AN GIANG UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES VÕ VŨ ANH VI DTA151168 DH16TA UNDERGRADUATE THESIS AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE STRATEGIES FREQUENTLY USED TO INTRODUCE PRESENTATION TOPICS BY ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT AN GIANG UNIVERSITY SUPERVISOR: NGUYỄN THỊ DUNG, MA AN GIANG, MAY 2019 AN GIANG UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES VÕ VŨ ANH VI DTA151168 DH16TA UNDERGRADUATE THESIS AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE STRATEGIES FREQUENTLY USED TO INTRODUCE PRESENTATION TOPICS BY ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT AN GIANG UNIVERSITY SUPERVISOR: NGUYỄN THỊ DUNG, MA AN GIANG, MAY 2019 DECLARATION I hereby declare that the thesis titled “An investigation into strategies frequently used to introduce presentation topics by English major students at An Giang University” represents my own work and that it has not been previously submitted to any other university or institute in application for admission to degrees or other qualifications. --------------------------------------- An Giang, May 2019 VÕ VŨ ANH VI i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The study would not have been fulfilled without the generous assistance and contributions of individuals to whom I would love to gratefully give acknowledgement. Firstly, I want to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor, Ms. Nguyễn Thị Dung, M., who guided me to have more new perspectives and gave me valuable resources to do this study.
Her knowledge, enthusiasm and useful instruction were a great source of supporting during the implementation of this research. Without her support and encouragement, this study would not have been completed. Secondly, I wish to offer my endless thanks to lecturers and students in the Faculty of Foreign Languages for helping me in collecting the data. Finally, I would like to acknowledge my dearest family and friends who are always by my side.
Their love, sharing, and understanding gave me the strength to accomplish this thesis. ii TABLE OF CONTENT DECLARATION. ii TABLE OF CONTENT. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
vi LIST OF TABLES. vii LIST OF FIGURES .1 Rationale of the research .2 Scope of the research .7 Structure of the research .1 What is a presentation? .2 Presentations in college courses.2 Criteria for a good presentation .3 The role of the introduction part in a presentation.1 What is introduction? .2 Introduction part in a presentation .4 Criteria for a good introduction in a presentation .5 Strategies for a good introduction in a presentation .3 Giving statistics or startling statements.6 Other introductory strategies .3 Data collection instruments .4 Data collection procedures .5 Data analysis procedures .1 Data analysis of the questionnaires .2 Data analysis of the interviews .3 Data analysis of the observations .1 EMSs' opinions on strategies to introduce presentations and their influence .1 The number of presentations for one subject and the preparation time of the EMSs .2 The role of the introduction part of the presentation from the perspective of EMSs.3 The preferred introductory strategies of EMSs.2 Lecturers' opinions and suggestions on strategies to introduce presentation topics .1 Lecturers’ perceptions about the role of introduction part .2 The preferred introductory strategies of EMSs.3 Lecturers’ assessment of the introduction part in EMSs’ presentations .4 The recommendations of lecturers in building a successful introduction .3 The introductory strategies used by EMSs and their influence through researchers' observations .1 Strategies to introduce difference presentation topics of EMSs and its influence.2 Various strategies to introduce same presentation topic of EMSs and audience’s reactions. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. Questionnaire for students.
Interview questions for lecturers. Interview responses of lecturers. 61 v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EMS: English Major Student SPSS: Statistic Package for the Social Science (software) TED: Technology, Entertainment, Design (Conferences) vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Descriptive features of the students.
Interview question’s purposes. Reliability Statistics of the pilot. Reliability Statistics of the official questionnaire. EMSs’ perceptions of the role of introduction part.
Reasons to prove that the introduction is important. Reasons to prove that the introduction is unimportant. Giving a startling statement. Playing a video clip.
Indicating a historical event. Introductory strategies of EMSs through researchers' observations. 35 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Average number of presentations for subjects.
Average time used to prepare presentations. The preferred introductory strategies of EMSs. 25 vii ABSTRACT Presentations play an important role in academic activities at university. Thus, building and preparing a presentation are necessary skills of university students in general and students of the Faculty of Foreign Languages in particular.
The opening of a presentation is used to introduce the presented topic and is conducted variously to attract the audience. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the introductory strategies used by EMSs at An Giang University and their effectiveness on the success of presentations. Through three research instruments - questionnaires, interviews, and observations, both qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analysed. The results of the study not only showed some introductory strategies frequently used by EMSs, but also identified some limitations in using those tactics.
Besides, lecturers’ and students’ perceptions about the role of the introduction to the presentations’ success were recorded. Furthermore, findings of the research pointed out differences in audience’s responses to different introductory strategies as well as presentations. Thereby, conclusions about the role of the introductory strategies to the success of the introduction parts and the presentations, as well as factors that speakers should focus on when using different introductory strategies were drawn. Based on the findings of the study, some recommendations were given in order to help EMSs improve skills in building not only good introduction parts but also successful presentations.
viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTON This chapter is divided into six sections. The first and second part shows the rationale of the study and the research objectives. The third part provides research questions while the study’s significance is presented in the fourth part. The chapter ends with some limitations, as well as the structure of the research.1 Rationale of the research Nowadays, university students have to face many challenges and pressure not only from their study, families but society also.
According to statistics of the Ministry of Education and Training, in 2018, the unemployment rate at graduates is about 200,000 which creates prodigality to society and requires students to constantly improve their own capacity to meet the ever-changing and developing needs of the labour market (Phan, 2018). Robles (2012) confirms that business executives perceive soft skills as a very essential factor in job applicants, beside hard skills. Moreover, Watts and Watts (as cited in John, 2009) also point out that 85% of success is thanks to soft skills, and only 15% is due to hard skills. Among many skills required for the job environment, communication is considered to be the top essential one, just behind integrity (Robles, 2012).
Husain, Ganapathy and Mohamad (2015) state that students need to have more chances to practice and develop oral communication skills which help them prepare for the workplace. Good communication skills are essential for graduates because they usually have to interact socially with their colleagues and clients, as well as give presentations at workplaces, particularly at professional meetings, seminars and conferences (Gray, 2010; Kavanagh & Drennan, 2008; Talif & Noor, 2009; Zaid & Kamarudin, 2011; Živković, 2014). That means people with good communication skills will be more confident in interacting with others and can present their opinions well for many people. Concerned with this, universities have been paying more attention to fully equipped soft skills for students, especially communication skills.
Consequently, lecturers start to implement various activities to develop students’ soft skills, and the most popular one applied is presentations. 1 Presentations, as Živković (2014) affirms, are academic activities designed not only to help students enhance their communication skills but also to train them “how to prepare, organize, deliver successful oral presentations for professional purposes” (p.468) in the future. Agreeing with that point of view, Duruk and İşcan (2017) also emphasize that presentations have been considered as a communicative method that helps progress communication skills of the learner-centred curriculum. Therefore, although there are many different training and assessment methods, in response to a wide variety of student learning styles, presentations are still one of the most common ways to help students develop their communication skills.
Nevertheless, when thinking about making a presentation, people do not think about preparing introductions or do not pay much attention to this section (Reinhart, 2013) although it will affect the first impression of the audience to the presentation. Gosling et al. (2002), show that the first impression is one of the most important factors that determine the people’s judging and influences on the success of the conversations and relationships. The inceptive impression of the situation usually affects the way people interpret on later information (Tetlock, 1983) and first impressions, according to Digirolamo and Hintzman (1997), are “lasting impressions” (p.
That fact is also true in presentation. If a person wants to have a successful speech, he or she need an attractive introduction in order to attract the audience (Reinhart, 2013). Because of the characteristics and targets of the major, the potential jobs of EMSs at the Faculty of Foreign Languages of An Giang University are English lecturers, tour guides, receptionists, interpreters or translators, which need to be able to interact well with many people in both mother tongue and English. Therefore, communication and presentation skills are the two most essential ones that must be cultivated constantly.
During the learning process, EMSs are asked to do lots of assignments which require them to find different methods to make their presentations noticeable right from the first moment. Accordingly, depending on the subject properties and the contents, EMSs have different strategies to introduce the presentation topics. For all the reasons above, the research aims to investigate the frequently used introductory strategies by the students, evaluate their effectiveness in presentations and 2 make some recommendations for improving students’ presentations in particular and communication skills in general.2 Scope of the research This research focuses on the introduction part of the presentation and some introductory strategies to introduce presentation topics used by EMSs at An Giang University.3 Research aims This research aims to explore the introductory strategies commonly used to introduce presentation topics by EMSs at An Giang University. Besides, the researcher will also explore the reasons why those strategies are chosen and assess the impacts of those introductory strategies on the audience.4 Research questions Based on the aims above, the study is conducted so as to clarify the answers to three following research questions: - What are the strategies that EMSs at An Giang University frequently use to introduce the presentation topics? - Why do EMSs at An Giang University frequently use those strategies to introduce the presentation topics? - How do these strategies impact on audiences and the effectiveness of the presentations? 1.5 Significance This study can provide new information and findings on the use of different strategies to introduce presentation topics by EMSs of An Giang University.
It is hoped that the results of this study will help assess the role of the introduction to the overall success of the presentations, thereby, help students make a more correct judgment and be well-prepared before each presentation. In addition, this study can also discover the strengths and weaknesses in the process of developing and presenting the introduction part and propose some recommendations to help students improve their strategies and skills. Finally, the result of the study may be considered by lecturers who regularly use presentations to evaluate students to identify the limitations and propose appropriate changing methods.6 Limitations There are some limitations in this study. The study focused only on the introduction of the presentation, not cover all parts of the presentation.
For this reason, research results cannot show all the effectiveness of other factors, including the content and conclusion, on the success of the presentation. Lastly, because the reference source for research issues is limited, the data of this research cannot be as diverse as possible.