Students’ Perceptions Regarding the Use of Process Strategy for Oral Presentations in ESP

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Title of Research Paper: Students’ Perceptions Regarding the Use of Process

Strategy for Oral Presentations in ESP

Authors 1. Mr. Mohammad Fareed Dar, Lecturer, Department of Humanities, NED University of

Engineering & Technology, Karachi.

2. Dr Sajida Zaki, Associate Professor, Department of Humanities, NED University of

Engineering & Technology, Karachi.

3. Dr Hina Hussain Kazmi, Associate Professor, Department of Education & Learning

Sciences, Iqra University Karachi

Research Journal Details

Title: English Language and Literary Forum,

Volume: 12, 2010. PP. 1-12

[Word count 3483 excluding abstract & references ]

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Students Perceptions Regarding the Use of Process Strategy for Oral

Presentations in ESP

Abstract Oral communication and presentation skills are the most demanding and crucial skills to

individuals, especially professionals; however, the ESL settings reveal these as deficiencies

in students who are acquiring tertiary education. The major factor responsible is the fact that

these skills are neither consciously nor systematically taught and learnt, despite the fact that

these courses are being essentially taught at all academic and professional programmes. This

paper presents a study that makes use of a systematic instructional strategy using process

approach enabling students to consciously focus all components of the presentation activity

from the planning to delivery stages thereby enhancing their presentation skills and ensuring

quality outputs. The empirical study was carried out a public sector professional university

with twenty seven participants who volunteered for the study. Following a systematic

implementation of the process strategy, the participants’ perceptions about the experience

and its impact were collected using a questionnaire which drew evidence that stated that the

students found the strategy beneficial in reducing their anxiety and fear, and enhancing their

interest and overall

performance.

Introduction

“English Language has come a long way from being the native language establishing the

identity of a nation, to its status raised to that of lingua franca for many countries to maintain

social and economic links. With globalization and technological revolution its status is

further elated to the status of international means of communication for the residents of this

global village”. (Zaki, 2007, p.1). The non-native language users have outnumbered the

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native speakers (Crystal 1997, Graddol 1997), and English has become the dominant

language of science (Ammon, 2001) and the language of international communication. The

choice and ability to use English can affect one’s understanding and judgment while

approaching academic material especially of the scientific and technical nature (Tonkin &

Reagan 2003); language proficiency and professional know- how are highly interlinked and

the language proficiency will be an extremely useful tool in working in environments having

multicultural workforce ( Jaatinen, 2006); and facts like these have serious implications for

English Language Teaching (ELT) pedagogy (Jenkins 2002). The scope of teaching and

learning English language has increased immensely owing to the impact language

proficiency makes on the personal and professional lives; and today learners are learning

English as they require using it as a tool for education, work and life (Hull, 1997).

Consequently, it is desirable that the educators examine and adjust teaching programmes and

pedagogical materials in order to meet better the changing realities that occur within societies

in personal or professional spheres of its people (Byrnes 2006).

Language and communication skills learning is a priority matter in professional education

and training and this can be established on the evidence from the medical profession which

reveals “there is a growing acceptance of the need to teach and assess communication skills

in medical schools” (Makoul & Schofield, 1999) especially oral communication and

presentation skills, since oral communication plays a central role in clinical care (Haber &

Lingard, 2004) and the eight recommendations of the International Conference on Teaching

Communication strongly make a case for essential language and communication skills

development especially the recommendation number “ (5)there should be a planned and

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coherent framework for communication skills teaching and (6) that students’ ability to

achieve communication tasks should be assessed directly” (Makoul & Schofield, 1999).

Likewise, the engineering discipline is resonating under the calls for reinventing engineering

education where it is strongly felt that engineers today need much more than mere technical

skills (Crawley et.al 2007) and they should be able to interact with people effectively

(National Academy of Engineering, 2009) for which they require strong language and oral

communication skills. Dr Hassan Al Basri (2010) in his key note speech at the Fifth

International Forum on Engineering Education shared the results of a nation- wide study

conducted by the alumni of engineering universities in Malaysia to help academia in

identifying key areas for improvement at engineering education and of the identified areas

“communication and interpersonal skills” topped the list which was merely a re-endorsement

on the Malaysian Employers Federation (2004) report that stated that one of the key skills

employers want to see at the time of recruitment is oral communication, particularly

presentation skill.

The global trends have also pervaded the local context, where English is the official language

and is also, to a large extent, enjoying the status of the second language since, “It is language

of government, business technology and law in Pakistan”. (Malik, 1996, p.11). Language

proficiency and communicative competence is required by every professional, initially

during their academic and professional education and later in their careers; also the

employers sought and demand language and communication skills while recruiting

graduates. Hence, English Language competence is directly linked with the employability

and growth opportunities of an individual as stated by Kelli Fisher (2006) “A person in the

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non-English speaking world who is proficient in the English language is granted more

opportunities and has access to better jobs and higher salaries.” It has now become a well

recognized fact that all professionals in Pakistan: doctors, engineers, teachers, entrepreneurs

etc. need to have good command of English language. Importance of English language

increases when these professionals join a multinational organization or want to go abroad for

job or further education. In many cases these professionals can compete internationally in

their respective fields, but lack of English proficiency becomes a barrier as pointed out that

“A graduate of today lacks competence in written and spoken English” Malik (1996:13). This

observation about the local context has already echoed globally that Second Language

Learners of English language fail to develop academic proficiency which will enable them to

undertake activities in their academic settings and later train them for the real professional

world. Realizing the far reaching impact of language and communication skills, all academic

programmes at tertiary level education has English or Communications skills course as an

essential component. Considering the importance of English language in higher education

and the declining quality of English language teaching in Higher Education Institutes (HEIs),

Higher Education Commission (HEC) initiated English Language Teaching Reforms Project

(ELTR) in 2004 with the objective of improving the language teaching practices across

Pakistan so our graduates and professionals can compete in the global arena with

professionals from other regions. Efforts are being made at several tiers right through

teachers to policy making quarters towards development of effective instructional

methodology and materials that can facilitate the development of crucial language and

communications skills among students.

Study Focus

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This paper shares a study about the use of a planned instructional strategy to improve

students’ oral presentation skills during an ESP course at a public sector engineering

university with students pursuing undergraduate degree. The study began with the

implementation of an instructional technique for teaching presentations skills to students

using process approach which involved providing well planned and meaningful inputs at

various stages of the planning for an improved and effective output. The paper shares

empirical data collected from students regarding their reactions towards the experience and

the way it impacted them. The primary objectives of the study were: (1) to explore the

students previous oral presentation experiences in order to know whether or not they were

taught oral presentations formally and systematically by the use of some standard

instructional technique, (2) to identify students’ reactions towards the use of process strategy

in developing presentation skills and to capture the benefits that students perceived they

received owing to the use of this strategy.

The paper can be classified under the theme of “learner strategy training” which Brown H

Douglas (1991) identified as one of the four major themes in ESOL Teaching and Research

which was an important concern in ESP courses. Presentations and oral communication skills

are not just required for employment and professional purposes in professional career

settings, rather they are needed at all times by everybody pursuing higher education as part of

their regular class presentation, oral examination, proposal or thesis defense. If oral

communication is in second or foreign language, the difficulty level particularly in formal

oral communication increases. The situation is further aggravated if learners are not trained

for formal oral communication in academic institutions. Broadly, speaking can be divided

into two categories, informal and formal. The informal speaking generally involves no

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planned thinking or practice for e.g. social discussions among friends, family members etc.;

however, the formal speaking is drastically different since it is well planned, researched and

even practiced such as job interviews, official meetings, presentations, oral reports etc.

(Kassim & Ali 2010) believe that speaking or oral communication should be given more

importance as to other skills because they think it is key skill looked for by employers. As

per study conducted by Malik (1996) Pakistani college students also prioritized spoken

English as their number one need in English. Guffy (2003), also, states that speaking skills

often play an important role in successful career of business people. According to Lesiker

and Flatley (2002) for many people formal oral communication is the most difficult but at the

same time they believe that speaking can be improved by learning speaking techniques and

putting them into practice. Locker (1998) considers that a good presentation is more than just

a good delivery: it also involves developing a strategy that fits your audience and purpose,

having good content, and organizing material effectively. Kerry Shephard (2005) is of the

view that a fixed external model of a good presentation cannot be fixed. Haber & Lingard

(2004) strongly felt that by making explicit the tacit rules of presentations, these can be

improved and that while teaching and learning oral communication and presentations context

should be focused more than the content. Krizan et al (2008) believe that amount of time

one spends on giving oral presentations varies widely depending on one’s position in an

organization but they believe that effective oral presentations are “a thread common to many

careers”. Thus, it can be concluded that presentation skills are to be essentially developed

with teacher and learner making use of a planned strategy.

The results and conclusions of this study may be used by students and teachers at all similar

HEIs who are undertaking mandatory courses in language and communication. Th

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Process Approach for Presentations

Though Process approach (Raimes, 1983, Zamel 1982, 1983) is one of the main line

approaches in teaching and learning of writing skills, but it can be used effectively for

presentations and oral communication skills too. The process approach for writing offers

systematic steps like planning , rehearsing, writing content, revising and feedback which

comfortably enable the students to achieve their written outputs smoothly and successfully.

The approach is very much flexible and not fixed, process steps can be moulded according to

the needs (Murray,1985); however, most commonly used steps in process approach as

suggested by Campbell (1998) are planning, gathering information, drafting, revising and

editing.

This study is built on the assumption that students’ effective presentation is dependent on the

process that consists of similar steps as those of writing; hence, process approach can be used

for teaching and learning of presentation skills. The process approach that was used to teach

students presentation skills during this study is elaborated in Fig 1 below. The diagram

elaborates the five stages along with the teacher and students’ activities at each stage of the

process.

Diagram.1 Five- Step Process Approach used for Oral Presentations

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Major Benefits of Using the Process Approach

Students generally find themselves under tremendous anxiety when confronted with a

presentation assignment. The basic advantage of using this strategy is that it breaks down a

formidable undertaking to a doable task which students find helpful in targeting their goal.

Also, this technique brings students to centre stage where they are enjoying “learner’s

autonomy” fully since the learner’s intention or purpose becomes of paramount concern”

Tompkins (1990), the teacher becomes a facilitator or guide providing the required inputs

which allows students to gradually move on with the planning and preparation and gain

confidence by the instructor’s timely and frequent guidance. This chance for improvement

and correction at different stages of the presentation task instead of being penalized at the last

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minute is one the greatest merit of using this approach. By dividing the presentation task into

five stages, the strategy allows opportunity to the student and the teacher to pay equal focus

to different aspects of the presentation like content, organization and delivery.

Methodology

Participants and context

The study was carried out with a group of 27 students who volunteered for the study. These

students were part of a class who was enrolled in a communication skills course offered in

third year of the undergraduate engineering programme at a public university. The study

could not be planned with the entire intact group enrolled for the course since the class size

of 70 students did not allow sufficient time to capture the five stages of the study with the

rigour it was planned by the investigator. Also, the students’ personal interest and

involvement in the study ensured that the process strategy was implemented as planned, and

the students mental sets did not affect the study, which was a threat had the study been

carried out with the entire group as a compulsion. The participants’ demographic profile was

quite uniform since they were pursuing same academic programme and had similar previous

academic experiences. The course and the study was carried out by the same individual (first

author) hence, it was ensured that these students were not getting any other guidance or

instruction in presentation skills in their regular classes.

Data Collection

The study commenced with the instruction of process strategy (described in Fig.1) to

participants for formal oral presentations, they were taken through each stage of the process

and finally the students delivered their presentations. After the presentations were delivered,

a questionnaire was administered to the students’ to gather their perceptions on the use of

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process approach for presentation skills training. The questionnaire was finalized after expert

review and pilot testing.

The questionnaire comprised two sections, first part collected information about participants’

previous practices related with presentations; since students in different subjects in their first

two years at the ongoing degree programme had delivered presentations. This section

collected information regarding the number of times participants presented before, the time

they were allowed for preparation, the freedom they had to select the topics for the

presentations, and the instruction they were provided on presentation preparation and

delivery. The second section of the questionnaire collected participants’ perceptions about

the use of process approach for presentations and to what extent they felt the strategy was

helpful in enabling them to accomplish the task at each stage of the process. The data was

collected in both quantitative and qualitative form to develop deeper and better understanding

of the impact of the employed strategy.

Data Analyses & Findings

Data was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively, for quantitative part descriptive

statistics was used. The item-wise analysis of the data collection tool is presented below that

sums the qualitative and quantitative data findings:

Students’ Perceptions about their past Presentation experiences

Table. 1 Prior Frequency of Presentations

Never Once Twice Three times Four times Five times or more

7% 43% 19% 20% 4% 7%

The participants’ have made presentations before as part of their projects or during a course.

The students who had made presentations more than once were found out to be the group

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leaders on different engineering projects, hence they presented their work on behalf of their

groups and the purpose of the presentation was to convey the technical information instead

exposition or persuasion.

Table. 2 Freedom of Topic Selection in Prior Presentations

Topics Assigned Topics Chosen

50% 50%

It was found out that in both the cases (student selecting topic and topic assigned to them)

there was no evidence of any conscious or thoughtful effort or discussion between the student

or teacher while selecting or assigning the topic.

Table. 3 Time Allowed for Preparation

One day Less than a

week

One week Two weeks Three

weeks

Four weeks

4% 4% 48% 24% 4% 16%

The time that was allowed for preparation to the students was not planned for any specific

tasks, rather they were assigned a date when they should come prepared for the presentation.

Table.4 Provision of Formal Instruction

Instruction/Guidelines Provided

Not at All

Provided

To some extent

Provided

Completely

For Preparation 78% 22% 0%

For Delivery 78% 22% 0%

The students who responded positively to the provision of formal instruction when probed

further about the nature of instruction provided revealed that it was mostly related to the

timings, venue, equipment to be used (OHP, multimedia) and dressing.

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Students’ Perceptions on the Use of Process Strategy for Presentations

The second part of the questionnaire gathered participants’ perceptions about the usefulness

of process approach for presentations for which a five point rating scale was used. The

participants’ were asked to rate the benefit of using process approach at each stage and the

responses are presented below:

Table. 5 Participants’ Responses on the usefulness of Process Approach at each

stage of the presentation

To what extent you found the

following helpful in your

presentation

Not at All

(1)

Little

(2)

Adequate

(3)

High

(4)

Very High

(5)

Freedom to choose the topic

0 2 7 9 9

Collection of relevant material

0 2 5 12 8

Selection of relevant material (from

collected material)

0 1 9 11 6

Organization of material (in

continuous writing)

0 1 4 9 13

Rehearsal of organized material

0 0 4 1 22

Participants also provided qualitative data against open ended questions which were framed

around each stage of the process strategy while planning presentations. The question – wise

responses are presented below:

Table. 6 Students’ Perceptions about Stage One: Freedom to Select Topic

How did Freedom to decide the topic help you in your presentation?

Increased the speaker’s and audience’s interest, enhanced confidence, allowed freedom to

present on relevant and beneficial topics, developed interest and involvement in the

presentation task

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Table. 7 Students’ Perceptions about Stage Two: Collection of Relevant Material

How did Collection of relevant material help you in your presentation?

Improved the quality and quantity of the content and information, increased their

awareness and extended their knowledge on the topic, introduced new dimensions of the

topic, enabled reshaping the topic better, and stimulated thoughts and creativity.

Table. 8 Students’ Perceptions about Stage Three: Selection of Relevant Material

How did Selection of relevant material (from the collected material) help you in

your presentation?

In including relevant points according to the audiences needs and level, in achieving

conciseness and managing time well, and in avoiding repetition and bolstering

confidence.

Table. 9 Students’ Perceptions about Stage Four: Organization of Material

How did Organization of material (in continuous writing) help you in your

presentation?

Developing well structured and coherent presentation, enabled better sequence of

contents, increasing audience attention and understanding, made presentation content

easier to be remembered, enhanced confidence and reduced anxiety and allowed control

over the task.

Table. 10 Students’ Perceptions about Stage Five: Rehearsal

How did Practice/Rehearsal (in front of mirror or with the help of audio and video

recording) of organized material help you in your presentation?

Improved both verbal and non verbal presentation aspects, enhanced confidence, allowed

opportunity for improvement and correction, enabled them to face audience with greater

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confidence, increased fluency, and allowed effective time handling during presentation.

6. Conclusions

The study attempted to explore the impact of student and teacher using a systematic approach

for developing presentation skills. In this regard, the process strategy was used where the

instructor facilitated the students at five different stages of the presentation preparation and

delivery. The meaningful input thorough out the process was seen to improve the final

product i.e. the presentation. The review of the background literature and the analysis of

students’ perceptions-data, the study draws the following important conclusions:

Presentation and oral communication skills are essentially needed for academic and

professional activities and they are extremely influential in an individual’s growth

and progress.

Globally, professional quarters are insisting on academia to train graduates with

proficient oral communication skills.

It was found out that oral presentations are not given due importance. The gathered

data revealed that the participants had passed minimum fourteen years of formal

academic education, but still some of them had never made presentations and those

who had the prior presentation experience reported that they had received no formal

systematic instruction.

The process strategy that was implemented in this study was found out to be

beneficial. The systematic instructor input at different stages of the preparation

enabled students to plan and deliver presentation more effectively. Hence, the process

approach can be used to teach presentation skills.

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The students’ perceptions about the use of Process Approach for presentation skills

indicated the strategy to be beneficial in many ways like: developing confidence and

interest, increasing understanding and grip on the topic, giving new dimensions to

ideas and creativity, providing freedom to select and express, preparing audience

oriented presentation, incorporating precise and relevant information, and improving

both verbal and nonverbal communication.

The major steps of the process approach targeted an important milestone of the entire

presentation teaching learning activity, and the students’ perceptions proved the five

stages’ distinct efforts as extremely beneficial in gradually accomplishing the

anxiety–driven presentation task.

Process strategy proved beneficial in helping students; hence it may be applied in

other similar situations so that instructors and learners in ESP and ESL contexts can

approach teaching learning of oral communication and presentation skills more

meaningfully. The stages within the process approach can be adjusted according to

the learners and contextual needs.

Students should be allowed freedom to choose the topics of their presentation so that

their interest and involvement is stimulated. Also sufficient and realistic time should

be allowed for planning and rehearsals and students must be facilitated at each stage.

Further studies are required to capture more information about the teaching learning

of oral communication in the local context especially in ESP settings to draw better

conclusions.

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Students’ Perceptions Regarding the Use of Process Strategy for Oral Presentations in ESP

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