Academic Presenting and Presentations

Teacher's Book

Averil Bolster, Peter Levrai

• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9783741242090
• eBook ISBN: 9783741267635
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Teaching Methods

This Teacher's Book is the companion to Academic Presenting and Presentations (ISBN 978-3-7347-8367-8), a training course designed to help students cultivate academic presentation skills and deal with the various presentation tasks they may be required to fulfil during the course of their university studies. The material is suitable for a global audience and can be used in a wide range of contexts in the fields of Communication Skills, English Language Teaching and English for Academic Purposes.In addition to providing valuable notes on each unit, the Teacher's Book contains key information on the underlying principles, concept and structure of the course and sets out the rationale behind its design. Teachers, and through them their students, can benefit from the depth of the insights presented here, making the classroom experience a rewarding and enjoyable one.Academic presentations can be particularly challenging for non-native English speakers and consequently, the print material and the accompanying video recordings dovetail neatly to provide linguistic support and guidance as well as enhancing presentation skills and providing a forum for practice, feedback and ongoing improvement. However, broader topics of interest appropriate to a study-oriented context, such as research and plagiarism, are also dealt with in a unique balance of content that goes beyond the treatment of discrete language points and emphasises high-level task achievement whilst at the same time focusing attention on the specific requirements of addressing an audience in an academic environment.

Unit 1 Introduction to Presentations

This unit is designed to give students a basic overview of presentation skills. At this stage the academic factor is ignored.

Aims & Objectives

To raise students’ awareness of generic presentation skills

• provide students with a an overview of presentation structure
• provide students with a tool to help develop good presentations

The lead-in aims discussion for this unit should be given some time so you can identify how much experience your students have of watching or delivering presentations. It will also be useful here to emphasise the various reasons why people present, to reinforce the idea that the students are starting to learn a skill which will be very important to them in future life.

This will also be an opportunity for expectation setting in the sense of telling students that during the course they will be presenting a lot as the only way to improve presentation skills is through practice.

LP 1.1 – Introduction to Presentations

This is a long video which provides information about

• types of presentation
• considering the audience
• dealing with nerves
• basic structure & signposting language
• how to use Academic Presenting and Presentations

Due to the length, this video could be broken into sections and discussion could take place between sections (e.g. why is the audience important, how can nerves be controlled etc.). You could have the students review the whole video for homework. However, it is also good for students to see an extended presentation, as they may have to give lengthy presentations themselves.

Signposting language

Signposting language is important in presentations. You might want to replay certain sections of the video so students can recognise how the presenter moves between sections. Suggest students have a presentation vocabulary book where they can make notes of useful expressions.

However, it is important to remind students that they are not game show hosts. Since the content of an academic presentation is what matters and time may be limited, such language needs to be kept to a minimum. For example, at the start of Presentation 1.1 there is quite a lengthy overview of the structure of the presentation. While this may be appropriate for a longer presentation, it would be a waste of valuable time in a short (10 minute) presentation.

A good presentation

At this point, the students are not thinking about academic presentations but presentations in general. Brainstorming ideas in small groups or whole class should generate ideas for dos and don’ts of presenting. Encourage students to make notes which they may return to and edit as they watch the upcoming Learning Presentation.

Before watching the Learning Presentation you might ask a couple of students to give a very short (1 minute) presentation about what they or their group thinks makes a good presentation. Getting students to present without visual aids is an important step in developing their presentation skills so they will come to see visual aids as a support for a presentation which, while very useful, may not always be necessary.

LP 1.2 – What Makes A Good Presentation?

This presentation emphasises things students need to consider when planning a presentation: Audience, Purpose, Organisation, Impact, Noteable, Theatre. There is a photocopiable worksheet in the back of the Student’s Book which students can use when planning a presentation to consider each of these. It could also be used when watching Sample Presentations so the students can consider how well the presenter has planned and delivered their presentation and, most importantly, if the presentation has fulfilled its purpose with the audience.

Presentation Task 1

This is the first main Presentation Task of the course. After watching the Presentation Task (Learning Presentation 1.3) spend some time as a whole group thinking of different ways of focusing this topic to encourage students to see how they can approach a topic and consider ways of making it interesting for their audience.

The purpose of this presentation is to give everyone a chance of presenting to a group. Presentation feedback should focus on positive aspects of the presentation, be they organisation, delivery or idea related.

Set a time-limit for the presentation suitable for the logistics of your group (2-3 mins recommended) and make sure there is time for questions at the end of the presentation. Perhaps tell the students they have to think of at least one question they could ask connected to the presentation they have watched. Feedback should also cover how well, or not, the students dealt with the questions.

Unit 2 What is an Academic Presentation?

This unit considers the particular features which make a presentation academic. Essentially this means highlighting the issue of intertextuality with students and emphasising that an academic presentation fits into a wider debate and has to be supported by sources.

Aims & Objectives

To raise students’ awareness of key features of academic presentations

• provide an overview of the defining features of academic presentations
• focus students on the technical aspects of presenting (use of body language and voice)

The initial discussion on the features and types of academic presentation may not take long, depending on how much students are aware of already. To help inform their discussion you could show the three Sample Presentations before asking them to try to come up with ideas of the defining characteristics of an academic presentation.

SP 2A, 2B & 2C

A brief analysis of the Sample Presentations is provided at the back of the Student’s Book. Before looking at the analysis, watch each presentation and encourage students to discuss whether it was

1. a good presentation
2. an academic presentation.

You could also have them watch the presentations with the A POINT worksheet from Unit 1 to reinforce the habit of looking at a presentation from that perspective and to give the students the opportunity to hypothesise about the audience and purpose of each presentation. This is also useful because when you have identified the academic presentation, you can point out that a weakness in the A POINT approach is that it ignores the need for Support in an academic presentation.

Once students have identified 1B as the academic presentation, discuss the features that made it clear it was an academic presentation (e.g. use of referencing and citation, development of an argument).

Looking at these samples is a way to emphasise that a good presentation does not necessarily make for a successful academic presentation.

You could also exploit these videos for delivery issues. Later in this unit, students are going to consider use of voice. Video 2A is particularly useful for highlighting the use of stress and pausing. You can also draw attention to instances when the presenter pauses because they are not sure what to say next.

LP 2.1 – The Academic Presentation

Now that students have developed a better idea about the features of an academic presentation, you can show this Learning Presentation to re-emphasise the elements that make a presentation academic. This could lead to a discussion of how Sample Videos 2A and 2C could be made more academic. While presentation 2C might be quite hard to change into a presentation suitable for the academic sphere, presentation 2A could be changed quite easily. The emotive side of the presentation would have to be dropped and the reasons and arguments the presenter makes would have to be supported by evidence.

LP 2.2 – Presentation As Performance

From the outset it is important to encourage students to develop a presentation voice. Typically presenters speak differently when presenting than when talking. Before watching the Learning Presentation, ask students to brainstorm what leads to effective delivery when presenting. Make notes of their ideas on the whiteboard and after watching the video, add to their ideas based on their revised suggestions.

This task requires them to practice delivering a script and the emphasis should be on delivering this as naturally as possible. Emphasise that they don’t have to be word perfect so there is no need to stop if they say the wrong thing. The focus is on how they say it. Encourage them towards larger stresses and hesitations than they might otherwise use. Also model different ways of saying the same thing, showing how the meaning and focus can change based simply on the use of voice.

Once they have become confident delivering the text, encourage them to do so without looking at their books. This puts the emphasis back on the message rather than delivery. Make it clear you do not expect them to remember the text perfectly, but you do want them to present the main ideas of the text, and present them while using strategies to vary their voice to increase the impact of the presentation on the audience. This will be an important step to lead students away from relying on a script

Unit 3 Presenting a Paper

A common presentation task which cuts across all academic fields is the presentation of a paper or papers the student has read. This is done as both a measur...

Table of contents

• Further components in this series
• Table of Contents
• Epigraph
• Foreword
• Concept and Structure
• Overview
• Learning Presentations
• Sample Presentations
• Unit 1: Introduction to Presentations
• Unit 2: What is an Academic Presentation?
• Unit 3: Presenting a Paper
• Project Introduction – Approaching a Topic
• Unit 4: Elevator Pitch Poster Presentations
• Unit 5: Persuasive Presentations
• Unit 6: Presenting Progress
• Project Review – Giving a Progress Presentation
• Unit 7: Problem/Solution Presentations
• Unit 8: Research Presentations
• Project Presentation – Giving a Final Presentation
• Worksheets
• Rationale
• Bibliography
• Further information
• Copyright