We believe that oral presentations help our students preparing for real life. Presenting their work to the class requires confidence and courage, two personal qualities that will be highly valued in their real life. It prepares students for the academic and job market that they will enter when they leave our school.
Presentations also promote and encourage learning through discovery and research. Students take responsibility for their own learning. Moreover, I delegate autonomy and leadership to my students. Following the significant teacher roles that are emphasized by the communicative language teaching approach (Larsen-Freeman, 1986), I simply facilitate, support, organize and guide student's learning through presentations.
I give my students the topic of the presentation, and also provide them with a presentation outline that includes an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. In class, they see a model presentation and useful vocabulay or expressions that could help them while constructing their own and final presentation version.
We have different topics for different levels and we have three 'important' presentations every year.
- For 1st and 2nd Year our topics encourage students to speak from personal experience. We use the following textbook as the main resource: Gershon, Steven. PRESENT YOURSELF 1. EXPERIENCES. Cambridge University Press. 2008.
- For 3rd and 4th Year our topics focus on the points of view of our students beyond their personal experiences. We use: Gershon, Steven. PRESENTING YOURSELF 2. VIEWPOINTS. CUP. 2008.
Acquiring learning through English is one of our goals in the English class, and oral presentations are a brilliant source for sharing knowledge, ideas, points of view, experiences.... At the same time, these oral presentations (especially in 3rd and 4th grade) help in developing a critical way of thinking.
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