In part one of two, teacher developer Gaby Lawson looks at how presentations can help students develop their English language skills, and shares tips for giving effective feedback.
Do you often present as part of your course?
Presentations are an effective task for helping learners develop many aspects of spoken English: grammar, vocabulary, pragmatics and pronunciation. Not only that, but they are an important part of academic study and the business world. Quite often in a General English, Business English or EAP (English for Academic Purposes) course, the presentation will come at the end of a lesson or a series of lessons on a particular topic. In many courses, presentations are included not just as part of the formative assessment but also as part of the summative assessment. They are a common feature of the English Language classroom.
How can teachers help students to develop their English language skills through presentation tasks?
The answer is effective feedback.
Do you remember a good piece of feedback you’ve had from a colleague or mentor? Why was that feedback effective? We’ve all received both positive and negative feedback as part of working life, even from our students. Sometimes feedback gets instantly tossed in the bin and at other times, it can begin a transformation in us. Giving useful feedback is a skill that good teachers need to work on.
When Professor John Hattie, Melbourne Education Research Institute, reviewed over 500,000 research studies, he concluded that feedback has double the impact of classroom input on student achievement. Effective feedback is therefore an important part of good teaching in general, and presentation skills are no exception. To give effective feedback, you should:
Be positive
Focus on all the aspects of the presentation the student has done well. It is much easier for people to accept feedback if there is a balance between positive and negative. However, positive feedback does not mean writing a comment like ‘good work’. Use a framework or marking sheet (see example below) to help you point out what they did well. For example, “Your use of eye-contact was effective throughout most of the presentation. You used a wide range of vocabulary related to the topic.”
Example: framework/marking sheet
| Exceeds requirements | Strong performance | developing | Needs improvement | |
Response to task:
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Delivery
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Communication:
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Vocabulary:
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Grammar:
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Comments………………………………………………………………………………
Be concrete
Ensure your feedback is specific and clear, so students know exactly what they need to improve upon. For example, instead of ‘grammar is weak’ or ‘body language needs work’, say “During the presentation you didn’t choose the correct tense.” “During the presentation, you looked at the screen a lot while you were reading.”
Be descriptive instead of evaluative
Tell students why your feedback is important, and why they need to change how they present. By just raising an issue, the student may not understand why that was a problem, and without explanation may be unsure as to whether it is positive or negative feedback. For example, instead of ‘grammar is weak’ or ‘body language needs work’, say “During the presentation you didn’t vary the time tenses. As a result, I couldn’t tell if you were referring to an opinion, or a past case study. This was confusing.”
Highlight the costs of the problem behaviour
Instead of saying what you would have done yourself in that situation, show students why it is important they improve. Students are more likely to take it on board if they can see how changing their behaviour could produce a better result. For example, “As a result, the presentation was less engaging for the audience because you were not having an interaction with them.”
In part 2, Gaby provides additional tips and more example frameworks for giving effective feedback on presentations.
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References
The Australian Society for Evidence-Based Teaching. (n.d.) Feedback: The First Secret John Hattie Revealed. Retrieved from
http://www.evidencebasedteaching.org.au/crash-course-evidence-based-teaching/how-to-give-effective-feedback-to-your-students/
Duke University Center for Instructional Technology. (2008). Giving Constructive feedback on presentations. Retrieved from https://learninginnovation.duke.edu/pdf/grad/constructive_feedback.pdf
Hattie, J. (2009). Visible Learning: A synthesis of 800 meta-analysis relating to achievement. Routledge
Hayton, T. (2011). Student presentations. Retrieved from https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/student-presentations