portfolio 12

The Benefits of Oral Presentations for Future Teachers

               

Oral presentations constitute an important part in the process of learning how to become a teacher. Future educators should get acquainted with speaking aloud in front of a class . At Teaching Training Colleges, future teachers learn the topics from the Syllabus while benefiting from the practice of speaking. As it is this last skill an essential part of the teachers’ work. There are relevant factors concerning the usefulness of this oral presentations as well as our own experience in class.

                As regards my presentation about ´Coherence´, I considered essential issues related to my posture, voice and main points to expain. I used a clear loud voice, tried to speak fluently while making pauses, paying attention to intonation and the correct pronunciation of words. I also maintained eye contact so as to check my mates´understanding while looking at different people to check whether they were interested and paying attention. Another necessary issue was to explain our topic without reading, and gave the opportunity to clarify meaning or paraphrase when needed. In opposition to other groups , we focused on the main points to consider and divided them among ourselves. The first of us gave an introduction of the topics that were to be developed by the rest in a more specific way. Visual aids were extremely important, not only for us but also for the listeners, as it helped them as a guide to follow the presentation . The search of our own examples were vital to clarify the theoretic part . The reading of the material was smooth as I was familiar with the topic and due to the author´s  inclusion of several examples.  During the groups´presentations I took down notes of the points discussed with the teacher, especially in the linking of the concepts and relations among the different topics.

                Concerning  ways of improving my presentation, there are some related with technology. I think that the Powerpoint slides should be easily seen by everyone. It would be a good idea to signal the different points to follow both the reading and  order. At the end of the lesson, it would be advisable to send a copy of the presentation to the people that were listening and include a summary with the main information. Another interesting way of checking wether they had understood, is to prepare some ´True or False´ statements to discuss in groups and checked orally to allow time to clear doubts.

                The topic of ´Coherence´is extremely important for the English as a Foreign Language class because it concers meaning. Students should obtain the ability to relate the text with their schemata so as to undertand the writer´s intention and message. I think they should read different genres to find coherence and cohesion, and be aware of their when writing.

                To conclude, in my opinion oral presentation should be performed from the very beginning in all subjects , as they give future teachers the opportunity to obtain confidence in speaking in public, to be aware of ther posture, language and loudness when , together with other features that concern the maintenance of the audience´s  attention and interpretation.