Back to Izmir Schedule

Presenter
Dr. Aysun Yavuz

Title:
Presentation Difficulties of ELT students in English in Public Speaking and Presentation Course

Abstract
Effective communication has become not only the central issue of the information and communication age but also of the 2006 ELT Curriculum in Education faculties in Turkey. This study aims to identify the difficulties of ELT students in expressing themselves in English as a foreign language in Public Speaking and Presentation Course. In this course students learn practical skills for effective communication; fundamental stages of speech preparation and delivery including adopting and developing audio and visual aids, and presentations follow as an outcome of extensive reading and writing. Qualitative case study methodology has been employed for understanding the students’ perceptions and evaluating this process. 51 ELT students, who were in the 2nd. year of their training programme participated in the study. Data were collected through the presentation check lists kept by the lecturer during student presentations for the evaluation purpose and an open-ended questionnaire which was conducted at the end of the course. The findings demonstrate important issues about the nature and the reasons of the presentation difficulties in English such as the pronunciation and intonation difficulties, which can be associated with phonetics, and organizational problems such as selecting and designing the suitable visuals, making decisions about the subtitles, numbering and signposting, and classroom management such as the use of body language, eye contact and timing. Drawing on the data, recommendations and implications are suggested in order to solve these problems for effective communication skills.  
 
Aysun Yavuz (Dr.) is an Assistant Professor at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Faculty of Education, Department of English Language Teaching, Çanakkale, Turkey. She holds a BA in English Language and Literature (Ege University, İzmir, Turkey) and an Med. (Masters of Education) in Communicative Language Teaching (University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK) and an EdD. (Doctorate in Education) in Teacher Education (University of Nottingham, UK). Dr. Aysun Yavuz is particularly interested in language teacher education, teaching practice, reflective teaching and practice, methods and approaches in language teaching and use of literature in language teaching.