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Introduction: For decades, oral presentations have become a common method of assessment in language learning classrooms. Nonetheless, anxiety is a persistent negative feeling pervasive in EFL learners. Although applied linguistic research suggests that there is a relationship between motivation and anxiety, the nature and direction of this relationship remain inconsistent. Methods: To tackle this concern, this mixed-methods longitudinal study aimed to investigate the growth trajectories of Chinese EFL learners' L2 motivation and anxiety in oral presentations. The participants were 171 second-year undergraduate medical students who attended an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course. They delivered four oral presentations and reported their L2 motivation and anxiety levels in questionnaire surveys. Results: (1) As the number of EFL learners giving oral presentations increased, the L2 motivation levels increased, and the anxiety levels decreased. (2) Those who were initially more anxious about giving oral presentations had higher decrease rates during the four oral presentations. (3) There was co-development but inverse relationships between ideal L2 self and anxiety and between ought-to L2 self and anxiety, although a complete parallel process model was not established. Discussion: These findings suggest that students' perceptions of L2 motivation interact with anxiety levels over time but in a sophisticated fashion. Finally, pedagogical implications for EFL oral presentation instruction are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because strong oral communication skills have well-known academic, social, and professional benefits, they are increasingly targeted and reinforced throughout general education programs in higher education. In these efforts, public speaking assignments most often ask students to discuss information they have previously written about (e.g., theses defenses, position statements, research papers). This article presents a reverse approach—using short oral presentations to prepare students for subsequent written assignments. Previous studies have found that students will more closely read and evaluate source materials when they must articulate the information orally for an audience. Integrating oral presentations in the writing process gives students practice with language and vocabulary, but maybe more importantly, it also has the potential to increase students' self-efficacy—their confidence in their ability to understand and successfully complete additional research-related activities—which can, in turn, positively affect engagement and retention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this exploratory practice research was to gain a better understanding of how tertiary education English as a foreign language (EFL) learners perceive oral presentations (OPs) in the formative assessment of their speaking skills. Participants were 150 pre-service teachers of primary education from the Higher Institute of Social Sciences and Education of Gafsa (HISSEG), Tunisia. Data were collected through a questionnaire and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results revealed that participants showed a positive attitude towards oral presentation (OP) assessment, viewing it as useful in enhancing their speaking abilities and self-reflection and self-assessment skills. They also appreciated teacher feedback. In addition, they demonstrated a relatively high awareness of the purposes of OP assessment. However, participants had moderate awareness of the assessment criteria and low perception of peer feedback. Further interventions are needed to reinforce the strengths and address the inadequacies of OPs as a tool of formative assessment.

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This paper examines the way students developed their leadership potential by delivering an oral presentation and a project in an ‘English for Social Sciences’ course. By using a communicative approach, students were motivated to develop their leadership skills, which stimulated their learning and understanding at deeper levels. The survey was conducted with 14 students at undergraduate level, in their second year ESP Social Sciences 1 course; the students attend the Public Administration, International Communications, and Political Sciences departments of South East European University. The results showed that students attending this course showed the potential of developing leadership skills, and expressed positive attitudes and proficiency when delivering an oral presentation and project according to their preference in their field of study. Students were challenged and motivated to develop leadership skills, such as integrity and strength of character, that will prepare them for becoming potential leaders.

This action research aims at exploring the contribution of self-assessment checklists on improving oral presentations of two participants that were taking an initial-level English as a second language course at a technician professional institute in Talcahuano, Chile. The intervention was carried out in four weekly sessions in which the participants were trained on the different criteria to assess their oral presentations. The participants self-assessed their work with a checklist and performed a second presentation based on their first self-assessment. Analytic rubrics were also used as an external assessment to compare results from the checklists. At the end of the intervention, a semi-structured interview was conducted to obtain the participants’ perceptions about the process. Findings reveal that by developing autonomy, language awareness, and self-reflective skills, the use of the self-assessment checklist supported the participants not only to improve their oral presentation in overall aspects, mainly in fluency and pronunciation aspects, but also to make positive changes in their confidence and expectations about their performance.

Previous studies compare quantitative feedback ratings of student peers and instructors, but new presentation-feedback technologies enable qualitative-feedback comparison. This study extends previous research by comparing qualitative feedback and business professionals' feedback. Compared to the professionals, the instructors provided similar feedback types and sentiment; students, however, de-emphasized message delivery and made fewer suggestions for improvement. The results suggest that students may need additional practice in critiquing message delivery and in suggesting needed improvements in their peers' oral presentations. The study also provides a methodology using the new technologies for instructors to calibrate their own and their students' feedback with professionals' feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many existing scholarly speaking pedagogies continue to think of oral presentations as performances for an audience rather than dialogic exchanges of research. Such approaches, prominent in Canadian universities, can exacerbate classroom inequities by valuing certain ways of speaking and, by extension, certain speakers: speaking pedagogies, for example, that instruct students to speak “clearly,” dress “professionally,” or even to appear “confident,” can encode prejudices that privilege some voices and bodies over others, perpetuating discrimination based on gender, race, sexuality, language, and culture. This article argues that an equitable scholarly speaking pedagogy will teach students to instead think of oral presentations as opportunities for collaborative knowledge-making. We offer strategies to help students think of scholarly speaking as an integral part of the research process, rather than a stand-alone performance. Drawing on genre-theoretical approaches to academic writing, we argue that this shift can be achieved by using “precedents”—examples of scholarly speaking—to familiarize students with academic oral discourse’s genre conventions, helping students to recognize scholarly speaking as a situated and dialogic research genre. By shifting the goal of academic oral presentations towards cooperative knowledge-making, these strategies at once challenge student prejudices about who can be a “good” speaker and remind students of their responsibilities as audience members, resulting in a more equitable and inclusive classroom environment. To provide a pragmatic example of our approach, we outline the “Classroom Conference” assignment that we developed and evaluated, which uses precedents to prepare students for the oral presentations that are integrated as a step in completing their larger research projects. Analyzing survey data from students who completed this assignment, we recognize its success but also propose strategies for overcoming persisting challenges in getting students to shift their thinking toward an equitable model of scholarly speaking.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, educational institutions worldwide were forced to rely on online platforms, whereby teaching was remotely undertaken. Although these platforms were gradually replaced by or supported with traditional, face-to-face methods as the pandemic came under control, this reliance on online platforms had a deep impact on different aspects of education in general and language education in specific. Examination of learners' engagement with literacy and the impact of learners' experiences on their identity construction represent some of the growing research interests in language education. The present study adopts a qualitative case-study approach, using interview, artefact collection, student-authored reflections and observational fieldnotes. The study aims to explore the literacy practices and identity construction and negotiation that underlies how a first-year female undergraduate engages with individual and group presentations in a mixed-level, English as a foreign language (EFL) course at a Saudi university. The study pays special attention to how the learner constructs and negotiates her identity in relation to multimodal meaning making which helps her to move beyond the limitations imposed by weak linguistic skills to negotiate more powerful identity positions associated with her investment in the event and the imagined community she aspires to join. The findings highlight the need to reconsider how learners' multimodal meaning making in language classes should be approached and assessed and how it can empower language learners and encourage them to adopt more powerful identity positions to sustain their language learning trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated student perceptions and opinions on an English Oral Presentation Application (EOPA), a mobile learning application designed to assist English learners develop oral presentations and online collaboration skills. This study was part of a Design Based Research (DBR) project which incorporated an adapted Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) questionnaire to gain insights on students' perceptions towards EOPA. In addition, focus-group interviews were used to discover the external and internal factors involved in this type of mobile learning. Participants were 30 Taiwanese undergraduate students who took part in a six-week training course. The questionnaire results indicated that 37% of students found EOPA to be useful for learning, but 33% also found it inconvenient to use. Furthermore, attitudes towards learning suggested they had some difficulties using the app. To gain a deeper understanding of why students use EOPA and to discover other app-related learning problems, the interviews were explored using a Complex Dynamic Systems approach to find the attractor and repeller dynamic states in the learning system. These included the language and presentation skills, the multimedia learning material, app design, online collaboration, anxiety, and limited self-regulation skills. The findings will be used to refine EOPA and the oral presentation learning framework. The study demonstrates how the discovery of different dynamic states can be used to improve mobile learning design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution: In this article, an experience applying three role-playing games in the context of an Entrepreneurship final project is presented, discussing the challenges, and the lessons learned. Background: Soft skills have been expounded repeatedly as a crucial factor to thrive in the workplace, as opposed to mere knowledge of content only, since the increasingly importance of practitioners being able to adapt to new situations. Also, soft skills have the ability to categorize specific career attribute which an individual has, such as team spirit, written and oral communication, leadership, teamwork, and problem-solving skills. Literature provides evidence of areas in which graduates most frequently do not meet industry expectations, including technical and also soft skills. Intended Outcomes: Considering the aforementioned scenario, an active learning strategy was adopted aiming to foster soft skills, particularly, oral communication, and negotiation in an Entrepreneurship course. Application Design: The course final project comprised the development of fictional business plans, their corresponding minimum viable products, and also negotiation rounds with fictional potential investors. Among the active learning strategies, role-playing games were chosen as they have shown to be useful in similar contexts. Findings: This experience shows that active strategies, especially role-playing games, support the development of soft skills and engage students as active participants in their learning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When a speaker engages in public speaking, the expression shown while delivering the speech determines the effectiveness of the communication and can be very influential in organizational settings. However, in public speaking, the audience can often see the speaker before the presentation begins. Therefore, the public could hypothetically gain an impression on the basis of the speakers’ expressions even before performing the presentation. With this idea in mind, the goal of this research is to analyze the influence of speakers’ expressions before delivering a speech and during the presentation. The study included two brown-haired/dark-eyed male and female and two blonde-haired/blue-eyed male and female presenters to investigate the effect of appearance and gender. A total of 200 participants looked at the speakers’ pictures with five different expressions before delivering the speech. They then watched videos with the same speakers and similar expressions while delivering the speech. The results showed that happiness was the most pleasant and positive expression, followed by confidence, indifference, shyness, and anger, when the participants watched the speakers before the presentation. However, confidence was considered the most pleasant, credible, and comprehensible expression, followed by happiness, anger, shyness, and indifference, while giving the speech. In both cases, female presenters were perceived as the most pleasant, and brown-haired/dark-eyed speakers were considered the most pleasant, credible, and comprehensible. The speakers’ expressions were perceived as more intense before the speech than during the discourse. This line of research helps understand the influence of these two crucial moments in presentations, and the results may be transferred into practice for public speaking training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates English language learners' oral presentation needs, alongside students' and instructors' perceptions towards mobile seamless language learning. The findings will be used to develop a mobile-based learning environment. Interviews with both instructors and students were used to help build a Likert questionnaire which was refined with input from experts. Results reveal that students have a need for oral presentation training in areas such as slide design, presentation-specific language, structure, and body language. Instructors and students are willing to work with peers on oral presentation projects despite lacking previous experience. Deeper exploration from interviews show students believe sentence level language issues are more important than the organization and design of a presentation. Furthermore, instructors expressed problems with incorporating technology and online collaborative learning into language courses suggesting they need more training with learning technology. Students also believed online collaboration would be convenient but difficult to manage, indicating a need for both online and face-to-face collaboration. These findings will help with the development of a mobile seamless language learning framework and app for oral presentations. Guidelines are suggested to help instructors to improve students' oral presentation performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study attempted to probe into the role of teacher feedback in an online learning environment during the COVID-19 pandemic. It aimed to investigate the characteristics and effectiveness of teacher feedback on online business English presentations and also to explore EFL learners' attitudes toward teacher feedback. The participants were one class of 24 sophomores majoring in Business English. By analyzing data from transcriptions of teacher feedback on presentation rehearsals, assessment scores, questionnaires, and students' self-reflective journals, the study found that teacher feedback was focused on both content- and delivery-related components, but new sub-components were added to delivery-related teacher feedback, such as technology use, timing, and teamwork. It also proved the positive effect of teacher feedback on improving students' oral presentation quality in various aspects. Additionally, it was found the participants held quite positive attitudes toward teacher feedback. However, some issues also arose in an online learning context. Therefore, pedagogical implications were provided based on the research findings and in response to the challenges of online education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oral presentations and public speaking are an important aspect of the student experience in the United Kingdom higher education. Many modules (self-contained units normally within a programme of study) use presentations as a form of assessment and require students to verbally engage in small and large group settings to enhance learning. Previous research evidence has indicated that many students experience fear in public speaking. The aims of this qualitative survey were two-fold. First, it sought to gather further insight into the fears experienced and strategies used by students who fear public speaking, including oral presentations. The second objective was to determine whether their fear affected their experience of higher education. A qualitative survey comprising four open-ended questions was completed by 46 undergraduate and postgraduate students with a fear of public speaking from the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol. All participants were attending one of the Stand Up and Be Heard (SUBH) UWE library-based workshops for fear of public speaking. Thematic analysis was used to identify the following six themes, namely: fear of being judged, physical symptoms, uncertainty about the topic, negative effect on university experience, practice and preparation, and more practical support needed. The results of this survey identify the specific fears students have in public speaking and provide evidence of the overall negative effect on their higher education experience. This survey provides further evidence that higher education institutions should acknowledge public speaking fear among some students and provide more support in oral presentation assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Speaking is rated as the most fearful task among language learners. Since oral presentation is one of the most vital tasks for second language learners, most learners experience oral presentation apprehension during their learning life, regardless of whether this is encountered face-to-face or through online distance learning (ODL). The study aims to investigate whether there are any significant relationships concerning the state and traits of apprehension regarding oral presentations across genders and faculty. The purposive sampling method was utilized for this study, which consisted of 92 undergraduates taking an oral presentation skills course. The data collected were analyzed using correlation analysis (IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, IBM Corp. Version 24.0. Armonk, NY, USA). The analysis revealed that gender shows a significant relationship with the state of apprehension; meanwhile, faculty has no relationship with apprehension. For future research, this study provides insights for educators and learners on how to deliver an engaging oral presentation successfully.

In an effort to increase graduate employability and minimize university-industry mismatch, concerted efforts have been taken by the Malaysian government to encourage collaboration between universities and the industry. Such linkages have led to a more informed curriculum review process, especially for language and communication courses. This research examines the current practices of industries in delivering quality professional presentations to be incorporated into the teaching and learning of presentation skills at higher education level. Ten industry representatives consisting of managers, heads of departments, and directors from established telecommunications, agriculture, medicine, property, financial services, and investment corporations in Malaysia were interviewed. The results show that storylining and incorporating infographics using minimal slides are among the best practices in current corporate presentations. Additionally, the ability to deliver a clear purpose statement and curating the delivery to suit the perspective of the audience were also considered as fundamental to deliver effective presentations. Thus, the practices identified in this research are crucial to be incorporated into current presentation courses in university to enhance students' presentation skills and develop their ability to do well in delivering pitches and performing in interviews, especially to increase their employability and ensure the courses are relevant to current industry needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how a group of students enrolled in preparatory year program at a Saudi university describe their experiences while engaging with a specific literacy event, i.e. oral presentations in an English as a Foreign Language classroom. It adopts a case study methodology that relies on qualitative data-collection techniques, including reflections written by female undergraduates, informal conversations with these undergraduates, observational fieldnotes of classroom activities and a research journal. Relying on a social understanding of literacy, collected data are thematically analysed to examine how students view their experiences in this academic literacy event. Three major themes are highlighted in this study in relation to students' experiences with this event: topic choice, fear and anxiety and the gains and losses associated with learning to prepare and make short presentations in English. Discussion sheds light on the impact of these experiences on the identity positions that learners develop and negotiate to participate in this event. It also highlights some of the challenges that mediate students' experiences in this event and how they recognize and address these challenges. The study draws attention to the need for more in-depth, qualitative research to examine academic literacy events in tertiary education in which learners' voices are brought to light to explore the situated nature of learning and its impact on learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communicating in social and public environments are considered professional skills that can strongly influence career development. Therefore, it is important to proper train and evaluate students in this kind of abilities so that they can better interact in their professional relationships, during the resolution of problems, negotiations and conflict management. This is a complex problem as it involves corporal analysis and the assessment of aspects that until recently were almost impossible to quantitatively measure. Nowadays, a number of new technologies and sensors have being developed for the capture of different kinds of contextual and personal information, but these technologies were not yet fully integrated inside learning settings. In this context, this paper presents a framework to facilitate the analysis and detection of patterns of students in oral presentations. Four steps are proposed for the given framework: Data collection, Statistical Analysis, Clustering, and Sequential Pattern Mining. Data Collection step is responsible for the collection of students interactions during presentations and the arrangement of data for further analysis. Statistical Analysis provides a general understanding of the data collected by showing the differences and similarities of the presentations along the semester. The Clustering stage segments students into groups according to well-defined attributes helping to observe different corporal patterns of the students. Finally, Sequential Pattern Mining step complements the previous stages allowing the identification of sequential patterns of postures in the different groups. The framework was tested in a case study with data collected from 222 freshman students of Computer Engineering (CE) course at three different times during two different years. The analysis made it possible to segment the presenters into three distinct groups according to their corporal postures. The statistical analysis helped to assess how the postures of the students evolved throughout each year. The sequential pattern mining provided a complementary perspective for data evaluation and helped to observe the most frequent postural sequences of the students. Results show the framework could be used as a guidance to provide students automated feedback throughout their presentations and can serve as background information for future comparisons of students presentations from different undergraduate courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigated preparatory class students’ perceptions of oral presentations and their functions in EFL learning and teaching in connection with language ability, speech anxiety, and language learning motivation. Our participants were 29 adult EFL students in two intact classes attending a mandatory English preparatory program at a state university, who performed up to three controlled oral presentations following preliminary instruction. We collected data through pre-and post-student surveys, semi-structured interviews, selfreflection forms, and peer-evaluation forms. The pre-survey results revealed that the participants already held positive perceptions of oral presentations despite perceived difficulties. The post data showed significant changes in a positive direction in four variables, namely unwillingness, experience and perception of oral presentations, and language skills. The findings from the qualitative data also confirmed that the participants had benefited from their supervised oral presentations in terms of overcoming their speaking anxiety and perceived significant improvements in a range of language skills including pronunciation and public speaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Although a number of studies have examined EFL teachers’ beliefs of feedback on student writing, few have investigated teachers’ feedback beliefs about student oral activities like oral presentations. To fill this research gap, this study explores three experienced EFL teachers’ beliefs about feedback on oral presentations in terms of the nature, focus, interpersonal functions, strategies and source of teacher feedback. Using semi-structured interviews and classroom observations, this study identified six major beliefs about feedback on student oral presentations and provided implications regarding how EFL teachers provide effective feedback to enhance student performance in oral presentations.

Oral presentations are common in higher education worldwide. There is no shortage of evidence substantiating the association between oral presentations and anxiety. In the light of the close connection between self-perception and anxiety, and the under-researched nature of the delivery aspect of presentations (e.g. use of voice and body language), this study explored the relationship between tertiary-level learners' (n = 211) perceived delivery competence (23 areas) and their levels of public speaking anxiety. The data were collected via questionnaires and interviews. The questionnaire results revealed highly significant correlations between anxiety and 22 of these areas. The 23 areas overall also had a highly significant predictive power for anxiety levels, indicated by their explaining 45% of the variance. Follow-up in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with six participants to shed light on these quantitative findings. This article ends with an argument for greater emphasis on presentation delivery skills in higher education, which can potentially mitigate learners' public speaking anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advocacy is an integral part of child and youth care workers' roles and a significant component of child and youth care politicized praxis and radical youth work. Drawing from the qualitative data of a mixed-methods study conducted in 2019 at a Canadian metropolitan university, this study seeks to unpack how the pedagogy of the lightning talk can foster advocacy skills to effectively and spontaneously speak out with and on behalf of children, youth, and families in everyday practice when an unforeseen systemic challenge or barrier arises. A purposive sample of 70 undergraduate students was recruited in two child and youth care courses, both of which required students to present a lightning talk. Participants completed an online questionnaire with closed-ended and open-ended questions in order to share their perspectives of the pedagogy of the lightning talk. The findings show that the lightning talk fosters twenty-first century and metacognitive skills and, most importantly, advocacy skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the importance of communication skills, the high incidence of communication apprehension felt amongst accounting students is concerning. Much research has investigated apprehension towards oral communication and has confirmed public speaking as the mode which raises the greatest fear amongst students. Despite widespread evidence of this apprehension, little research has considered the explanations of students for these feelings. This study provides confirmatory evidence of levels of apprehension towards presenting felt by new first year undergraduate accounting students attending a British university. It then seeks to establish possible reasons for the apprehension by considering student reflections of presenting. Three groups, identified as those who are apprehensive, those who are confident and those who have overcome apprehension, reveal differing explanations for levels of apprehension experienced. The study provides a unique insight into reasons that students feel apprehension towards presenting. Further studies in other settings would provide greater insights into this important area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The purpose of this project was to evaluate and improve the oral presentation assessment component of a required research training curriculum at an undergraduate medical school by analyzing the quantity, quality, and variety of peer and faculty feedback on medical student oral research presentations. Methods: We conducted a program evaluation of oral presentation assessments during the 2016 and 2017 academic years. Second-year medical students (n=225) provided oral presentations of their research and received narrative feedback from peers and faculty. All comments were inductively coded for themes and Chi-square testing compared faculty and peer feedback differences in quantity, quality, and variety, as well as changes in feedback between the initial and final presentations. Comparative analysis of student Power- Point presentation files before and after receiving feedback was also conducted. Results: Over two years, 2,617 peer and 498 faculty comments were collected and categorized into ten themes, with the top three being: presentation skills, visual presentation, and content. Both peers and judges favored providing positive over improvement comments, with peers tending to give richer feedback, but judges more diverse feedback. Nearly all presenters made some change from the initial to final presentations based on feedback. Conclusions: Data from this analysis was used to restructure the oral presentation requirement for the students. Both peer and faculty formative feedback can contribute to developing medical student competence in providing feedback and delivering oral presentations. Future studies could assess student perceptions of this assessment to determine its value in developing communication skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated how students designed English academic oral presentations via a blended language learning environment. Data were collected from focus group interviews, observations of students, and instructor perspectives to explore how students develop academic presentation skills. In addition, a total of 36 oral presentations were assessed by a rubric and frequency counts of presentation language and features. By adopting an ecological approach, we identified the interactions between different factors that influenced learning. Interview findings and observations suggested students welcomed the immediacy of the technology and demonstrated signs of autonomous learning by self‐selecting the chat application Line for group collaboration. Participants preferred both online and face‐to‐face collaboration, as students discovered the limits of online communication. Results indicated that group oral presentations improved, with stronger introductions, linking devices, and visual elements. However, students had problems constructing conclusions and trouble linking the main ideas to the content. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic? Group oral presentation projects train students in 21st century competencies such as multimedia skills, critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration.Cloud computing collaborative environments have the potential to help students develop language and communication skills.Users are aware of some of the affordances of mobile devices for language learning. What this paper adds? A description of the design and development of a blended language learning environment (BLLE) for English undergraduate oral presentations.Identified improvements in oral presentation introductions, cohesion, and visual elements from using this BLLE.Provides deep, qualitative insights on student perspectives for collaborative, mobile‐based learning from an ecological approach. Implications for practice and/or policy Oral presentation skills can be developed in a BLLE providing the instructor involves students in the design process.Instructors need to discover the right blend for language learners between online and face‐to‐face collaboration to facilitate project development.Collaboration, instruction, effective learning technology, and convenience are the four main factors that interact and influence how students develop and perform group oral presentations in a BLLE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order for students to effectively transfer oral communication skills from academic to professional settings, they must have high oral communication self-efficacy. We significantly increased oral communication self-efficacy in a sample of 97 undergraduate business majors by incorporating enactive mastery, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological arousal into a business communication course. Self-efficacy was positively and significantly correlated with course performance, and increases in self-efficacy were positively and significantly correlated with changes in overall grade point average. By targeting self-efficacy, instructors can improve students' oral communication skills and help them transfer these skills from academic to professional settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oral presentations are considered to be effective teaching tools because they add variety to the process of teaching and learning in the classroom. Through these presentations, students are given the opportunity to learn from one another instead of always learning from the lecturer. There is no doubt that communication skills are core skills needed by those in the legal profession. Despite this, the use of oral presentations as a form of assessment is yet to become an integral part of courses in legal studies. This study examines students' perceptions of oral presentations as a form of assessment in their undergraduate law program with the sole purpose of identifying the benefits obtained, the challenges faced and the relationship between these as well as gender and year of study with students' attitude towards oral presentations as a form of assessment. The data for the study was collected by conducting a survey using Likert scale among students pursuing an undergraduate law program. The findings add to the literature on the teaching and learning of legal studies and advances further use of oral presentations as a form of assessment. This is because the researchers are of the opinion that a combination of a summative written exam and assessed oral presentations will create an authentic learning context where the skills developed will enhance students' development of a professional identity in the legal arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the results of a pilot study that sought to identify: (1) the syntactic mechanisms that a group of PhD-level Colombian EAP students used to express originally written content in oral presentations, and (2) how those mechanisms can be used to describe the differences of performance between high- and low-rated presentations. To achieve these objectives, a discourse analysis comparison of eight parallel pairs of texts (eight essays and their corresponding oral presentation transcriptions) was performed. Quantitative analyses were also performed to confirm the qualitative analyses. Syntactic modifications to clause structure and heavily modified noun phrases were identified as some of the mechanisms that students used to transition from written to oral discourse. The analysis of these mechanisms includes the description of further sub-mechanisms, the linguistic resources that are implemented, their pragmatic appropriateness, and their grammatical correctness. Among the sub-mechanisms deemed as useful indicators of quality of oral performance are topicalization and reduction of heavily modified NPs. Other sub-mechanisms such as the rhematization of NP modifiers were not useful to discriminate among levels of oral performance. This report ends with the presentation of the implications and limitations of the study, and the perspectives for future research.

This article explores specific aspects of literacy practices in teacher education in Norway, building upon data collected within the research project 'Digital literacy and use of learning resources in teacher education in Norway' (DigiGLU). Our main aim is to explore how teachers in different subject courses in teacher education (TE) design mandatory assignments, and how students respond to these designs. After the extensive TE-reform in 2010, in revised plans and documents guiding professional training, mandatory assignments (both form and content) were considered more important for the students’ learning process. In our investigation, the concepts of design for learning and design in learning, as described by Selander and Kress (2010), are considered fruitful as theoretical perspectives. The analysis focuses on oral presentations and traditional academic texts in four different TE-subjects. Our main finding, across subjects, is that there seem to be mismatches between the intentions behind the designs on the part of the assignment designers and the actual interpretation: hence the redesigned result by the receiver of the design. The article concludes with some reflections on why these mismatches occur, and what the implications might be for the students’ academic development and the possible transfer of certain literacy practices to their occupational lives.

This article presents the results of a pilot study carried out in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) class for PhD programs at a private university in Bogotá. The study sought to identify the mechanisms to change the content of academic essays to present them in oral presentations (OPs) to a multidisciplinary audience, and how such mechanisms mark differences of performance in the OPs. To identify the mechanisms of transition from written to oral mode, a discourse analysis comparison of eight parallel pairs of texts was performed. Changes to the expression of modality and the inclusion of code glosses were the mechanisms used to make the transition. These mechanisms helped students express contents in engaging and easy-to-process ways. The analysis of mechanisms includes the linguistic resources to modify sentences, their pragmatic appropriateness, and their grammatical correctness. This paper ends outlining some implications and limitations, and perspectives for future research.