AN GIANG UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES HUỲNH THỊ NHƯ NGÂN DTA151091 ‖ DH16TA UNDERGRADUATE THESIS PRESENTATION PERFORMANCE: INFLUENTIAL FACTORS AND PRACTICES FOR IMPROVEMENT AMONG ENGLISH-MAJOR STUDENTS AT AN GIANG UNIVERSITY SUPERVISOR LE DO THAI, M. MAY 2, 2019 Contents LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES. iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.
Rationale of the study. Significance of the study. Limitation of the study. Organization of the study.
6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. The components of a presentation. Types of oral presentations. Purposes of academic presentation .3 Teaching and learning .3 Benefits of presentations .1 Student-centered participation in their learning .2 Develop new knowledge and perspectives on a topic .3 Practice in a known environment/situation .4 Increasing confidence to speak and present in front of an audience .5 Improving marks earned for a module assessment .6 Developing a wide range of communication and presentation skills .7 Preparation for skills needed in the workplace .4 Factors affecting the presentation performance .4 Role of teacherss .5 Pressures and problems of giving presentations .6 Ten steps for preparing your successful presentation .7 Overview of previous studies .8 Summary of the literature review and justification of the study .2 Participants and sampling methods .2 The pilot study.
Procedure of data collection .1 Administering the questionnaires .2 Administering the interviews. Procedure of data analysis.1 Analysis of the questionnaires .2 Analysis of the interviews. 30 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS .1 Students’ perceptions of factors influencing their presentation performance .4 Role of teachers. Students’ activities to improve their presentation performance .1 Summary of the findings and discussions .3 For the university.
QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS. 64 APPENDIX 3: PROTOCOL OF RESPONSES TO THE INTERVIEW. 65 iii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 3. The participants of the study according to class.
The distribution of the population of the study according to gender………………. Distribution of students by gender……………………………………………………25 Figure 3. Distribution of students by class…………………………………………………….3 Distribution of students by their GPA……………………………………………. Number of items according to the domains………………………………………….4 Realiability Statistics of the questionnaire…………………………………………….
Descriptive Statistics of Cognitive Factors……………………………………………32 Table 4. One-Sample Test of Cognitive Factors. Students’ perceptions of cognitive factors in their presentation performance. Descriptive Statistics of Linguistic Factors.
One-Sample Test of Linguistic Factors. Students’ perceptions of linguistic factors in their presentation performance. Descriptive Statistics of Psychological Factors. Students’ perceptions of psychological factors in their presentation performance.
Descriptive statistics of Role of teachers. One-Sample Test of Role of teachers. Students’ perceptions of role of teachers in their presentation performance. 38 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AGU: An Giang University EFL: English as a Foreign Language GPA: Grade Point Average iv DECLARATION I hereby declare that the thesis titled “Presentation performance: influential factors and practices for improvement among 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.
_____________________________________________ May 2019 Huynh Thi Nhu Ngan v ACKNOWLEDGEMENT After completing my study, I learnt many language skills and specialized knowledge that are very important to develop my English competence. Apart from the efforts of myself, the success of this study largely depends on the encouragement and guidelines of many my beloved people. I would like to send my gratitude to people who have contributions to help me in completion this study. First of all, I would like to thank the Foreign Language Department of An Giang University for allowing me to do the study for my graduation and providing me with regulations and necessary information for the study.
I am deeply indebted to my kind supervisor, Mr. Le Do Thai, who supported and helped me to lighten my study up. His amazing support has been a blessing to me. His encouragement and professional insights have inspired both my personal and professional development.
Moreover, he is a great role model for all educators, scholars, and educational administrators. I am extremely thankful to all the participants who spent time to provide me rich and detailed data for the study to value the research findings. Finally, I wish to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to my family and friends whose love and best wishes have always been a source of inspiration, encouragement and motivation for me to successfully complete this study. An Giang, April 30th , 2019 Huynh Thi Nhu Ngan vi ABSTRACT This study aimed to investigate the influential factors affecting in doing academic presentation performance for English majors at An Giang University and the activities they have been doing to improve it.
The participants of the study included two hundred EFL students and eight EFL students for interview were randomly selected to participate in the study. The data, both qualitative and quantitative, were collected through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The results of the study show that four clusters of factors (cognitive, linguistic, psychological factors and role of teachers) influence the presentation performance of English majors at AGU at certain levels as perceived by the students. The study also find out certain activities that English majors frequently do to improve their academic performance.
The research has drawn some important conclusions and provided recommendations for students, teachers and further research. Key terms: academic presentation, presentation performance, influential factors. vii TÓM LƯỢC Nghiên cứu này nhằm mục đích điều tra những nhân tố có sức ảnh hưởng đến việc làm bài thuyết trình của sinh viên chuyên ngành Ngôn ngữ Anh ở trường Đại học An Giang và các phương pháp những sinh viên này đã và đang làm để cải thiện phần thuyết trình của mình. Tham gia ngiên cứu bao gồm hai trăm sinh viên ngành Ngôn ngữ Anh trả lời bảng câu hỏi và tám sinh viên khác trả lời phỏng vấn được chọn lựa ngẫu nhiên theo các khóa học.
Cả dữ liệu định tính và định lượng đều được thu thập thông qua bảng câu hỏi và phỏng vấn. Các kết quả của nghiên cứu chỉ ra bốn nhóm nhân tố (nhận thức, ngôn ngữ, tâm lý và vai trò của giáo viên) có ảnh hưởng đến bài thuyết trình của sinh viên chuyên ngành Ngôn ngữ Anh tại trường Đại học An Giang ở các mức độ nhất định theo cách đánh giá của sinh viên. Nghiên cứu cũng tìm ra các phương pháp cũng như các hoạt động mà sinh viên chuyên ngành Ngôn ngữ anh thường thực hiện để cải thiện phần trình bày báo cáo của họ. Nghiên cứu đã rút ra những kết luận quan trọng và đưa ra những kiến nghị hữu ích cho sinh viên, giáo viên và những nghiên cứu tiếp theo.
viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study 1. Theoretical background Whai and Mei (2015) claim that “mastering good communication skills is essential because it serves as the key to success in one’s life, career and relationships” (p. Therefore, Al-Hebaish (2012) highlights that promoting learners’ oral communication abilities is a major challenge of foreign English instruction since the fundamental goal of language teaching is the production of competent speakers of the target language.
Almost both English majors and non-English majors mainly focus on communication in English as effectively as possible when learning English. Idrus and Salleh (2008) point out that an effective communication is identified as a manner which is clear, fluent and which holds the audience’s attention both in group and individual (p. Upon realizing the importance of mastering good English communication skills, oral presentation will be one of the most essential academic courses to strengthen their speaking abilities (Al- Hebaish, 2012). It is suggested that good presentation and communication skills are important for all English and non-English majors to be successful in their future career (Girard, Pinar & Trapp, 2011).
Therefore, in the introduction of Soureshjani (2013), he notes that “making a good oral presentation is an art that involves attention to the needs of your audience, careful planning, and attention to delivery” (p. A study conducted by Girard, Pinar and Trapp (2011) states that student presentations bring many potential benefits in learning English to both presenters and non-presenters (p. Presentations contribute to a positive and active classroom atmosphere that gives students the opportunity to establish an identity with interesting background and special knowledge (Masmaliyeva, 2014, p.146), and increases greater class interaction and participation. More importantly, students can improve in listening and public speaking skill, even critical thinking skills so that presenters enhance flexibility and proficiency in speaking English.
All presenters and non-presenters gain professional knowledge from the research they perform as well as different perspectives about the course material by observing the other presenters’ strengths and weaknesses to develop better communication and presentation skills. Getting non-presenters pay 1 attention and being engaged in the learning experience is a challenging to ask peer evaluations (Girard, Pinar & Trapp, 2011, p. In addition to academic benefits, it produces involvement in students in every class and makes them self-regulated. As the conclusion of Masmaliyeva (2014), oral presentations increased students’ motivation, confidence, sense of community, ownership over learning, speech fluency and accuracy (p.
Teachers obtain benefits from oral presentations as well (Al-Issa & Al-Qubtan, 2010). Teachers’ genuine interest in students is stimulated from listening to their students and discover students’ empty vessels that need to be filled with knowledge. It makes teachers be responsible for students’ learning that create an environment welcoming an inquiring mind, accepting partial knowledge and tolerating mistakes (Masmaliyeva, 2014, p. Another benefit from a study by Al-Issa & Al-Qubtan (2010) says that teachers can create a more learner-centered classroom based on oral presentation in which learners’ knowledge and experiences are considered as more authentic content (p.
According to Girard, Pinar and Trapp (2011), presentations are a popular part of many courses at colleges and universities in order to improve learning of course material (p. And oral presentation is conducted by a presenter to an audience from investigating and practicing speech about a topic that is not memorized and read from notes (Leven & Topping, 2006). Oral presentation can be identified by three main elements: the first is to be prepared in information outline of a topic and spoken from notes; the second involves visual aids and graphics; the third is given to a participating audience, asking question and engaging in dialog in classrooms (Soureshjani, 2013, p. In the analysis of Al-Hebaish (2012), learners described it as one of the most stressful courses they have ever had.
Consequently, many previous studies have focused on the oral presentation performance of students in foreign or second language classrooms and factors affecting oral presentation. Besides, Chermahini, Ghanbari and Talab (2013) have provided a definition of academic performance, in which it is academic achievement that is evaluated by achievement test in English designed and made by the teacher of English course. 2 The broad accepted use of the term presentation performance refers to completion of a presentation with application of knowledge, skills and abilities. In other words, presentation performance is considered as presentation achievement through examinations or assessments that is challenging academic literature and affected by social, psychological, economic, environment and personal factors (Ali et al., 2009) to a produce a well-educated, completive and skilled person (Mushtaq & Khan, 2012).
Contextual background My observation process may include both preparing and giving presentations of courses in English. The observation helps observe exact attitude and behaviour of English majors in presenting in order to answer the following questions: How do English majors prepare and work in group for the presentation? How do they feel and think about the importance of doing presentations in every class? What impacts does the presentation cause anxiety and pressure on them? what will they do to deal with those obstacles? What subjective and objective elements make a perfect presentation?