Effective Presentations in ELT

ELT, Teacher Development, Teaching Practices, Teaching Practicum 0 comments

Effective Presentations in ELT

Penny Ur’s Approach -Reloaded

Intro: The Necessity for Presentation

Why do we need presentations in English Language Teaching? The reason seems to be self-explanatory: The lack of presentation means no overt instruction to students. Yet we teachers must bear in mind that these presentations help our students to perceive and understand the new material that is given to them. This “new material” hast to be –not only- accessible –but also- ready for student initial learning. For this reason, the presentation serves as a means to a limited and controlled modeling of a target item that needs to be provided to students (Ur 1996), whether it is vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, etc.

Student Reflective Task

As a language learner, can you recall a particular teacher presentation that facilitated your grasp and comprehension of some aspect of English?

Discuss students’ answers with the whole class.

Taken from Ur, P (1996) A Course in Language Teaching. Cambridge: CUP, and adapted for educational purposes.

What happens in an effective presentation?

If you have asked yourself this question before, you should compare your answer to what Ur (1996) suggests as an answer. For Penny Ur, the answer relies on four basic components: 1) attention, 2) perception, 3) understanding, and 4) short-term memory. Let me also provide my own interpretation of each one.

1) Attention: The role of the student is to be “alert” and “attentive.” The teacher must make sure that all students in class are actually paying attention and that there are no distractors preventing them from concentrating on the class. Distractors can hinder comprehension and the success of language activities.

2) Perception: Now that the teacher is sure that s/he has students’ attention, pupils are ready to “hear” and “see” the new material being presented to them. Their mind is open to receive what the teacher is providing them via presentation.

3) Understanding: Now that the teacher has his/her students’ attention and they are fully perceiving the new information, the instructor must make a connection between the presentation and the students’ prior knowledge (schema activation). In this way, the pupils will relate to the material and will understand how to use it in real world contexts and/or situations.

4) Short-term memory: Now that we have our pupils’ comprehending the new info, it is imperative that they store it in their short-term memory to be used later on in class. That is, we want them to retrieve it easily so we can have them practice the new content to consolidate their learning.

Criticizing Presentations

Here you are provided with a reflective exercise on presentations. The idea is not to “negatively” criticize what teachers do in their individual teaching situations, but to grasp their effort and ideas to import them into our current teaching context.

Different Presentations

For each of the presentations on the handout, consider and discuss the following:
1	What was the aim of the presentation?
2	How successful do you think the presentation was or is in getting Students' attention, perception, understanding, and remembering?
3	How appropriate and effective would a similar procedure be for you, in your teaching situation?
*Discuss students’ answers with the whole class.*
*Taken from Ur, P (1996)* A Course in Language Teaching.** Cambridge: CUP, and adapted for educational purposes.

Explanations and instructions

Guidelines on giving effective explanations and instructions

The effectiveness of explanations and instructions rely on six different components, as suggested by Penny Ur (1996). Based on my experience as a teacher, they do depict what a good explanation and/or set of instructions should look like. Let’s analyze them to use this data for lesson planning.

1. Preparation: As a teacher, keep in mind that not everything you explain to students is fully understood by them. The simplest thing that can be explained can be misunderstood by a student. So be prepared to cope with misunderstanding and try to avoid it by making sure pupils comprehend. Always think of alternative ways of presenting material; this way you’ll prevent wasting teaching/learning time.

2. Student Attention: As we discussed above, it is imperative that students attend to your explanations. If they get distracted, they can misunderstand the whole thing. A distracted group of students can lead to a “catastrophic” climax in class. Ensuring everyone is following your explanation can also avoid wasting precious teaching/learning time.

3. Presentation of info more than once: Do not believe that just by presenting the information once, it is enough. Present it several times, but in different ways. Some students are more receptive when giving them a variety of explanations, so they can reaffirm their understanding. When planning for your class, consider different ways to approach the subject so students have a change to grasp the gist of the information provided.

4. Briefness: Do not overextend your presentation. Bearing in mind concentration spans, students can’t focus for long periods. Students’ limited attention spans in school are not suitable for lengthy instructions or presentations. So keep everything simple and direct, and please don’t beat around the bushes. Brevity can also maximize teaching/learning time in class.

5. Illustration with examples: Penny Ur (1996) suggests that we teachers “do a dry run,” –an actual demonstration of the activity. This “dry run” can guarantee all class members’ understanding of the exercise and will prevent wasting time in repeating the explanation over and over again. If necessary, identify the “best” students in class to demonstrate the task for the others with your help. That way can help you have the rest of the class understand what it is expected from them.

6. Feedback at All Time: Penny Ur (1996) also warns us: since experience tells us that students can misunderstand the whole explanation, we are bound to fail. For this reason is highly recommended to get feedback from our students. With a couple of “dry runs,” we can ensure full comprehension and the success of the activity. Just be careful!!

With this thorough review of presentations, explanations, and instructions, our student teachers are ready to reflect upon their performance in class. It’s advisable to consider all this information when planning for one’s class. Keeping these issues in the lookout can guarantee lots of time-saving, great use of student attention span, and some real learning for the students.

ETo fully develop and comprehend this teaching issue, it’s advisable to research and expand these areas:

1	Metacognition in ELT
2	Learning strategies for EFL/ESL students
3	Reflective tasks for Student Teachers
4	Effectiveness in ELT: Explanations and instructions
5	Learning attention spans