I have a love/hate relationship with student presentations. On one hand, I love giving students a chance to stand up in front of the class and teach us all something. They get to practice speaking in the target language in front of an audience, and I get to learn new things from them. On the other hand, student presenters are often terrified to be standing in front of class, they frequently either speed through material so fast it is hard to understand what they are trying to say or they ramble on and on while everyone is shifting around uncomfortably waiting for them to get to the point. If students present individually and you have a class of 20 or more, this can take up a lot of class time in which each student doesn't actually get very much speaking time. I have found that a lot of these problems can be eliminated by changing the way students are asked to present. When I first started asking students to present, I usually asked them to create a power point presentation figuring that that is the most common way they might be required to present in the future. When I thought about it more however, I came to the conclusion that while power point is still used extensively, there are many more ways to present that are often more effective, require students to prepare better and require more active audience participation. 1. Poster PresentationFor this assignment, students are required to create a poster. This can be just a large piece of paper or it can be a more elaborate 3 paneled cardboard creation that stands on its own. It incorporates both visual elements and text and should show illustrate the main ideas and some of the details the presenter wants to get across to his/her audience. When the poster is finished, the presenter uses it to talk about their topic and answer questions to small groups of his/her classmates. Resources Needed:
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2. Make a MovieIn this presentation, small groups of students (or individual students) create a video to show to the class. I used this kind of presentation when I wanted my students to practice giving instructions. They had to choose something they knew how to do and give us step by step instructions while they demonstrated. I loved this project because it took me into my students hearts and homes. One of my students showed us how he made omelets because he was living alone for the first time and had to learn how to cook. Another student took a video of himself drawing an eye in detail, speeded it up and explained how and why he was doing what he was doing. Drawing was his passion and we were all inspired. Before playing their videos, the presenters had to stand up in front of class, introduce themselves and the video they made. They can then conduct a question and answer session afterwards. Resources Needed:
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3. Write and Share a BookBooks are a time honored way of getting information from one brain into another. They are also incredibly diverse; books can, and are written on every topic under the sun and in a variety of formats. My high school students made illustrated bilingual books from fictional stories they wrote. They then got to choose how they wanted to bind their books and ended up with works of art they read to other classes and then could take home and share with their families. When I taught in a Family Literacy program, my whole class made a book together, each person contributing a page. They decided that it was important to teach their children what street signs meant so each person took a different sign, drew it on a page and wrote about it. We then made copies for every member of the class. They shared them with their children while they walked together in the neighborhood. With university students, I asked them to work in small groups to gather information about where the food they ate was coming from. They conducted interviews with grocers, farmers and restauranteurs as well as finding information on-line. Their findings were then bound into book form and they shared what they learned with the other groups in class. Resources Needed:
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4. Give a WorkshopStudents are used to being asked to listen to a teacher or presenter talk so when they are asked to give a presentation, that is usually the first thing that comes to their minds. The extent of audience participation is usually limited to a question and answer period at the end. I challenged my students to deviate from this standard when I asked them to do a workshop however. In order to give them an idea of how a workshop differs from other kinds of presentations, I demonstrated it for them by giving them a workshop and helping them break down the components. I showed them how to introduce the topic of their workshop, How to set up activities so their students are actively participating and creating something, how to wrap it up with a discussion and answer the participants questions. We talked about how to write up instructions that participants could take notes on and take home. I then asked my students to think of something they know how to do and can teach the rest of us in a workshop. This could be anything from how to create music using our own bodies to how to save someone's life. I left the topics up to the students but because I had too many students for everyone to give an individual workshop, they had to work in small groups. Each group had to talk about what they knew how to do and what they had in common to come up with a topic in which every member of the group could contribute. Resources Needed:
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5. Create a trade-fair boothI used to work for a trucking company that had a driving school. One of my responsibilities was to attract new students into the program and one big way we did that was by having booths at employment fairs. I usually had a table to display information and little prizes to give away to people as well as a poster that explained who we were and how we could help you get a job. I would spend the whole day talking to people about the trucking industry and answering their questions. This required me to have a wide body of knowledge so I spent quiet a bit of time browsing trucking websites and talking to truckers about the positive and negative aspects of their jobs. I stumbled into this job with absolutely no interest in trucking but found that as I became more knowledgeable it became more interesting to me and I enjoyed talking to people about it. When I was teaching English at a high school in Brooklyn, I saw one of the most important parts of my job was to inspire an interest in reading in my students. One way we did this was by allowing groups of students to choose what book they wanted to read. When they finished they were able to choose how they wanted to present the book to the other groups. One of their options was to create a booth. I loved this option because they had to make things related to their books to give away like bookmarks with images and quotes from the book, brochures, buttons and other things. It also encouraged them to really think about the book they had just read so they could explain why other students might want to read it. Resources Needed:
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What creative ways do you have of getting your students to present their work and ideas? Please share in the comments. For more creative teaching ideas, check out these posts.
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Hi, I'm Kia.Teaching is my passion, I have been teaching for over 20 years in 4 different continents. One of the things I have learned over the years is that I am never done learning about teaching. Both teaching and learning should be fun and inspiring.Are you looking for more posts? Click on one of the categories below to find it.Archives
December 2019
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