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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
poor pronunciation and poor vocabulary. Secondly, due to their inexperience, the teaching
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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.
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This study is said to be an overview of current situations of the second- year English majors
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, speaking skills, 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:
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• research questions
• informants
• measurement instruments
• data analysis
• presentation of statistical results

+ 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
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PART 2: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

In the investigation into ways to develop students’ speaking ability in general and oral
presentation skill in particular, the researcher needs to present the previous and current
literature on oral presentations with the characteristics of oral presentation and then define and
explore the nature of speaking, approaches to speaking skill, and some aspects of oral
presentations. These issues are the focus of the chapter.

1.1. Oral Communication

Oral communication is a two- way process between the speaker and the listener( or listeners)
and involves the productive skill of speaking and the receptive skill of understanding( or
listening with understanding) ( Byrne, 1986). It is important to remember that “receptive” does
not mean “passive” when both listening and reading, language users are actively involved in
the process of interpreting and negotiating meanings. To clarify what involves in an oral
communication, it is necessary to discuss the differences in written and spoken language.

According to P. Santry (1999), there are important differences between spoken and written
language. In speech we have a much greater freedom and informality of usage than it is
accepted in writing. We do not speak in limited grammatical sentence structures or follow
formal syntax as the way we do when writing. Moreover, in speech the colloquial forms are
acceptable while they are not in writing. We do not write in the same way we speak because
the two channels are not exactly interchangeable. Byrne (1986) shares the same opinion by
mentioning that “in contrast to the written language where sentences are usually carefully
structured and linked together, speech is often characterized by incomplete and sometimes
ungrammatical utterances and by frequent false starts and repetitions”.

Nunan (1989) provides a list of characteristics of successful oral communication. As for him,
successful oral communication should involve:
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(1) Comprehensible pronunciation of the target language.

(2) Good use of stress, rhythm, intonation patterns.
(3) Fluency
(4) Good transactional and interpersonal skills.
(5) Skills in taking short and long speaking in turns.
(6) Skills in the management of interactions.
(7) Skills in negotiating meaning.
(8) Conversational listening skills.
(9) Skills in knowing about and negotiating purposes for the conversation.
(10) Using appropriate conversational formulae and filters.

1.2. Speaking Skills

1.2.1. Nature of Speaking:

As discussed above speaking (productive skill) and listening (receptive skill) together make an
oral communication. And as for Byrne (1986), in some situations, one person may do all the
speaking, as, for example, in a lecture. Here, typically, the speaker initiates and simply keeps
up the flow of his/her own speech. This also happens when a person is giving instruction or
directions. Normally, however, as in a conversation, although one person initiates, speaker and
listener are constantly changing roles and consequently speaking involves responding to what
has been heard. And this particular kind of interaction (listen- respond- listen etc.) makes it
difficult for the learners to follow.

The nature of speaking has been discussed several times by several scholars. In order to clarify
the functions of speaking, Brown and Yule (1983) discussed the distinction between
transactional function, which is primarily concerned with the transfer of information, and the
interactional function, in which the primary purpose of speech is to maintain social
relationships. In addition, the two scholars said the development of speaking skills could be
recognized through monologues and dialogues. They also stated that the ability to give an
uninterrupted oral presentation (monologue) was different from that of interacting with one or
more native speakers. While all native speakers can use their language interactionally, not all
 7

native speakers have the ability to present a given topic to a group of listeners. This explains
why presentation skills generally have to be taught and practiced carefully.

Bygate (1987) discussed two important skills: micro- linguistic skills and interaction skills
which was said to help learners not only understand some grammar, vocabulary and the rules
governing how words are put together to form sentences but decide what to say and how to
say.

Another issue concerning the ability to speak is that of fluency and accuracy. “Accuracy is the
extent to which students’ speech matches what people actually say when they use the target
language. Fluency is the extent to which speakers use the language quickly and confidently
with few hesitations or unnatural pauses, false starts, word searches, etc.” (Nunan, D, 2003:
55). Byrne (1986) stated that the main goal in teaching speaking, a productive skill would be
oral fluency which could be attained by bringing the students from the stage where they are
mainly imitating a model of some kind, or responding to cues, to the point where they can use
the language freely to express their own ideas. Scarcella and Oxford (1992: 156) saw many
educators who believe that in communicative class, “it is not necessary to teach conversational
features or push students to communicate accurately” and that “fluency can be developed by
simply providing students with lots of conversational practice”. However, Byrne (1986)
pointed out that “our task, in trying to meet the needs of learners, particularly in non-
privileged conditions, is to strike a balance between accuracy and fluency so that, in the end,
the learners are able to communicate adequately”. He also added that in practice, getting this
balance is not difficult. Whether to promote fluency or to focus on accuracy respectively
belongs to the practice and production stages of learning, which, from the standpoint of the
learners, provide the necessary “ingredients” for communicative adequacy. He was quite
neutral with the thinking that “What we cannot know is how different learners will respond
individually to these two types of activity and how they will benefit from them. Some, for
example, are likely to need more practice in order to master the language system; others may
‘pick up’ the language system through fluency- type activities. Some, whatever we do, will
turn out to be fluent but inaccurate communicators; others will communicate painstakingly and
accurately but with not much fluency. Such diversity is typical of an average class of students.
 8

By taking a balanced approach we are at least trying to cater for the widest range of needs and,
within the constraints of the classroom, giving the learners some opportunities to learn in the
way best suited to them” ( Byrne, 1986: 5). Brown (1994: 254) also shares the same idea that
“both fluency and accuracy are important goals to pursue in CL”. While communicative
classes place emphasis on fluency, he suggests that “accuracy is achieved to some extent by
allowing students to focus on the elements of phonology, grammar, and discourse in their
spoken output”. This is a very good point to make. In our own situation, as most of the
second- year majors’ English proficiency is not very good, showing them the importance of
both accuracy and fluency at this stage is the job of every teacher.

1.2.2. Development Approaches to Speaking Skill

Teaching speaking skill or teaching oral English is what Donn Byrne often paid so much
attention to. That is why in many of his books, this issue was always the centre of discussion.
According to him (see Byrne: 1986: 22-31), the following three phases are encouraged to be
used to develop learners’ oral ability:

1.2.2.1. The Presentation Phase

At the presentation stage, the teacher’s main task is to serve as a kind of informant who knows
the language, selects the new material to be learnt (using the textbook normally but
supplementing and modifying it as required), and presents this in such a way that the meaning
of the new language is as clear and memorable as possible. And, according to Byrne (1986:2),
at this point of the lesson, the teacher is considered the centre and spends most of the time
presenting. The author stated that there were different ways to present new material- through
texts, activities or situations in which a text (a dialogue or prose passage) was the main
concern of oral materials. For this reason steps of presenting dialogues and prose passages are
investigated and introduced at this stage.
As for Byrne (1986: 25-28), presenting a dialogue requires 10 different steps which are as
follows:
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1. Establish the setting which means using pictures with available information to explain,
translate, or to check the students’ understandings about the items in the pictures. That
is why mother tongue can be encouraged sometimes.
2. Establish a personal link with the situation. This can be similar to the way teachers
draw out learners’ experiences related to situations.
3. Pre- teach selected items (optional) which is to deal with any difficulties that might
seriously interfere with overall understanding and enjoyment of the dialogue.
4. Set a listening task by asking about key information of the dialogue.
5. Ask the students to listen without looking at the text.
6. Ask the students to read silently as they listen. During this phase, pause after each
section and ask some simple questions to check understanding.
7. Ask the students to listen and repeat
8. Explain any difficulties by reading through the dialogue, drawing attention to any
points (perhaps giving further examples of an item) or by asking the students to tell
you what difficulties they have
9. Ask the students to practice saying the dialogue
10. Get the students to dramatize or improvise the dialogue. One or two groups can be
asked to do this if there is time and if they want to.

It is known that this procedure is perfect and logically arranged. However, it is dependent on
the learners’ competence so some steps can be left out. It is quite hard for Vietnamese students
to conduct step 10 because they are generally shy and time is limited.

To present a prose passage, Byrne (1986: 30-31) suggested 9 following steps:

i. Introduce the topic by asking the students to look at the picture and tell you in
English some of the things you know about related things.
ii. Introduce the text by working through the first part of the passage giving some
explanation for some new words and structures.
iii. Provide relevant language practice.
iv. Set a reading task by making questions.
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v. Do silent reading which is to ask the students to read the passage silently and find
the answer to the reading task.
vi. Read the passage aloud and ask for the answer to the reading task at the same time.
vii. Explain any difficulties.
viii. Do silent reading again because the students need to go on with the last step.
ix. Get the class to talk about what they have learnt.

1.2.2.2. The Practice Phase:

Unlike the presentation phase, at the practice phase students have to do most of talking that
their teachers provide. Practice is usually in the forms of activities to improve fluency of
speaking so pair work and group work are highly encouraged. Also at this stage, students can
be asked to follow different stages of practice: the use of drills and the use of texts. The former
can be carried out in techniques like chorus work, reading aloud or mechanical drills. It is
necessary that students need practice, oral practice, guided oral practice, meaningful oral
practice, and extensive oral practice. This stage requires that the students should at all times
understand and pay attention to what they are required to say and their utterances should not
only be correct but appropriate to the situation. The latter, the use of texts, emphasizes the use
of a text as a context for oral work. The advantage, as the author stated, is that those kinds of
exercises: true/ false statements, completion exercises, etc offer a very well-defined context
for practice.

1.2.2.3. The Production Phase:

At this phase learners need chances to speak English freely. A real chance to speak English
takes place when the learner is able to use English naturally for themselves, not for their
teacher. Group work plays an important part in making learners practice speaking here.

1.3. Oral Presentation

1.3.1. Definitions and Characteristics
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In his article on http://www.englishclub.com 2002, Jane King stated that oral presentation is “a
short talk by one person to a group of people introducing and describing a particular subject
(for example: a new product, company figures or a proposed advertising campaign)” while
Ohio Wesleyan University, in their “Guidelines for Oral Presentations” defined oral
presentations as “brief discussions of a focused topic delivered to a group of listeners in order
to impart knowledge or to stimulate discussion. They are similar to short papers with an
introduction, main body and conclusion. The ability to give brief presentation is a learned skill
and the one that is called on frequently in the workplace”.

According to Clark, D (see http://www.nwlink.com/ ~donclark/leader/leadpres.html) a good

presentation, firstly, has content, that is it contains information that people need. But unlike
reports, which are read at the reader’s own pace, presentations must account for how much
information the audience can absorb. Secondly, it has structure with a logical beginning,
middle, and end. It must be sequenced and paced so that the audience can understand it. While
reports have appendices and footnotes to guide the reader, the speaker must be careful not to
lose the audience when wandering from the main point of the presentation. Thirdly, a
presentation is characterized by packaging: It must be well- prepared. A report can be reread
and portions skipped over, but with a presentation, the audience has to depend on the
presenter. Finally, a good presentation has human element in it. It will be remembered much
more than a good report because it has a person attached to it.

1.3.2. Oral Presentation Organization

According to P. Santry (1999) and Comfort (1995), an oral presentation consists of three main
parts: the introduction, body and conclusion, in which the introduction aims to “attract the
listeners’ interest and focus their attention on the topic”. When you give a presentation at
work, listeners usually have an immediate need for the information presented. Therefore, they
have a clear reason to pay attention to the presentation. Another function of the introduction,
according to her, is to “identify what the presentation is about and how you plan to present the
information”. For example, you may tell the listeners that you are first going to explain a
particular problem, then briefly mention some of its causes, and finally focus on several
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possible solutions. This brief preview of the content and organization of a presentation allows
the listeners to fit the information given to them into a framework and helps them understand
and remember what is presented. The final point she mentions in the introduction is “whether
listeners are free to interrupt with questions or whether they should save their questions for the
end of the presentation”. And that “if there is time at the end for a question and answer
session, listeners should be informed at the beginning of the presentation”. To make sure there
are different introductions of the presentations given at work and those given in class the
author states: “In a classroom situation your listeners do not always have a natural interest in
what is being said to them. Therefore, you may have to work harder to get their attention. You
have to plan a strong introduction in order to make people want to hear the rest of the
presentation”. ( Santry, 1999: 31,32). As for her, the best way to interest listeners is to relate
the topic to their wants and needs. Listeners usually pay close attention to what affects them
directly: their work, their interest, their health, their security, their family, their friends, or their
community. Furthermore, most listeners have a natural curiosity to learn more about the
world. You can try to appeal to this curiosity in the introduction. Certain types of openings are
often effective in gaining an audience’s attention. Some of the following may be used:
• A surprising or unusual fact
• A personal story
• An interesting example
• A quotation from an authority or expert
• Impressive or significant statistics
Furthermore, an effective introduction to any type of presentation should be brief and to the
point. You want to capture the interest of listeners and then lead them into the content of the
presentation. Never use the introduction to apologize to the audience for anything: for being
nervous, for not being prepared, for not being an expert on the subject. By taking a positive,
confident approach from the beginning the listeners will be eager to hear what is said on the
subject.

Once you have a clear statement of your central idea, you can start developing the body, or
main section, of your presentation. “The body consists of main points that develop your
central idea in detail. These main points need to be arranged in a way that is clear both to you
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and to your audience. The organization of your presentation should make it easy for the
audience to understand and to remember the information you present”. ( Santry, 1999 : 40).
Also in the body, it is the presenter’s duty to inform, persuade, or entertain the audience. To
succeed in doing this, the presenter has to make the presentation lively and interesting by
including information such as personal experience, examples and illustrations, facts, and
statistics. A relevant personal story or example can make all the differences between a dry
presentation and memorable one.

After the body comes the conclusion. “The conclusion of a presentation is important because
you want to leave a strong impression on your listeners. You should be brief and to the point
in concluding your presentation. This is definitely not the time to introduce any new points.
You want to remind listeners of what you have presented”. ( Santry, 1999: 52 ). The author
also suggested some possible ways to conclude a presentation. According to her, you can:
• Summarize or review the main points you have presented
• Remind listeners of the importance of what you have said
• Emphasize your major conclusion
• Recommend further study of the subject
• Ask the listeners to take appropriate action
Additionally, you should not surprise people by suddenly announcing, “That’s all”, or “I guess
I’m finished”. That kind of ending shows that you have not organized your ideas very well.
You should plan a conclusion to prepare the listeners for the end of your presentation. And
lastly, you can end your presentation by asking listeners whether they have any questions. This
allows people to ask for explanations or to get further information on a particular point.

1.3.3. Teaching Oral Presentation Skills

There has been a number of discussions on why, what, and how to teach oral presentation
skills. Different scholars, researchers, and educators have contributed so much to the literature
on teaching presenting skills. The most highly appreciated authors should be Vo (1994),
Miller (1994), Underhill (1987), and so on.
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Underhill (1987: 47) suggests that in a less formal situation, mini presentations may be routine
part of the daily teaching schedule. Each day a learner takes turns to make an oral presentation
to the rest of the class. He/ she is expected to refer to notes, but reading aloud is strongly
discouraged. The use of simple aids such as chalk board and chalk, lined paper and pens,
pictures or handouts and overhead projectors is encouraged if appropriate. At the end of the
presentation, he/she is supposed to deal with any questions raised by their friends. It is the
learners’ job to conduct the whole activity without the intervention of the teacher. The
presentation may be taped either for marking or for subsequent classroom analysis. He also
adds that choosing topics is very important. The topics chosen by the learner should be
interesting, appropriate to their age and level to arouse learners’ interests and create an
enjoyable classroom atmosphere. In fact, topics are not difficult to find. The important thing is
their appropriateness. He suggests that topics should be consulted with the teacher who will
help assess the level of the difficulty of the given topics in relation to the learners’ ability. And
according to the webpage http://www.englishclub.com 2002, “before any mention of a
presentation, teachers should elicit interest from each student. These may be hobbies,
professional activities, past holidays etc. Rarely do teachers find that every student in a group
is a professional sky-diver, brain surgeon or stand-up comedian. Yet, with a little prompting,
teachers will often find that each student has an interest or skill that is particular to her but of
potential interest to others. Having dug a little into each student's mind, teachers can store the
interests for the moment when they start teaching presentations. Even then, they do not
normally need to suggest to each student what he could talk about. Say something like: 'The
subject could be anything, for example, your work, your hobby, a holiday”.

The procedures for oral presentation have also been discussed by VO (1994) and Miller
(1994). VO (1994: 276-277) offers the following procedure for teachers to assign oral
presentation as homework:
1. At the beginning of the term, announce to the students that they all will have
an opportunity to speak in front of the group.
2. Put up a large calendar so that students can pick up the date they prefer
3. After the break of every class session, have one student come forward and
speak about the topic he or she chose.
 15

4. During the speech, the teacher should sit in the audience

5. Have each student speak for about five minutes.
6. Have the other class members hold their questions and comments until the
speaker has finished. (The teacher and other students can help the speaker
answer very difficult questions).
7. After each speech, give the speaker(s) some feedback. ( Psychologically,
compliments should come before criticism so as to encourage the student).
Miller (1994: 280-281) shows the procedure for oral presentations carried out as class
activities as follows:
1. At the beginning of the semester, have students organize themselves into small
groups.
2. General topics for discussions is one of three ways:
. Have the students suggest topics.
. Prepare and suggest topics to the class
. Have students (or yourself) research and suggest topics related to their field of
study
3. Make sure each group has a different topic, which can vary depending on the level of
the class and the interests of the students.
4. Discuss strategies for presenting topics in English and encourage group members to
agree or disagree with the ideas of other member during the upcoming discussion. Let
students know that after each group discussion, one member will be chosen to present
the group’s ideas to the class. (It is important not to tell the group in advance who is
going to speak in front of the class so that all students take part in the group
discussion).
5. Have one member of each group present the ideas to the others for a group discussion
lasting about 12- 15 minutes, while you listens and circulate among groups to help
with language problems. (Try to intervene as little as possible so students are
encouraged to speak freely.)
6. Once the time has expired, chose one person from each group to stand up and present
the group’s ideas to the whole class for 2-3 minutes.
7. Encourage students in the class to ask the presenter/ group questions
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Jane King (2002) focuses much on the teacher’s role when he/she works with students on oral
presentations. According to him this “is a challenging job for teachers because it not only
involves training in other disciplines such as speech communication and public speaking, but
also demands more of teachers in terms of time and effort in lesson planning and teaching
strategies”. He also adds that “on the student's part, the student-centered activity asks students
to be responsible for their own learning. When a teacher moves from the traditional role of
teacher as an authoritative expert to the new role of facilitator of learning, students feel a
drastic change. With such a student-led activity as oral presentation, teachers need to have
some psychological preparation for meeting the resistance from students, since some of them
are not receptive to project learning and are uncomfortable when given autonomy.
Furthermore, the importance of creating a supportive learning atmosphere, acquiring
interaction skills, incorporating project work, developing cooperative learning skills and
applying computer/technology in enhancing teachers' facilitative skills should be emphasized.
The teacher is the guide, organizer, consultant, resource person, and supporter”. Jane King
(2002: 407).

To sum up, it cannot be denied that with structured planning and organization, oral
presentations can be a beneficial and enjoyable activity with learners. Both teachers and
students are expecting a break away from textbooks. Each week, students come to class with
great anticipation and excitement. It is a rewarding experience for low achieving students who
had either given up on English or were intimated by past English learning experiences.

1.4. Prior Studies Related to Oral Presentations

Any mention to language learners’ presentation skills will be of no significance without a

substantial contribution of a number of linguists and institutions who have been working very
hard for the development of strategies of students’ oral communication skills and oral
competence. Some institutions which are worth being mentioned to are Victoria University of
Technology, the University of Canberra, and Ball State University. Such Titles as “ Oral
Presentation” by P. Santry ( 1999 ), “Effective Presentation” by Comfort (1995), “ Giving
 17

Presentations” by Ellis and O’ Driscoll (1992), “ Giving Academic Presentation” by Susan M.

Reinhart, etc have so far caught a great attention from a significant number of readers.

However, these scholars and institutions in their books and course descriptions, present
guidelines to promote learners’ skills in giving oral presentations both in theory and in practice
but those experts just mainly focus on business contexts and other professional situations. For
example, in the part of rationale and learning outcome, Santry states: “Professionals in science
and engineering are often asked to provide people with information because they have
specialized knowledge experience. Technical professionals may be called on to give progress
reports, explain research, discuss company policies, analyze problems, offer
recommendations, or give on- the- job instructions. In addition, they may give oral
presentations to company more formal written reports such as project proposals, budget
proposals, or feasibility studies”. Moreover, they do not touch upon the problems that
language learners have when giving oral presentations in the classroom setting and the reasons
why they experience such problems. Also, the solutions/ suggestions given from those books
are not drawn from their own research or in other words, they were not research- based. They
are somehow based on the writers’ own observations and perceptions so the solutions tend to
be applicable for some subjects.

In Vietnam, there have been a lot of studies on oral communication skills and many of them
are presented in M.A theses. However, oral presentations have not been extensively
investigated. The M.A thesis “A Study on Oral Presentation Difficulties of Second- Year
English Majors of Phuong Dong University in the Speaking Lessons” by Nguyen Thi Van Ha
(2007) is known to be the only one ever which mostly focuses on second- year English
majors’ difficulties in giving oral presentations. The researcher also gives some suggested
solutions to such problems but this is quite general. For that reason, I decided to have my own
research in which I try to have an investigation of the second- year major students’ difficulties
when giving oral presentations and of the difficulties the teachers of English in the Department
of Foreign Language, HYUTE have been encountering and I would like to give some
suggestions as well as solutions helping both the teachers and the students teach and learn oral
presentation skills efficiently.
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CHAPTER II: PRACTICAL RESEARCH

2.1. Background of the study.

2.1.1. Description of the English course and its objectives in the department of foreign
languages, HYUTE.

The very first thing that reminds people of HYUTE is its goal in technology and technology
instructions. This explains why the foreign language department is not very popular at the
university in particular and among other public universities in general. Two years ago, there
did not exist a department of foreign languages as there was only English: English for
communication and English for specific purposes (ESP), which had been teaching for a long
time. But thanks to the opening of a course for students of English major, the section of
English was developed into the department of foreign languages.

The English course for those students, therefore, lasts eight terms with different subjects in
English. Right from the first semester onwards the four English skills are taught as isolated
subjects. The course books used here are Inside- out series for speaking (Inside- out Pre-
intermediate, Inside- out Intermediate, Inside- out advanced), IELTs series for reading,
listening and writing. The second- year students are required to achieve the intermediate level
in speaking ability, which is the ability to “communicate successfully in many social situations
and to express themselves persuasively with a number of strategies appropriate to a range of
circumstances and topics”. (HYUTE’ speaking syllabus for 2nd English majors- 2007). The
total time allowed for speaking skills for the fourth term for HYUTE majors is 60 class hours.
The syllabus is theme- based, as briefed below: (Refer to appendix 3 for the list of topics that
we worked on in the fourth term)
• Time (9 class hours)
• Journey ( 9 class hours)
• Basics ( 9 class hours)
• Communication ( 9 class hours)
• Style ( 9 class hours)
 19

• Age ( 9 class hours)

For that reason the speaking classes often focus on common sub-skills like debating, arguing,
discussing, and presenting. Right at the beginning of the fourth term, teachers and students are
given a list of topics. To prepare for the class activities, the students are asked to search for as
many relevant reading passages as they could from available sources like the internet,
newspapers and magazines. More importantly, basing on the materials they have found, the
second- year students are asked to review them in the light of the week’s topic. By doing so,
students’ presentation skill is often practiced and is considered the main activity during the
speaking classes.

2.1.2. Description of the students of the English course:

The students of the foreign language department at HYUTE are much different from those of
the same mandate at other public universities. The first difference can be seen in their levels of
English: generally various and not very high. Moreover, the department itself is young and the
students’ academic results at the entrance examination are much lower, which results in the
low motivation as well as a lack of confidence in learning. That is, they are not very self-
confident and often display a quite passive attitude to learning. This is shown in the fact that
they do not realize the expectations for their learning behaviors as university students are
different from school pupils’. Therefore, they go on adopting the pupil’s teacher- dependent
learning style. Furthermore, being local university students, almost all of them come from
rural areas without many chances for learning English. For a long time, they only focused on
grammar and vocabulary and they hardly spoke English. As a result, when they entered
university, their learning strategies were not good enough to become successful learners.

2.1.3. Description of the teachers at the department:

One very important factor that makes the learning and teaching of English better is the
teachers themselves. In the department of foreign languages, teachers are divided into two
different groups. The first group is responsible for teaching ESP for non- English majors and
the second one has the responsibility for teaching English majors. Only one of the 8 teachers
 20

of the second group is 46 years old, the rest are quite young ranging from 23 to 32. All of them
graduated from the English department of CFL, VNU or Hanoi University. None of them have
got an M.A degree but five of them are doing M.A so they are quite busy teaching and
learning together. In general, the teaching staff is always eager for knowledge, energetic and
willing to apply better teaching methods to upgrade their teaching quality.

2.1.4. Description of the physical setting:

The term” physical setting” refers to the place where the lessons take place, the number of
students in an English class, the equipment and different types of materials available for
teachers and students in teaching and learning English. In the department, the activities of
teaching and learning English are mostly carried out inside the classrooms with not so many
kinds of teaching and learning facilities. Additionally, there is not appropriate size and design
for typical language classrooms: the rooms are too large and all the desks and chairs are too
long to be moveable during group work. Consequently, it can be quite difficult for the teachers
to observe the class during group work, teamwork or to organize some language games for
students.

Concerning the convenience of location, the department is located in Hai Duong city which
provides no favorable conditions for studying English because the students of English majors
here do not have many chances to meet and talk with foreigners and only one small library
with a big lack of reference books creates difficulties for both the teachers and the students in
having enough resources.

In a nutshell, making remarkable progress in teaching and learning English is not easy as it
requires a lot of patience, guidelines and efforts from both HYUTE teachers and students.

2.2. The Study

2.2.1. The Research Questions
 21

In order to uncover the difficulties of the second- year English majors at HYUTE and to
investigate ways to improve their presentation skills, the researcher carries out this research
and aim at answering the following questions:

1) What are the students’ and teachers’ perceptions of the necessity of oral presentation
skills?
2) How much do the teachers know about presentation skills?
3) What are the teachers and the students’ difficulties in their teaching and learning of oral
presentations?
4) What methods are the teachers currently using in teaching presentation skills?
5) What are the students’ evaluations of those methods?
6) What do the students think should be done for them to improve their oral presentation
skills?

2.2.2. The informants

The research was undertaken with the participation of 56 students who were randomly chosen
from 115 students of the four classes, in which 52 were female and 4 were male and 8 teachers
in the group of English practical skills.

Six of the 8 teachers were doing an M.A course. Although their ages were various, most of
them were quite young (only one teacher was aged 46). Most of them had experienced
teaching English for non- English majors but have had only two- year experience in teaching
English to English majors. However, the main concern is shown in their professional ways of
working, their enthusiasm, and their love for teaching English.

Majority of the students were aged twenty (only two students are aged twenty one, two are
aged twenty two and one is aged twenty three as they failed in the previous university entrance
examinations). Most of the informants come from thee countryside (33 students) and from
towns (17 students) while 6 are from big cities like Haiphong, Thanh Hoa, Nam Dinh, or
 22

Vinh. Their different places of domicile somehow lead to greatly various experiences in their
language learning.

The number of years they spent on studying English ranges from three to eight years. Only 11
students (20%) had been learning English for three years or more, but fewer than 5 years.
About more than half of them- 37 students (66%) had spent five years or more but fewer than
ten years. And the rest- 8 students (14%) had experienced ten years or more learning English
and none of them had studied English for one year or more , but fewer than two years.

The learners had been studying three semesters at university. Their average marks in speaking
in the third semester varied from 5 to 9, but just centered on between marks 6 and 7. 6 students
(11%) got mark 5; 19 of them (34%) got mark 6, and 22 students (39%) got mark 7.
Meanwhile 7 students (13%) got mark 8 and only two students (3%) got mark 9.

The second- year students’ English proficiency is equivalent to the intermediate level. They
had studied English for at least three years at high schools, where vocabulary and grammatical
structures were mainly focused. They used Vietnamese, their mother tongue in pair/group
work activities. Rarely did they have chance to use English as a means of communication, let
alone making oral presentations in English.

The notable things about the selected students are, firstly, they are mixed- ability groups of
English learners with different personalities. The majority of the students coming from
northern provinces other than big cities are generally shy, introvert but hard working. The rest
coming from big cities were more outgoing and confident. Secondly, in spite of their low
English proficiency, they show enthusiasm in speaking, especially presenting in English.
However, many students complained to me about their presentations being responded by
yawning from their fellow students. They followed the instructions by their teachers, for
example, they chose interesting topics, but their poor pronunciation, lack of confidence,
monotonous voice, etc. so far failed to help them make a successful oral presentations.
 23

All these facts explicitly indicate the necessity of greater attention to presenting in English,
which is a very important skill for our students. Giving them the chance to get familiar with
effective presentation skills will be a useful and valuable part in the process of teaching and
learning.

2.2.3. Measurement Instruments.

To have a good understanding of the issues under discussion, it is essential to refer to an

important source of data collection associated with the literature review. The researcher hopes
to give some suggestions and suggested teaching techniques that can be worked out to
improve current presentation skill teaching and learning at HYUTE by means of literature
comparison and by cross- checking with the information obtained from the responded
questionnaires.

2.2.4. Data Analysis

Data analysis is not a single description of the data collected but a process by which the
researcher interprets the data. The scheme and coding table in this research emerged from an
examination of the data rather than being determined beforehand and imposed on the data.

2.3. Presentation of Statistical Results

2.3.1. Questionnaire for the Students
2.3.1.1. Methodology

The first questionnaire with 15 questions written in English expected the answers in either
English or Vietnamese with the hope to strengthen the reliability and validity of the data
collection was designed for the learners to collect information concerning to 5 strategies in the
proceeding tables:

Table 1: The students’ perceptions of the necessity of oral presentation skills

Table 2: The second- year students’ difficulties in learning presentation skills
 24

Table 3: Current methods used in teaching oral presentation skills to the second- year English
majors.
Table 4: The students’ evaluation of the teachers’ current methods.
Table 5: The students’ suggested solutions to improve the situations.

Each question expects the optional responses (A, B, C, D) at the same time.

2.3.1.2. Statistical results

The 56 copies of the first type of questionnaire delivered to the second- year students have
been responded. The data is analyzed in this part of the study in the below tables which show
frequencies of the responses for the questions in the questionnaire.

2.3.1.2.1. The students’ perceptions of the necessity of oral presentation skills

To all of the second- year English majors, presentation skills are something important and
necessary to learn because of the following reasons. First, it is a good way to practice speaking
skill. Second, it helps to evaluate one’s ability in speaking, and most important of all, it is to
prepare for their professional ways of working in the future.

Options
A B C D
Questions

How necessary do you think it is to learn

oral presentation skills in your speaking
class?
Question 1 85% 13% 7% 0%
A. Necessary
B. Rather necessary
C. A little necessary
D. Not necessary at all
What do you think is the reason for that
necessity? (You can tick more than one)
 25

A. Making oral presentations is one of the

requirements in the university’s syllabus
for speaking
B. Speaking skill is well- practiced
0% 20% 44% 73
through doing oral presentations %
Question 2
C. It’s a good way to evaluate one’s
ability in speaking
D. It is for us to prepare for our
professional ways of working in the
future.
 Others (Please give other reasons
of your own choice here)
……………………………………
………………………………

Table 1: The students’ perceptions of the necessity of oral presentation skills

It can be calculated from the table 1 that most of the respondents (85%) supposed presentation
skills were necessary for them to learn while 13% of them thought they were rather
necessary and the rest (2%) stated that oral presentation skills were of little necessity. It is
true that there was no one who thought of the presentation skills as of no necessity at all.
When asked about the reasons for that necessity, 41 students (73%) said that learning oral
presentation helped them prepare well for their professional work in the future, 25 of them
(44%) supported for the fact that doing oral presentations was a good way for them to know
how good they were at speaking, which means to evaluate their abilities in speaking. Only 11
students (20%) kept the thinking that by doing oral presentations, students had chance to
practice their speaking skill, and none of them considered making oral presentations as a duty
in the speaking classes. However, beside the reasons given to them from the researcher, some
of them stated that making oral presentations more often in classes helped them more
confident, active and flexible in any situations. They explained: “I think it is a good skill to
learn because beside the advantage of improving speaking skill, the ability to present well
 26

also means having confidence, courage, and good knowledge” or “the very good thing the
learning of oral presentations brings to me is the experience of standing in front of a crowd
speaking, proving, explaining, or persuading and that is also what I’ll have to do in my future
jobs”.

2.3.1.2.2. The second- year students’ difficulties in learning presentation skills

Presentation skills are new among the second- year students in the department of foreign
languages so it is not surprised when all the students (100%) choose option A for question 3
which shows the fact that all the students thought presentation skills were difficult but
interesting. The table below will help to prove this:

Options
A B C D E
Questions

How do you find presentation skills?

A. Difficult but interesting
100% 0% 0% 0%
B. Difficult and boring
Question 3
C. Easy and interesting
D. Easy and boring
How do you find preparation stage difficult?
A. It’s not easy to search for ideas (Not every
given topic is of easy understanding) 18% 32% 16% 34%
B. How to make a detailed outline with
Question 4
satisfactory explanation and examples to
support the main point is quite difficult.
C. Rehearsing the speech is sometimes boring
D. Memorizing your speech word for word is
difficult
In what way (s) do you find delivering a
presentation difficult? (You can tick more
than one)
 27

A. I cannot make a good voice variation (with

stress and intonation)
23% 53% 64% 12% 12%
B. I am quite clumsy in using body language
such as eye contact, facial expression, body
Question 5 movements, or hand gestures
C. I feel nervous (lack of confidence) in front
of the audience
D. I never feel relaxed when handing with the
audience’s questions
E. I can never present fluently
 Others (Please list other reasons here)
…………………………………
What aspect(s) do you find difficult for
giving a good content of a presentation?
(You can tick more than one)
A. Clarity of idea (accuracy)
Question 6 B. How to give supporting ideas for the main 48% 82% 21% 14% 5%
points
C. Topic suitability
D. Timing
E. Ordering the main points
What do you think are the causes of such
difficulties? (You can tick more than one)
Question 7 A. Our English proficiency is quite low
100% 55% 100% 44%
B. Giving oral presentations is new to us
C. We are low- motivated
D. It’s our teacher that fails to teach us what a
good oral presentation should be
 Others (Please list other reasons here)
…………………………………

Table 2: The second- year students’ difficulties in learning presentation skills

 28

After receiving a topic from the teacher, the students should be given time to prepare for their
own presentation. The preparation stage (question 4), therefore, bears some certain jobs
which, firstly is to search for, brainstorm, and select the best ideas to be presented, secondly is
the step of making a detailed outline with satisfactory explanations and examples to support
the main points, thirdly is to rehearse the speech, and lastly is to memorize the speech word
for word. When asked about their difficulties in carrying out these steps, the students showed
their different points of view. There were two items which most of them found difficult:
making a detailed outline for the topic (32%) and memorizing the speech word for word
(34%). There were only 10 students (18%) who thought that the step of searching for ideas for
the topic was difficult as not every given topic was of easy understandings; and 9 of them
(16%) thought rehearsing the speech was sometimes boring.

Not only does the preparation stage become such hard work for the students, but the stage of
delivering a presentation (question 5) is difficult as well. Overall, the majority of them (64%)
considered their lack of confidence in front of the audience a big challenge because, as they
explained, their feelings of nervous, uncomfortable, and embarrassed often made them forget
nearly all what had been prepared. Moreover, there were 29 students (52%) who agreed with
the fact that they were quite clumsy in using body language such as eye contact, facial
expression, body movements, or hand gestures. Only 13 of them (23%) thought that how to
make a good voice variation was difficult. It could be good news as only 7 students (12%) find
it difficult to handle with the audience’s questions and so was the job of presenting the speech
fluently. The reason, as they stated, was that the feelings of self- confident and relaxed were
the key factors to help them overcome all other difficulties which were minor ones only.
Beside, some of them claimed that their difficulties in delivering a presentation could also be
seen in their lack of vocabulary and incorrect pronunciation. “Sometimes my lack of
vocabulary put myself in an embarrassing situation where I could think of no appropriate
words or phases to express my points” or “I am sure that my presentation could have gone
better if I had not made so much incorrect pronunciation, which made the audience confused
sometimes”
 29

Difficulties in giving a good content of a presentation (question 6) were believed to be worth

discussing by the students. According to most of them – 46 students (82%), a presentation
only has its good content when one knows how to support for the main points, that is, giving
supporting ideas for the main points is the most difficult of all. Beside, nearly half of them –
27 students (48%) thought they have difficulty in presenting with good accuracy of word uses,
expressions, and pronunciation, without which they could not be successful in giving the
clarity of ideas. Other aspects were also difficult, but for them they were not much. For
example, 12 of them (21%) blamed for the unsuitability of topics, 8 students (14%) thought
that if they could have more time, the content they gave could be much better, and for the last
factor, just a few of them – 3 students (5%) saw the probability of their affecting the content of
a presentation.

Question 7 was made to ask the students about the causes of such difficulties. The findings
from the survey show the fact that the students have to try hard so as to be good at English
first, and then to have better attitude towards doing oral presentations in the classes. When
looking at individual cases, all of them (100%) admitted that their low English proficiency
was one cause and their low motivation was the other one. There were also 31 students who
agreed that as this was a new subject, they could not be successful in presenting, and 25 of
them blamed their teachers for not being successful in teaching them what a good oral
presentation should be. And it is the last cause about the staff’s teaching quality that makes the
researcher worry about and try her best to find out ways to improve the current situations.

2.3.1.2.3. Current methods used in teaching oral presentation skills to the second- year
English majors.

Options
A B C D E
Questions

After giving you topics for presentation, your

teachers often …
A. Helps with the main ideas for the topic
B. Helps you with words or structures related to
 30

Question 8 the topics 18% 11% 9% 62%

C. Encourages you to discuss the topic in groups
D. Asks you to discuss the topic individually
 Others (Please list other activities here)
…………………………………………….
What does your teacher do to encourage you to
do oral presentations?
A. Suggests interesting topics for discussion
B. Gives you a model video presentation.
Question 9 C. Helps to brainstorm main points for an outline 21% 0% 11% 14% 54%
D. Uses group work or pair work.
E. Does nothing
 Others (Please list other actions here)
………………………………………….
If you make mistakes while presenting your
topic, your teacher often …
A. gets angry and interrupts you by correcting
them
3% 48% 36% 11% 2%
Question 10 B. Not angry but interrupt you to correct
C. Waits until you finish your presentations,
points out your mistakes, then corrects them for
you
D. Lets you and your classmates correct them
E. Ignores them
 Others (Please list other actions here)
……………………………………
When you finish your presentation, your
teacher often …
A. Asks for feedback on it from the rest of the
16% 64% 9% 11%
students
Question 11
B. Gives her/ his own feedback on it
C. Does nothing
 31

D. Both A & B

Table 3: Current methods used in teaching oral presentation skills to the second- year
English majors.

Teachers’ ways of teaching are an important factor helping students make progress in their
studies. As oral presentation skills are still new to all the second- year English majors, a
careful selection of teaching methods should always be the teachers’ greatest concern.

However, the data collected from Table 3 show that the teachers of presentation skills lack
some good methods to motivate the students, to make it easier for them to understand, and to
let them feel relaxed when giving their own presentations. Details about this are as follows:
The figures collected from Question 8 points out that most of the students (62%) commented
that their teachers almost did nothing after giving them a topic for presentation, whereas only a
small number of them (9%) stated that their teacher gave them chance to discuss the topic in
groups. 10 of them (18%) responded that their teacher helped them discuss the topic by giving
them main ideas for the topic, and only a small number of them- 6 students (11%) answered
that their teacher sometimes provided them with some words or structures related to the topic.
Some students added that sometimes they did nothing but let the students discuss in their own
groups at home in order to get ready preparation for the class oral presentation the following
week. “It becomes our class’s habit that before finishing a week’s work our teacher gives us a
topic for group discussion at home, and then next week she will call randomly a group to
make oral presentation for the topic”

The responses to Question 9 indicate that the majority of teachers- 30 (54%) did nothing to
encourage their students to do presentations. Furthermore, when a list of activities to
encourage the students was suggested, none of them (0%) answered their teacher used a model
video presentation, 12 students (21%) said their teachers sometimes suggested interesting
topics for discussion, 8 of them (14%) answered that pair work and group work was also used
for topic discussion, and only 6 students (11%) chose C which shows that the teachers helped
their students brainstorm the main points for the topic. One of them added sometimes her
teacher managed to relax the students by avoiding commenting their mistakes, which they
 32

thought was good way to increase their motivation. “I like it when my teacher ignored to
correct our mistakes as she thought that if the mistakes we made were not so serious, no
correction from her should be needed. In this way, I think, she was quite successful in
motivating us to give oral presentation”

Question 10 talks about the teachers’ attitudes towards the students’ making mistakes and
different answers were collected. Firstly, 2 students (3%) responded that their teacher got
angry and interrupted them to correct the mistakes whereas 27 of them (48%) said their
teacher were not angry but interrupted them to correct. The next activity which says teachers
waits until the students finish their presentations, points out their mistakes, then corrects the
mistakes for them received responses from 20 students (36%), and 6 students said their teacher
let them and their classmates correct the mistakes, and lastly, only 1 student (2%) answered
that her/ his teacher ignored the mistakes with the hope to make them feel relaxed and more
motivated in their oral presentations.

Giving feedback on the students’ finishing their presentations is also very important as this is
to make better improvement for other presentations. Therefore, it is the teachers’ duty to find
good ways to make this stage the most relaxing and interesting of all in which encouragement,
suggestion, or correction can all be welcome. Statistics from Table 3 show that the majority of
the teachers- 36 (64%) intended to give their own feedback on the students’ presentations,
whereas only 9 of the students (16%) said that their teachers asked for feedback on it from the
rest of the students; 5 of them (9%) said that their teachers did nothing for the correction of the
mistakes and 6 students (11%) responded that their teachers sometimes gave their own
feedback on the students’ presentations but sometimes they asked for feedback from the rest of
the students.

In summary, teachers’ current ways of teaching oral presentations still need changing as
sometimes they had inappropriate ways to motivate the students, they need to be less serious
in correcting the students’ mistakes and should do more to help them involved in their
presentations.
 33

2.3.1.2.4. The students’ evaluation of the teachers’ current methods.

Options
A B C D
Questions

What do you think about your teacher’s

teaching strategies of presentation skills?
They are:
Question 12
A. Very effective
0% 9% 79% 12%
B. Rather effective
C. Little effective
D. Not effective at all

Table 4: The students’ evaluation of the teachers’ current methods.

An important finding from the above table is that the teachers’ current methods of oral
presentation skills are not appreciated by the majority of the students. In fact, 44 students
(79%) supposed the methods were of little effectiveness, only five of them (9%) thought the
methods were rather effective, none of them (0%) agreed that their teachers’ methods were
very effective, and there were 12 students who kept the idea that the methods their teachers
were currently used are not effective at all.

2.3.1.2.5. The students’ suggested solutions to improve the situations.

Options
A B C D
Questions

What do you think the teacher should

do to help you to give satisfactory
presentations? (You can tick more than
one)
Question 13
A. Give you more reading texts related to 100% 86% 100% 100%
the topics
 34

B. Suggest topics of your interests

C. Give model language for your oral
presentation
D. Show you a film or video on a model
presentation
 Others (Please list other opinions
here)……………………………
What do you think you should do to help
yourself give effective presentation?
(You can take more than one)
A. Improve our own knowledge of
English, for example vocabulary, 100% 100% 100%
structures, grammar, and
Question 14
pronunciation
B. Be well- prepared for our oral
presentations
C. Be more self- confident
 Others (Please list other
opinions here)
……………………………
What do you think the department of
foreign languages should do to help you
improve your presentation skill? (You
can tick more than one)
A. Invest in well- equipped learning and
teaching facilities, for example
100% 100% 100%
Question 15 specialized lecture rooms being equipped
with overhead projector, language labs,
etc.
B. Organize English speaking clubs and
contests more often
C. Pay for training courses on
 35

presentation skills
 Others (Please list other opinions
here……………………………..

Table 5: The students’ suggested solutions to improve the situations.

Question 13: There were a number of ideas and suggestions the students wanted to share with
their teachers’ teaching methods of presentation skills so as to help themselves improve the
current situations. The data collected from Table 5 indicates that all of the students (100%)
supposed their teachers should give them more reading texts related to the topics, model
languages for their presentations, or show them a video or a film on model presentation. There
were 48 out of the 56 students (86%) stated that their teachers should think of the topics which
were more suitable with the students’ interests so that they can become more motivated in
their doings of oral presentations. Additionally, the students thought their teachers should help
them improve their pronunciation which they considered one of the important factors making
their presentation effective. Some of them suggested that before they started their
presentations, the teachers should draw their attention to their pronunciation, for example,
emphasizing the key words, using appropriate intonation patterns. What is more? They
thought the teacher(s) should train them to speak the language with reasonable fluency. They
all believed that their teachers’ focus on frequent exposure to authentic recorded materials
might improve their oral fluency as well as accuracy. And lastly, most of them expressed their
expectation of being given more chances to practice as they believed “Practice makes perfect”.

An interesting finding from the table was that all the students (100%) totally agreed with the
three suggested items in Question 14 which said they needed to , firstly, improve their own
knowledge of English, for example vocabulary, structures, grammar, and pronunciation;
secondly, be well- prepared for their oral presentations, and lastly be more self- confident.
Besides, many extra ideas were given proving the fact that the students themselves knew how
poor their presentations were and how hard they had to try to get improvement. In giving
responses to other of their opinions to the question, the students shared that they needed to
learn from their presentations. And the reasons, as they believed, were that they might have
 36

more experience, they would not make the same mistakes again and they would be able to
make better presentations next time. Below are what they wrote:
- In my opinion, we must draw experience from our last presentations
so that we can make better presentations next time.
- I think we should learn from our previous presentations, for example,
grammar mistakes, pronunciation mistakes so that we won’t make the
same mistakes.

Question 15: As can be seen from the table above, all the students in the Department of
foreign languages (100%) agreed with the three suggested items. According to them, in
general, the teaching and learning facilities here were not well- equipped because apart from
the availability of radios, there is no language lab, and only one building of lecture room is
equipped with one overhead projector. Also, they agreed that the department should organize
English speaking clubs, oratory contests, workshops or seminars in English more widely and
regularly so that the students could take an opportunity to attend, to work in groups, to give
their opinions, and to talk about their ideas on a single topic.

2.3.2. Questionnaire for the teachers.

2.3.2.1. Methodology.

The second questionnaire designed for the teachers consists of 9 questions to collect
information concerning to 4 strategies in the proceeding tables:
Table 1: The teachers’ perceptions of the necessity of oral presentation skill.
Table 2: The teachers’ opinion of presentation skills
Table 3: The teachers’ difficulties in teaching presentation skills
Table 4: Current teaching methods applied for oral presentation skills

Each question expects the optional responses (A, B, C, D) at the same time

2.3.2.2. Statistical results

 37

The 8 copies of the second type of questionnaire delivered to the teaching staff have been
responded. The data is analyzed in this part of the study in the below tables which show
frequencies of the responses for the questions in the questionnaire.

2.3.2.2.1. The teachers’ perceptions of the necessity of oral presentation skill.

Options
A B C D

Questions
How necessary do you think it is to introduce oral
presentation skills in the speaking class?
A. Necessary
Question 1 62% 25% 13% 0%
B. Rather necessary
C. A little necessary
D. Not necessary at all
What do you think is the reason for that
necessity?(You can tick more than one)
A. Making oral presentations is one of the
requirements in the university’s syllabus for
speaking 25% 100% 25% 100%
Question 2
B. Speaking skill is well- practiced through doing
oral presentations
C. It’s a good way to evaluate students’ ability in
speaking
D. It is for the students to prepare for their
professional ways of working in the future.
 Others (Please give other reasons of your
own choice here)
……………………………

Table 1: The teachers’ perceptions of the necessity of oral presentation skills

 38

Statistics from Table 1 factually show that no teachers at the department of foreign languages-
HYUTE (0%) considered oral presentation skills a necessary subject to be taught ( not
necessary at all) whereas more than half of them (62%) agreed that these skills were worth
being taught (necessary). Two of the eight teachers (25%) thought of it as a subject of not too
much necessity (rather necessary), and only one of them (13%) believed that the job of
introducing oral presentation skills in speaking classes was only of a little necessity. And
according to all of them (100%), the reasons for that necessity were, firstly, letting the students
practise oral presentation skills also means giving them chance to practice their speaking skills
in a very effective way. Secondly, learning how to give a good presentation could help to
prepare for the students’ professional way of working in the future. Only 25% of them agreed
with the reason that making oral presentation was one of the requirements in the university’s
syllabus for speaking and that it was a good way to evaluate the students’ ability in speaking.

To sum up, to both the teachers and the students in the department of foreign languages, oral
presentation skills were important and necessary to teach and learn. The reasons given may be
of little difference between the teachers and the students but that was not too much. Hopefully,
a detailed syllabus which includes presentation skills and aims of the course will make both
the teachers and the students become highly motivated in their both teaching and learning of
oral presentations.

2.3.2.2.2. The teachers’ opinion of presentation skills.

Options
A B C D

Questions
Have you been trained in presentation skills?
4 2 0 2
A. Yes, in English teaching- training courses
B. Yes, in English teaching workshops
Question 3 50% 25% 0% 25%
C. Others
D. No, I have never been trained in presentation
skills.
What do you think about presentation skills?
 39

( Tick all the statements you think are true to 6 8 4 8

presentation skills)
A. are student- led activities
Question 4
B. are to practice speaking and listening skills
C. can’t be effectively done without the help 75% 100% 50% 100%
of visual aids like overhead projectors,
blackboard, and illustrations
D. create fears and nervousness to the majority
of students

Table 2: The teachers’ opinion of presentation skills.

Figures from Table 2 show the fact that 6 out of the 8 teachers had been trained in presentation
skills in which only 4 of them (50%) had received formal training- in English teaching-
training courses and 2 of them (25%) had not been trained formally- in English teaching
workshops. There were still 2 teachers (25%) who had not been trained in presentation skills
which, in some way, affect the department’s teaching quality. This leads to their different
ideas about presentation skills in Question 4: all of the teachers (100%) thought that
presentation skills were good for practicing speaking and listening skills and that the skills
create fears and nerves to the majority of the students, 6 of them (75%) agreed that
presentation skills are student- led activities, and only half of them kept the thinking that these
skill cannot be effectively done without the help of visual aids like overhead projectors,
blackboard, and illustrations.

2.3.2.2.3. The teachers’ difficulties in teaching presentation skills.

Options
A B C D E
Question

How difficult do you find it to introduce

presentation skills?
A. Very difficult
25% 43% 32% 0%
B. Quite difficult
 40

Question 5 C. Little difficult

D. Easy
What do you think is the reason(s) for that
difficulty? (You can tick more than one)
A. I haven’t been trained in the skills before
B. I lack reference books
Question 6
C. The students’ proficiency is low
25% 50% 100% 50% 62%
D. There is not appropriate classroom size for
making presentation.
E. The students are not confident enough
 Others (Please list other reasons here)
…………………………………

Table 3: The teachers’ difficulties in teaching presentation skills

In response to question 5, all the teachers agreed with the fact that oral presentation skills were
difficult to teach although the levels of difficulty were quite different: 24 teachers (43%)
thought it was quite difficult, 18 of them (32%) thought it was of little difficult, and the rest-
14 teachers (25%) said that the skills were very difficult. It is understandable that no teachers
in the department thought oral presentation skills were easy to teach. The reasons for those
difficulties can be explained in question 6. According to all the teachers (100%), the students’
low proficiency in English was a major factor that prevented them from making the students
understand everything of their teaching and follow all that they asked the students to do in
class and at home as well. Some of the teachers said: “Although I’ve tried my best to teach
them all the necessary steps of giving a presentation and give them chance to do a lot of
practice, of course, most of them failed to express in English appropriately with their poor
vocabulary, grammar, and especially pronunciation. Gradually, they lost their confidence in
speaking.” This also explains why more than 62% of them complained that the students’ lack
of confidence when giving pronunciations was one of their big challenges. Half of the teachers
(50%) stated that their difficulties could also be seen in their lack of reference books and
appropriate classroom size being equipped with some technical aids such as projectors,
 41

computers…. Only two teachers (25%) had difficulty just because they have not been trained
in the skills so they could not have good experience teaching successfully.

2.3.2.2.4. Current teaching methods applied for oral presentation skills

Options
A B C D
Question

After giving your students topics for 5 2 7 1

presentation, you often …(You can tick
more than one)
A. Help with the main ideas for the topic
Question 7 B. Help with words or structures related to 63% 25% 87% 12%
the topics
C. Let them discuss the topics in small
groups
D. Do nothing
 Others (Please list other activities
here)
……………………………………
……

What do you do to encourage your

students to speak?
Question 8 A. Suggest interesting topics for discussion
30% 0% 63% 87%
B. Gives them a model video presentation.
C. Help them brainstorm main points for an
outline
D. Use group work or pair work.
 E. Others (Please list other activities
here)………………………………..
 42

If your students make mistakes while

presenting the topic, you often ……..
A. Get angry and interrupt them by
correcting the mistakes
Question 9
B. Don’t get angry but interrupt them to
0% 25% 50% 12%
correct
C. Wait until they finish their presentations,
point out their mistakes, and then correct
the mistakes for them
D. Wait until they finish their presentations,
point out their mistakes, and then
encourage them to correct the mistakes by
themselves
 E. Others (Please list other activities
here)………………………………

Table 4: Current teaching methods applied for oral presentation skills

Honestly speaking, the findings from the first questionnaire show that the second- year
English majors did not give positive comments on their teachers’ ways of teaching. In this
questionnaire, however, comments of that kind can be more subjective as, to some extent, the
teachers have not recognized so easily in what way(s) their teaching methods should be
changed and how should they be improved. The table above about teachers’ comments on
their own ways of teaching helps to work out the problems. Statistics collected for question 7
proved that most of the teachers (87%) applied the technique of asking the students to discuss
the topic in groups. Besides, there were also a high percentage of teachers (63%) who often
helped their students with the main ideas for the given topic whereas, only 25% of them
sometimes helped the students with words or structures related to the topics and none of them
(0%) agreed that they should not do anything after giving their students topics for presentation
or if she could do something, it should be like what a guide in the class should do: “ What I do
 43

is to go around supporting my students. I do not do A cause I think it narrows my students’

creativeness.”

When asked about what they did to encourage their students to speak, the eight teachers
showed their different points of view. 30% of them often suggested the students interesting
topics for discussion, 63% of them helped to brainstorm main points for an outline, 87%
encouraged the students to make presentation by discussing the main points in pairs or groups
so that the shy students could be more involved in their presentations. Pitifully, none of the
teachers (0%) used the technique of giving the students a model video presentation which,
according to the researcher, is a very effective way to give the students something to learn
from. There was one teacher who said that by raising the awareness of the importance of
presentation skills she could encourage her students to make presentations.

Information from table 4 reveals that there were no teachers (0%) who got angry and interrupt
the students by correcting their mistakes while they were presenting but 2 out of the eight
teachers did not get angry but interrupt the students to correct. Half of the teachers (50%)
chose item C which says that the teachers often wait until the students finish their
presentations, point out their mistakes and correct the mistakes for them. Item D which says
the teachers wait until the students finish their presentations, point out their mistakes, and then
encourage the students to correct the mistakes by themselves was agreed by only one teacher
(12%). One of the teachers who did not choose any of the above items wrote that sometimes
mistakes should be ignored to make the students relaxed. By doing so she believed she could
motivate her students so much. “Sometimes I ignored their mistake because I did know that
they themselves realized it and I did not want them to lose their faces.”

CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATION

2.1. Findings.
 44

The findings from the questionnaires distributed to 56 second- year English majors and 8
teachers at HYUTE are the answers to the six research questions. Follows are the detailed
answers to those questions:

2.1.1. The students’ and teachers’ perceptions of the necessity of oral presentation skills.
Research question 1: What are the students’ and teachers’ perceptions of the necessity of oral
presentation skills?

Findings from the two questionnaires indicate that both the students and the teachers agreed
upon the necessity of oral presentation skills. As for them, the application of these skills for
the second- year English majors in their speaking classes in particular and in all other English
classes in general was really advantageous. The very first important reason, as they stated, was
that they could have a quite good preparation for their future ways of working in which they
would often have to give academic presentations on their own fields of business. Furthermore,
to the teachers who teach speaking skill, the skills of giving presentations help their students a
lot in practicing speaking in English through sub- skills like giving opinions, persuading,
arguing, discussing, handling with the audience’s questions, etc.

2.1.2. What the teachers know about presentation skills.

Research question 2: How much do the teachers know about presentation skills?

Generally, the majority of the teachers have attended in training courses on presentation skills
so the researcher was not surprised to recognize that their knowledge of presentation skills is
quite good. They all know for sure that the skills of presentation are to practice the students’
speaking and listening abilities and that to be successful in giving presentations it is teachers’
job to be aware of all particular characteristics of presentation skills such as learner- dependent
(student- led activities), challenging ( create fears and nervousness to the learners), and
technical (cannot be successful without the help of visual aids like overhead projectors,
computers, blackboards, and illustrations, etc.)
 45

2.1.3. The teachers and the students’ difficulties in their teaching and learning of oral
presentations.
Research question 3: What are the teachers and the students’ difficulties in their teaching and
learning of oral presentations?

In general the students appeared shy and self conscious to speak English and often averted
back to their mother tongue at a point of difficulty rather than perhaps seeking the help of a
peer near them or requesting a brief moment to look up a word. The latter two options would
be more beneficial in terms of grasping a handle on English and learning new words. Findings
from the survey also show that the majority of students boasted a range of English that was
limited only to the common phrases provided to them by their teachers or used in their text
book. The ability to express themselves more articulately was lacking greatly. Students would
often rely upon the over used and cliché statements rather than attempting to describe
themselves using new words.

The teachers shared many of their difficulties in teaching presentation skills and to their own
points of view, the students’ low proficiency of English resulted in their reluctance to practice
presentation skills such as semi- formal group discussion within the classroom, which created
a barrier between receiving the “theory” and application. Moreover, the difficulties were
attributed to a lack of resources like a well- equipped library where reference books,
magazines and newspapers, etc could be available.

2.1.4. The methods the teachers are currently using in teaching presentation skills.
Research question 4: What methods are the teachers currently using in teaching presentation
skills?

Both the students’ and the teachers’ responses reflect that improvements in teaching
presentation skills in particular and speaking skills in general should be taken into
considerations by the teachers as their methods remain problematic. First of all, it seems to the
researcher that the teachers participated too much in the presentation doings by helping their
students with the main ideas for the topic, with words or structures related to the topic without
 46

paying much attention to encourage the students’ creativeness by letting them work in their
hown groups for the main ideas or structures. This happened to most of the teachers who, in
giving responses to the questions, explained that if they did not do so their students might
think that they were not supportive and even lazy. Secondly, all of the teachers seemed not to
know one important thing that giving a model video presentation is quite effective because it
creates chances for the students to learn via examples. Instead of that, they sometimes
encouraged their students to speak by helping them brainstorm main points for an outline or
suggesting topics of their preference for discussion. Furthermore, the teachers were too serious
when their students made mistakes. Although they did not get angry, they could not stand
waiting until the students finish their presentations to correct their mistakes so stopped them
while they were presenting to correct. In addition to that, they kept warning the students of
their mistakes by pointing out the mistakes and correcting them in front of the class. The last
stage in their methods was when the students finished their presentations. At this stage, all
what most of the teachers did was giving their own feedback on the students’ presentation
giving.

2.1.5. The students’ evaluations of those methods.

Research question 5: What are the students’ evaluations of those methods?

What the students evaluated on their teachers’ methods was not very positive. Only a few of
them thought those methods were quite effective or little effective; the rest thought they were
not effective at all. This problem seems hard to be solved as most of the teachers kept thinking
that it was their students’ poor English proficiency, not the teachers’ fault that made them low-
motivated in the lessons.
2.1.6. What the students think should be done for them to improve their oral presentation
skills.
Research question 6: What do the students think should be done for them to improve their oral
presentation skills?

Students’ expectations are various. To help them improve their oral presentation skills it is
necessary that not only the students themselves, but the teachers and the department of foreign
 47

languages as well, think of how to learn, how to teach, and how to support for the teaching and
learning of English in general and of oral presentation skills in particular. Results from the
survey show that the teachers were expected to, firstly, give their students more text- based
readings so that they can get some background knowledge about the topic they are going to
present and secondly, give them model video presentations to learn from, and thirdly pay more
attention to their pronunciation and fluency in speaking. And they themselves should
recognize how poor their English proficiency is so that they should start thinking of improving
it immediately. Moreover, they all agreed that preparation for presentations is very important
as it helps them be more confident about what have been prepared so being well- prepared is
always what the students should be aware of. About the institution, the students expected that
they could have more chances to take part in English clubs or English Olympic contests, etc to
practice speaking English and to increase their confidence in any kinds of English
performance. Furthermore, they hoped that the department as well as the institution should
invest more in learning facilities or equipping the library with variety kinds of reference
books, or the laboratory with more cassettes, computers, or internet.

2.2. Suggested techniques for improving oral presentation skills.

2.2.1. Suggestions for the teachers.

According to the result of respond questionnaires, it is unedited that the teaching methods of
oral presentation skills in the speaking lessons for the second- year English majors currently
applied at the department of foreign languages are problematic. This completely affects
learners’ study. The researcher supposes that it is high time the teachers in the department did
something to improve their teaching methods. Followings are some suggestions for the teacher
activities to the class presentations:

 Topic discussion:

Most of the teachers who have trained in presentation skills show that they have good
understanding of it. However, the majority of them have not applied them on their teaching
due to a number of difficulties indentified in the survey result. Therefore, in order to improve
 48

the situation of teaching English speaking in general and presentation skills in particular,
firstly, the teachers ought to be encouraged to give their students a choice of topics for
discussion. Discussion, according to Byrne (1987: 59), is “any exchange of opinions or
ideas”. This means that topic discussion is any exchange of opinions or ideas about some
topic. Following is an example of how the teacher had a discussion with the class about a
topic: whether young people spend too much money on clothes:

T: Well, I sometimes get the impression…I sometimes think…that a lot of people today…
especially young people, I mean…spend too much money on clothes. What do you think?
A: Oh, I don’t think that’s right. May be people buy more clothes, but they are quite
cheap, really
B… and not very good, so…
C: It depends. Anyway, clothes are important!
D: Yes.
E: I don’t agree. Most people buy something because, well, they see it in a shop… or
someone’s wearing it, so they want it too… (etc.)
T: Well, I suppose one good thing is… making clothes provides work for people, doesn’t
it? (etc.)
(Byrne: 1987: 3)

Giving the class a “topic” to talk about, according to Byrne (1987), is the traditional way of
starting a discussion. Usually, we begin to discuss a topic (education, advertising, politics…)
in real life because there is something that provokes us. For example, perhaps we have just
seen an advertisement or read an article which annoys us. So in the classroom, too, if we want
the students to talk about a topic, we must find some way of involving them in it. Some
possibilities are:
• Questions: For example, you can start by asking your students: “What’s the real
purpose of education? Does everyone need the same education?”
• Provocative statements: you can quote an opinion you have heard. For example,
The other day, I heard someone say that for most people education is just a waste of time!
 49

• Visual material: This can be in the form of relevant pictorial material (posters,
photographs, advertisements, etc.), which will help bring some aspects of the topic
alive. Or you can use charts and diagrams to focus on some particular aspect of a topic.
For example, you could compare the amount of money spent on education and
defence.
To sum up, it is suggested that the teachers provide topics which are more interesting and
appropriate to age, level and relating to real life to create enjoyable atmosphere that makes
reluctant learners interested in giving presentations. The teachers should also save them the
chance to select topic themselves because topic certainly will be in their list of favorite, and
the more they like it, the more they are interested in discussion and preparation for
presentation giving.

 Feedback:

Furthermore, the teachers should change their ways of correcting the students’ mistakes or
giving feedback because their criticism and bad comments on their students’ presentation
doings sometimes create low motivation on the students. So it is suggested that teachers give
students more praise, compliments, encouragements than criticism. The survey shows that
feedback is often given by the teachers (teacher feedback) but peer feedback (given by the
students) is also necessary as it makes the students get involved and become attentive
audience. Follows are some advice for the teachers on how to give teacher feedback and how
to ask the student to give peer feedback:

• Teacher feedback: When teaching presentations, you will probably want to give
feedback on each presentation. Try using a prepared observation feedback form (see
Appendix 4), divided into sections such as body language, signposting and audience
rapport. After the presentation, you can give your comments verbally and/or in writing.
A feedback form is particularly valuable in giving the presenting student something
tangible to take away, both as a mark of achievement and as a tool for improvement.
 50

• Peer feedback: Depending on group, level and culture, you may wish to invite
feedback from other students on the presenting student's performance. You can give
the audience a prepared feedback form (see Appendix 5), listing the points to watch
out for and comment on. The audience should be looking for positive points at least as
much as for negative ones. This can be a useful activity as it sensitizes all students to
the do's and don'ts of presentation giving.

 Group work:

What is more? The reality of the students’ doings of presentation is that sometimes the
students find it quite hard work to prepare for a presentation as there is often so much work to
do: searching for the main points; making the outline and rehearsing the speech. If students are
asked to make an individual presentation, such workload cannot be shared and so much stress
will be sure to arise. According to Emden and Becker (2004: 79), “sharing burden is a great
advantage, as long as everyone takes his or her role seriously”. That is why the researcher
suggests that the teachers should assign oral presentation in groups rather than individually.
When organizing the group work for a presentation, it is essential that the teachers consider
the following important point:

• Forming a group: According to Emden and Becker (2004), there’s no ideal size to a
presentation group. Two people can work well together and the potential problem of
coordinating the work is minimized. If there are more than four in the group, the
presentation must allow them all to have the experience of speaking, which requires
quite a lot of time. Another point is whether the teachers should form groups of mixed
or the same ability. Byrne (1987) explains that mixed ability groups- with fast and
slow students together- are better for fluency work. He adds that students do help one
another because the kind of work they have to do involves co-operation and
collaboration. And teachers only have to listen in to group work to hear students
correcting one another’s mistakes.

 Presentation skill teaching:

 51

‘Learning via examples’ is often said to be one of the most positive ways of acquiring new
techniques. Thus materials such as a short film/ footage of both students and professional
presentations in English on ranging topics would be most beneficial for students to take notes
from. Furthermore, presentations as varied as government Project announcements to TV
advertisements presenting new products will help provide students with a deeper
understanding of what the criteria of an engaging and effective presentation is. Therefore, if
only teachers could collect such kinds of materials to the class presentations, students could
have more things to learn from and this will increase their confidence in presentation doings.

In addition to that, it is teachers who know for sure what the students need to be aware of
when preparing for or delivering a presentation. As for Josef Essberger (2003), presentation is
everything and delivery is a vital aspect of all presentations. Thus, working out what need to
be done or paid attention to of the students’ presentation giving is considered the essential job
of all the teachers when teaching the skills. Follows are some of the tips Josef Essberger
(2003) advises teachers to remind their students of:

• Preparation:
 Making sure students have clear objective in their minds that why they are
making this presentation and whether they need to inform, to persuade, to train, or
to sell. His explanation is that if these are not clear in their mind, they cannot be
possibly clear to their audience.
 Making sure the students know when they are making the presentation and how
long it will be.
 Deciding exactly what the students should say. To do this, firstly students should
brainstorm their ideas by discovering many ideas that they want to include in their
presentation then select only the ones that are relevant to their audience and their
objective.
 52

 Making sure to organize the points they wish to make in a logical order, which,
according to literature on presentation organization, consists of three main parts,
followed by questions. Details are as followed:

Beginning Short introduction • welcome your audience

• introduce your subject
• explain the structure of your
presentation

• explain rules for questions

Middle Body of • present the subject itself

presentation

End Short conclusion • summarise your

presentation
• thank your audience

• invite questions

Questions and Answers

Josef Essberger (2003: 4)

 Presenting like reading a text aloud will make the audience go to sleep. Thus,
preparing a card, an A6 card, for example is perfect for the presenters to write
down the title of each section of their talk, or some key words to remind them.

 Rehearsing or practicing the presentation several times to make sure the

presenters become more familiar with what they want to say, identify
weakness in their presentation, be able to practice difficult pronunciations, and
be able to check the time that their presentation takes and make any necessary
modifications.

• Delivery:
 53

 Learning the introduction by heart and trying to speak slowly and calmly to establish a
rapport with the audience and to relax and gain confidence.
 Building a warm and friendly relationship with the audience by establishing eye contact
with each member of the audience. There is an advice on the necessity of making eye
contact by Emden & Becker (2004:25) that “However nervous you feel, or reluctant to
meet the eyes of the people in front of you, you absolutely make eye contact”. Eye contact
is the way the presenters allow their eyes to meet those of the audience, just for a brief
instant. The two above authors also add that a terrible distraction of embarrassment of the
laughter between the audience and the presenter in a presentation will be likely to happen
if the presenter holds eye contact for too long. That is eye contact has to be brief.
 Making good first impression through body language, some examples of which are the
presenters’ clothes, walk, glasses, haircut, or expression. Therefore, it is advisable that
appearance and the way a presenter moves or stand be aware of before he/she opens
his/her mouth.
 Varying their voice to attract the audience’s attention and interest. The students should
also be reminded of varying their voice in at least three ways: speed, intonation, and
volume. The important point is not to speak in the same, flat, monotonous voice
throughout the presentation.
 Knowing how to signpost the presentation by telling the audience where they are, what the
structure of the presentation is, or what is coming next. For the model language for
signposting, refer to appendix 6.
 Focusing on the simplicity and clarity of the language for presentation by using short
words and short sentences, active verbs instead of passive verbs, etc.
 Using visual aids like charts, graphs, slides, OHPs, etc as according to Josef Essberger
(2003:9), “80% of what your audience learn during your presentation is learned visually
(what they see) and only 20% is learned aurally (what they hear)”.

2.2.2. Suggestions for the students.

With such a low level of English proficiency, the second- year students in the department are,
firstly, suggested to improve their knowledge of English. There are a number of things they
should be aware of: reading more to enrich their vocabulary and structures, practicing doing
 54

grammar exercises on awareness- raising, such as verb forms, word building, error correction,
sentence transformation, translation, etc.

In addition, nervousness is said to be one of the students’ big obstacles while delivering oral
presentations so how to overcome it is worth paying attention to by the students. Basing on the
literature on oral presentations by Dwyer (2000), Reinhart (2002), and Emden & Becker
(2004), to be able to overcome shyness, nervousness as well as to gain confidence, students
have to make sure to:
• Be well- prepared: As for the above authors, with good preparation and planning you
will be totally confident and less nervous and your audience will feel your confidence
thus the audience themselves will be confident in you. Thanks to this you will gain
control of your audience and your presentation with which you will be “in charge” and
your audience will listen positively to your message. Dwyer (2000: 200- 204) offers
four steps for an oral presentation preparation. They are: (1) writing the presentation,
(2) rewriting it for the ear, (3) practicing and revising it, and (4) organizing the visual
aids. Once the learner has made an outline of the main points, write the presentation.
The main purpose of creating an outline is to develop a coherent plan of what the
learner wants to talk about. After he/she has written the first draft of the speech,
practice the speech. He/she should record it on a tape- recorder, then replay it and
decide if it needs rewriting for the ear. Writing for the ear prepares the speech as a
spoken rather than a written channel of communication. Thus, the learners should use a
concise, simple structure that is easy to follow, for example, verbs in the active voice,
with simple tenses, words that are easy to hear and understand. Use a set of palm cards
or cue cards with the main points and notes so that he/she will not lose his/ her thread.
His/ her notes should always be written large enough so that he/she can see key words
easier and that will allow the speech to flow more naturally. Practice and revise the
speech by reading it several times to become familiar with the main points. Rewrite
anything that sounds awkward. Be willing too answer questions from the audience-
this creates an active exchange between audience and speaker.
 55

• Be relaxed: Relaxation can help anxiety. The presenter can choose to take a deep
breathe or smile at the audience and this increases his/her confidence.

• Be interactive: Interact with the audience. Ask the audience questions to increase
audience participation. For example, instead of explaining what is healthy food, ask the
audience what kinds of food they think are healthy or unhealthy to people. Interactive
exercises will help to create a positive dialogue with participants where they have
opportunities to share their own knowledge.

• Learn how to handle difficult situations: Distractions and difficult questions are one of
the challenging aspects of presenting in English. To deal with distractions, the
presenter needs to:
- Use non- verbal means to get the participant’s attention (like eye contact)
- Privately ask the participant to stop or refrain from talking
- Ask one of them a question
- Ignore if the participant’s behavior is not detracting from the session.
For difficult questions, the presenter should:
- Listen carefully to each question.
- Wait to respond until the presenter is sure that he/she understands what is being asked.
- Repeat questions before responding to audience to ensure that they have heard them.
- Respond to questions politely, briefly, and with good humor.
- Take a quick moment to compose thoughts before responding.
- If the presenter is not able to answer a difficult question from a heckler, it is fine to
say so. Then he/she can ask if anyone else in the class knows the answer. Or he/she can let the
audience know that he/she will get back to them at a later date with the answer and make sure
to get back to them. If anyone digresses, try to remind the audience the goal of the
presentation.

2.2.3. Suggestions for the department.

 56

One of the key innovations that need being made by the department of foreign languages is
conducting oral presentation- oriented testing both formally and informally. As for Brown
(1994), “informal testing means assessing learners in the process of forming the competencies
and the skills with the goal of helping them to continue that growth process”. On the other
hand, formal testing occurs at the end of the unit, module, or course attempting to measure or
summarize what a learner has grasped. The argument is that tests can serve positive,
intrinsically motivating aims as they spur learners to master all their abilities for a particular
performance and then provide feedback on their process towards goals. However, teachers
should be aware of the fact that tests are sometimes seen by learners as “dark clouds hanging
over their heads” (Brown, 1994: 373), giving them a lot of anxiety. For the reason, teachers
should create tests with care and effort so that tests should be something like positive
experiences for learners and should relate with high degree to course content and program
objectives. Therefore, choosing the topics for oral presentation- oriented test is extremely
important. According to Underhill (1987: 47), the choice of the topic “should be relevant to
the aims of the program or the needs of the learners and should contain new information or put
over a new point of view”. That is why the testers need to choose topics that the learners
know something about, and the testees, therefore, are going to be able to speak about with
some confidence.

PART 3: CONCLUSION
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The learning and teaching of oral presentation skills have been a challenge for both the
teachers and the students of the foreign language department, HYUTE so far. That is also the
reason why the researcher conducted this thesis with the hope to find out the oral presentation
difficulties perceived by the teachers and the second- year majors. Basing on the findings, the
study has offered some suggestion to help improve the oral presentation skills for the students
and the effective oral presentation teaching methods for the teachers.

To achieve this aim, the researcher employed survey research with the participation of 56
second- year English majors and 8 teachers who have experienced teaching oral presentation
skills at the department of foreign languages, UTEHY. Specifically, she studied the issues: (1)
the students’ and teachers’ perceptions of the necessity of oral presentation skills, (2) how
much the teachers know about the skills, (3) difficulties they encountered, (4) the teaching
methods the teachers used, (5) the students’ evaluations of those methods and (6) what the
students think should be done to improve their oral presentation giving. The major findings of
the study are as follows:
• Firstly, the students’ abilities in giving supporting ideas