Video recording oral presentations to develop student's speaking skills

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Developing speaking skills. • Speaking tasks: meaningful, structured. • Listening tasks: focused listening. • Providing oral feedback : critical, supportive.
Video recording oral presentations to develop student’s speaking skills Melita Kukovec

Basic rhetoric and oral presentation • Lectures : providing some advice about the particular task and a chance to practice some of its trickier aspects • Seminars: speaking during one of the tasks, listening, and giving feedback to the peers as they do their tasks • Homework: viewing the recordings and selfevaluating own performance

Developing speaking skills • Speaking tasks: meaningful, structured • Listening tasks: focused listening

• Providing oral feedback : critical, supportive • Self-evaluation: observe

improve

Tasks • • • • • •

Introducing a speaker News reading Explaining a diagram/ graph Sales pitch Defending a proposition/ supporting an argument Museum tour

Assessment Criteria 1) 2) 3) 4)

Correctness and fluency of language Appropriateness of discourse Confidence and maturity of presentation Feedback ability: i.e., readiness to give and accept criticism 5) Improvement: demonstrated ability to profit from the lessons Speaking Tasks: 80% Participation and Feedback: 20%

Problems Students are often unaware of their flaws or weaknesses because they do not have a good recollection of their performance once the task is over and therefore continuously repeat the same mistakes.

Link mms://distance.pfmb.uni-mb.si/kukovec/opisdiagramov.wmv mms://distance.pfmb.uni-mb.si/kukovec/14-5-2012museum-tour-A.wmv mms://distance.pfmb.uni-mb.si/kukovec/14-5-2012museum-tour-B.wmv

Self-evaluation To be able to evaluate oneself fairly, candidly, and helpfully is a valuable life skill • Assess what you know, do not know, and what you would like to know. • Recognize your own strengths and weaknesses. • Set goals that you feel you can attain with the new knowledge about yourself.

Active participation • How much effort did you put into this task? • How could you improve your performance?

• What are the most valuable things you learned from this task?

What have I learned from the recordings of my oral presentations? If you carefully watched your recorded presentations, you had a chance to learn which specific areas are your advantages and which still need to be improved. Self-evaluate your performance by commenting on each of the following criteria: • • • • • • • •

1. Engaging the audience (eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, direct address) 2. Emphasis (word and sentence stress, pauses, chunking, pace) 3. Structuring the presentation (introduction, relevant ideas, meaningful conclusion), clarity 3. Appropriateness of discourse (complex lexical/ grammatical structures, level of formality) 4. Correctness of language (pronunciation, prepositions, lexis, grammar) 5. Fluency (flow, smoothness, fillers) 6. Improvement (ability to profit from the previous lessons) 7. Other (stance, confidence, maturity of presentation, enthusiasm, disturbing tics)

Engaging the audience eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, direct address •



• • •

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I did engage the audience, but I know I could do better. My eye contact was more or less around the classroom, at the ceiling or the window, not looking too much in the eyes of the students, because I could concentrate better. My facial expressions were the same all the time, I would say it was a dull expression, maybe I was also a bit too wild with my hands, waving them around and sometimes I had my hands in my pockets. However, through time all of these attributes were getting better and better. I think I have to look more at the audience. When I watched my presentation I noticed that I often looked through the window (I still don’t know why). I smiled every time I made a mistake or couldn’t remember the text. Sometimes I was also dead serious, probably because I was nervous. I think that I had improved eye contact, because in the first task I made almost no eye contact and in the last task I made more eye contact. Sometimes I do not know where to put my hands and how to stand. But I see that it is getting better. I could have been more persuasive ,sound more determined and lose the monotonous voice when I am thinking about what to say, I forget to stress some words or sentences. I got a lot of hints on how to improve my speaking to sound more self-confident and interesting for the people listening.

Emphasis word and sentence stress, chunking, pauses, pace

• when I read the news, I was too monotonous. • Sometimes my pauses were too long – possibly because I was thinking about what to say next. • I mostly used simple and short sentences, but I used longer sentences for the task in which we had to prepare at home. • I think my pace was OK, but I should speak a bit louder. I made pauses only when I couldn’t remember the text. • In general I talk quite fast, however, I managed to learn to make pauses when talking. I also improved my pace, and learned to talk more slowly and clearly. • I stressed the important things, but there were too many pauses and also there was no chunking.

Structuring the presentation introduction, relevant ideas, meaningful conclusion, clarity • • •





I always had an introduction – often questions to get some feedback from the audience. Sometimes my conclusions were not so good, probably because I was trying to finish off very quickly. The strategy, that we did every task twice resulted in improvement. When I did the diagram task in the first week, I forgot to conclude. The second week, I ended my diagram explanation with a meaningful conclusion. The beginning was good, also the transitionto another object was good; but my ending was bad, because I structured a question wrongly. It supposed to be: Do you have any questions?” but instead of this I said: “Have anybody some questions?” I do not know why did I do it, but I think it was because of the nerves. I regard myself as quite proficient when it comes to structuring content, yet it does not always show in the presentations, because of all the added pressure one feels while performing. I do admit to sometimes forcing some information too early in a presentation. I think my introductions are fine, and I try to include all the relevant ideas, and to make a meaningful conclusion, but because of the pressure I sometimes leave out some ideas I could include in the presentation. The conclusions are usually good, except in one presentation when I did not make it to the conclusion.

Appropriateness of discourse complex lexical/gram. structures, level of formality • • • • •

I tried to use more complex and difficult words and structures, to sound more sophisticated and not so plain/ordinary. I think I used formal language most of the time. I should have tried to find more sophisticated vocabulary, but due to nervousness this was very hard. I used many contractions in my speaking – I should probably be more formal I never used many complex words, probably because I concentrated more on the grammar (especially conditionals), but I was formal enough to not use the words such as ‘gonna,’ ‘wanna’… Sometimes I lost my formality because I started laughing. I should also work on my vocabulary. I do believe that I, in reasonable capacity, possess above par vocabulary, especially compared to my classmates, but I confess to not taking full advantage of it during most presentations. And to avoid a dubious look or a cynical reservation on account of my previous boast, I must mention the fact that I am an avid reader of English literature, something left to be desired from many of my college contemporaries.

Correctness of language pronunciations, lexis, and grammar • • •

• •



I did not notice many mistakes, if there were any, it was because of the nerves. I had I a few problems with pronunciation. Some-times I pronounce /w/ when there should be /v/. I had some pronunciation problems or sometimes I did not understand some words. However, if I did not know how to pronounce the word or what it means, I asked the professor and she helped me. The pronunciation was a problem only when we read news. Sometimes there were words that I had never heard before and was not able to pronounce them correctly. I admit to making pronunciation mistakes, but I attribute this to the lack of practice. You might be aware of how seldom it is required of us to speak during classes, and with practically no one outside the faculty to communicate with in English, it is quite impossible to impress on that account. There were some problems with the “if clauses”, which I eventually managed to overcome.

Fluency flow, smoothness, use of fillers

• My speech is rather fluent, but when I get stuck in searching for ideas, I loose that fluency. • The fluency sometimes suffered because of too much thinking about what to say next. • When presenting the first object I spoke quite smoothly, but with the second one there was no smoothness at all. There were certainly too many fillers, I was stopping too much and saying: “eee”. • With regard to all the pressure one is under while performing, adding to that the non-existent practice in good rhetorics, the result can only be a subpar fluency performance. Many of us use fillers and are often “jittery”, but I attribute this more to the lack of practice than ability.

Improvement demonstrated ability to profit from previous lessons • • • • • • •

I became more confident and because of that my fluency improved and also my facial expression were more varied. I think I don’t look dead serious anymore . I think my performance improved from lesson to lesson, since I got less nervous preforming in front of my classmates. I was always trying to improve. I was listening to comments about my presentations. I often thought I improved, but sometimes nervousness got me and I could not perform as well as I could, - I definitely improved in speaking in public because I am less nervous. I also improved my posture and learned some new techniques. My presentations were better structured, during preparation time I thought of the main things, and that really helped. I do not believe I have the capacity to evaluate my progress, but if I had to comment on it, I would say I improved in most areas of public speaking and presenting during the course of the classes. I need to work on using my hands better.

Other stance, enthusiasm, maturity of presentation, self-confidence, enthusiasm, disturbing tics • • • • • • •



I used the “ahmm” sound too much when I was thinking about what to say next. I should get rid of that. I still think I should be more enthusiastic and persuasive. Most of the time I was not confident, because I get nervous too much before I speak, so when I actually get to speak, my voice starts to shake and my hands shake and it does not look good. I hope that someday I will be more relaxed. My confidence improved and with it also my performance. I gained confidence towards the end of the semester. So I think that my presentations improved compared to those at the beginning of this semester. I also saw on the recording that I flip my hair even though I do not have a ponytail. My confidence is a bit higher after all these presentations. It is still hard to perform but it is good that we are forced to do exercises like this, because we definitely improve our speaking skills. I just do not always know what to do with my hands. I am still not completely confident, and I am still nervous, but I think that this has improved a bit. Through time I became more enthusiastic and I have begun to like the tasks. Next time, I am sure I will do better.

Conclusion Self-evaluation proves to be a valuable source of information both for the student and also for the instructor. Observing a video recorded presentation is an effective way of monitoring student’s progress in the development of speaking skills, as recordings provide ample opportunities for replays and study at one’s own pace.

Quote Life isn‘t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. George Bernard Shaw

Self-evaluation • Self-evaluation directs us to prepare our next performance from the past experience. (Anon.) • “ Don‘t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With every step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful“ (Mark Victor Hansen)