Speaking week one

Class presentations and discussion

Discussion

  1. Have you ever given a presentation, either in your own language or in English?
  2. What do you think are the biggest challenges to presenting in front of an audience?
  3. What have been the best and worst presentations you've experienced, and what made them particularly good or bad?
  4. As an audience member, what guidelines would you give for presenters in order to make a successful presentation?

Brief

The first hour of each presentation class will be for students to practise delivering professional presentations to their peers, and moderate class discussions on a topic of their choice. The teacher will participate as an audience member but the sessions will be run by students. At the end of each presentation and discussion we will have a round of feedback where we will look at strengths and areas for improvement.

As a guide for timing, each student in the group should aim to present for at least five minutes, and discussion questions should be able to keep class conversation going for at least ten minutes. So, think carefully about the questions you'd like the class to discuss afterwards, and keep them open and interesting!

Learning outcomes

  • To gain confidence and experience in delivering presentations.
  • To develop your spoken language skills.
  • To summarise the main ideas of background reading and research in an engaging way.
  • To organise your presentation into a logical structure.

Choosing a topic

For the first round of presentations we'll work in pairs, and draw from the material you've been looking at for your independent reading and listening. This could be a topic that you've been following in the news that's relevant to your field of study, something that you're studying that you find particularly interesting, or a work of fiction such as a book or film that has an important message or that has influenced your thinking. Some general guidelines for when you're choosing your topic:

  • It should be accessible and interesting to a general audience, not just covered in technical jargon from your discipline.
  • There should be a controversial issue or area of debate at the centre of your topic.
  • It should be followed up by some discussion questions for the class so that the audience can put forward their opinions.

What makes a good presentation?

Here are some basic guidelines that we'll be working with when we present.

Preparation task

Team up with a partner that you'd like to present with, and use the time today to start planning what you'd like to present. Discuss what you've been reading and listening to, and perhaps spend some time reviewing the independent study material we've looked at in this week's reading and listening classes. Also think about how you'd like to present your information, and whether you're going to use a traditional platform such as PowerPoint, or something like Prezi. If you're feeling ambitious you could also incorporate software like Mentimeter or Kahoot for a bit of audience engagement. Just a mild warning if you do go for these though: while these tools can be fun, don't let them take over your presentation. The main focus should be on you, your delivery, and the audience discussion.

While you're preparing your teacher will draw up a schedule of who's presenting when by using an online random name generator to unsure complete fairness. The first presenters will be next week, so as Donald Tusk wisely said: do not waste this time.

Visualising your presentation

Presentation software such as Google Slides and PowerPoint can enhance or destroy a presentation. Click the link below to view the University of York's Skills guide to using these tools effectively.