Abstract
Poor oral presentation skills amongst ESL speakers are frequently linked to weakness in general English proficiency. However, the literature has also identified the lack of a systematic and effective pedagogical method to develop students' multimodal oral presentation skills to meet 21 st century communication realities. This paper elucidates the application of a pedagogical initiative for multimodal oral presentations skills, informed by the Sociocultural Theory of Learning created by Vygotsky (1978), and the Pedagogy of Multiliteracies introduced by the New London Group (1996) and further developed by Cope and Kalantzis (2009). This initiative was experienced by 20 students through the action-reflection cycle methodology and was implemented for 13 weeks in a tertiary ESL classroom. Preliminary findings based on focus group interviews indicated that the initiative left a clear positive impact on student abilities in various multimodal components of oral presentation skills. Furthermore, the initiative positively affected students’ learning experience and raised their self-awareness of themselves as presenters. The findings also suggested that techniques employed in the initiative such as videos, feedback, collaborative learning and Web 2.0 could scaffold the students’ development of multimodal oral presentation skills. Based on these findings, significant implications for teaching oral presentation skills systematically are offered to be referred by ESL practitioners and researchers; in particular, the proposed multimodal oral presentations skills model as a multiliteracies pedagogy and the potential use of web 2.0 tools in promoting collaborative learning and creation of creative content by the learners. Keywords: ESL pedagogy; oral presentation skills; collaborative learning; multimodal literacy; action research
Highlights
Oral presentation skills are essentially the delivery of oral monologues, such as "academic presentations, dissertation and thesis proposals, or any event where someone has to speak for a given length of time on a topic without interruption" (Barrett & Liu 2016, p. 4)
The data went through primary-cycle coding that can be defined as "initial coding activities that occur more than just a single 'first' time
The analysis showed that the pedagogical initiative enhanced students’ abilities in certain sub-skills that had been identified as components of multimodal oral presentation skills: oral ability, overall credibility which included confidence, linguistic ability, visual design ability, gestural ability, content development and organisation
Summary
Oral presentation skills are essentially the delivery of oral monologues, such as "academic presentations, dissertation and thesis proposals, or any event where someone has to speak for a given length of time on a topic without interruption" (Barrett & Liu 2016, p. 4). Oral presentation skills are essentially the delivery of oral monologues, such as "academic presentations, dissertation and thesis proposals, or any event where someone has to speak for a given length of time on a topic without interruption" Compared to the more casual interactional speech, oral presentation skills require a different set of skills which involve formal speaking. Brown (1981) observed formal speaking is more transactional (to communicate information), influenced by the written language, and requires paralinguistic vocal features, gestures and facial expressions to enhance the delivery of content. Nation and Newton (2009) later note that formal speaking often requires teaching since it is not naturally a part of daily use. Formal speaking or oral presentation skills are abilities that are required in most job interviews and frequently demanded of at the workplace. In Malaysia, research findings have shown that poor ability in this skill is among the main reasons that a potential employer will not recruit a new graduate for employment, as they
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