Using Oral Presentations to Improve Students' English Language Skills

By G. Brooks, John Wilson. 2015

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Many university students in Japan have only a limited amount of exposure to spoken English prior to entering university. However, for these students to succeed in the university environment, and in their future jobs, it is necessary for them to be able to express their ideas clearly in spoken English. Oral presentations provide teachers with a learner-centered activity that can be used in the language classroom as an effective tool for improving their students’ communicative competence. However, one of the drawbacks of using presentations in the language classroom is that students often find oral presentations extremely challenging. If oral presentations are not set up correctly, the difficulty of the tasks involved in presenting in front of others can take away from the pedagogical benefits of using presentations in the classroom. Because of this it is important that the language teacher understands the skills involved in giving presentations, and the potential difficulties oral presentations can present for second language (L2) learners. This paper outlines some of the benefits of implementing oral presentations in the L2 classroom as well as some of the difficulties involved in using presentations in university language classes in Japan. It then lays out a framework for implementing presentations in the classroom in a way that is beneficial for both the participants and the practitioners. It is hoped that the pedagogical ideas outlined in this paper, can help teachers in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes effectively employ oral presentations as a means of improving their students’ English language abilities.

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