for their communications as well as oral presentations at work. In reality, most students leaving college today lack the basic skills necessary for presenting information to a group. Additionally, many college classes require presentations, but the students are often told to do it without being shown how to do it. A history professor does not feel it is their job to show their students the basic skills of presenting a subject. Furthermore, the students aren’t given the right feedback to improve. As a matter of fact, learning how to make presentations effective becomes one of the key institutional parts. In Hung Yen University of Technology and Education, there are not any separate subjects on which the English majors’ presenting skills are trained. It is the teachers of English who teach them oral presentations skills. For the teachers in the foreign language department there are some certain advantages of asking students to give presentations on the subject of their concern. Firstly, it gives students a good opportunity to practice their speaking skill. It also increases the students’ confidence in using English. Furthermore, it can be a good practice for those students who will actually need the skill in their future professional lives. And lastly, it is an excellent generator of spontaneous discussion. Being well aware of these advantages, all the teachers who teach English speaking skills regard presentation skills as their main focus in teaching English. However, it cannot be denied that there exist a lot of problems concerning our students’ presentation skills, the most typical of which is the fact that it is quite difficult to give successful presentations. Having been teaching them for nearly four terms, I have recognized the main reasons for such difficulties. Firstly, in comparison with other students of the same major, the students here have much lower level of English proficiency especially in 2 poor pronunciation and poor vocabulary. Secondly, due to their inexperience, the teaching staff also sees that they lack the basic techniques for teaching students how to give successful presentations. Lastly, the teaching of English as a major has come into use not for long as a focus to supply the students with an appropriate syllabus which includes oral presentation. In fact, to the English majors in here in general and the second- year English majors in particular, presentation skills are quite new and difficult. This is the reason why I chose to conduct a research entitled: “Investigating How to Improve Oral Presentation Skills for the Second- Year English Majors of the Foreign Language Department at Hung Yen University of Technology and Education” and aimed at clarifying the problems the second- year students have encountered in the process of preparing and making oral presentations and suggesting some techniques for the teachers to get better improvements in both teaching and learning of presentations. 2. Aims and objectives of the study: The study is aimed at studying oral presentation difficulties encountered by both the second- year major students of English and their teachers in the foreign language Department, Hung Yen University of Technology and Education, at finding some possible techniques for teaching oral presentations. To help the students overcome such difficulties, the research will try to - investigate the students’ as well as teachers’ perceptions of what a good oral presentation is. - identify students’ and teachers’ difficulties in their learning and teaching of oral presentations. - investigate current methods the teachers use to teach presentation skills. - give suggestions for both the teachers and the students on how to deal with their difficulties in their teaching and learning of oral presentations. 3. Scope of the study: Speaking activities are various. However, this study only focuses on oral presentation skills for the second- year English majors at Hung Yen University of Technology and Education. This study is said to be an overview of current situations of the second- year English majors 3 when making oral presentations and an identification of the teachers’ methods currently used for the second- year English majors in the foreign language department, and a suggestion for techniques for both the students and the teachers to improve their learning and teaching of speaking skills in general and presentation skills in particular. 4. Methods of the study: The study will be conducted using quantitative and qualitative methods with questionnaires for informants of 56 second- year majors of English randomly chosen from four classes and 8 teachers at the University of Technology and education in Hung Yen and informal interviews with the informants and their teachers and personal observation will also be employed. 5. Design of the study: The study consists of three parts: Part 1, introduction, presents the rationale, the aims, the scope, the methods and the design of the study. Part 2, development, consists of 3 chapters. + Chapter I - Literature Review – deals with the concepts relevant to the study: oral communication, presentation skills and prior studies related to presentation skills. + Chapter II - Practical Research – provides an analysis on the current situation of teaching and learning oral presentation skill and reports the results of the survey research which was carried out at the beginning of the fourth term of the 2008- 2009 academic year at the foreign language department, UTEHY. The report includes the followings:  research questions  informants  measurement instruments  data analysis  presentation of statistical results 4 + Chapter III – Findings and recommendation – focuses on difficulties students and teachers faced in learning and teaching speaking skills in general and presentation skills in particular. Additionally, it offers pedagogical suggestions for the students, the department and the teachers to improve their learning and teaching of oral presentation skills. Part 3, conclusion, summarizes all the key issues as well as the limitations of the study and suggestions for further study. KEY WORDS & ABBREVIATIONS Pair work; Group work; Preparation, Feedback The HYUTE: Hung Yen University of Technology and Education REFERENCES Brown, H.D. (1994). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Brown, H.D. (1994). Teaching Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Regents. Brown, g& Yule, G. (1983). Teaching the Spoken Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, P. (2005). “ Students Presentations”. Modern English Teachers. Bygate, M. (1987). Speaking. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bygate, M. (1991). Speaking. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Byrne, D. (1986). Techniques for Classroom Interaction. London: Longman. Clark, D. Big Dog’s Leadership Page- Presentation Skills. Retrieved from the www on 20 March 2009 at http:// www.nwlink.com/ ~donclark/leader/leadpres.html. Comfort, J. (1995). Effective Presentation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Donn Byrne. (1986). Teaching Oral English. London: Longman Dwyer, J. (2000). The Business Communication Handbook. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Ellis and O’ Driscoll. (1992). Giving Presentations. Hong Kong: Longman Emden, J & Becker, L. (2004). Presentation Skills for Students. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Ha, Nguyen Thi Van. (2007). A Study on Oral Presentation Difficulties of Second- Year English Majors of Phuong Dong University in the Speaking Lessons. Unpublished MA Dissertation. CFL- VNU Jane King. jane [at] mail.scu.edu.tw. (2002). Preparing EFL Learners for Oral Presentations. Soochow University (Taipei, Taiwan). Retrieved from the www on 15 March 2008 at http://www.englishclub.com/ article/presentation. Joan van Emden and Lucinda Becker. (2004). Presentation Skills for Students. New York: Palgrave Macmillan Mary Underwood. (1987). Effective Class Management. London: Longman Nunan, D. (1989). Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nunan, D. (2003). Practical English Language Teaching. Higher Education Press. McGraw Hill Companies, Inc. Reinhart, S.M. (2002). Giving Academic Presentations. The University of Michigan Press. Scarcella and Oxford. (1992). The Tapestry of Language Learning: The Individual in the Communicative class. USA: Heinle & Heinle Publishers. Vo, G. (1994). “Speaking Time”. In Baley, K.M & Savage, L. (Eds.). New Ways in Teaching Speaking (pp. 276-277) . Investigating how to improve oral presentation skills for the second - year english majors of the department of foreign languages at hung yen university of technology and education . Improve Oral Presentation Skills for the Second- Year English Majors of the Foreign Language Department at Hung Yen University of Technology and Education and aimed at clarifying the problems the. skills for the second- year English majors at Hung Yen University of Technology and Education. This study is said to be an overview of current situations of the second- year English majors