A STUDY ON DIFFICULTIES IN PRESENTATION SKILLS OF FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT ENGLISH FACULTY, THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY, AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

THUONG MAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT - - GRADUATION PAPER A STUDY ON DIFFICULTIES IN PRESENTATION SKILLS OF FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT ENGLISH FACULTY, THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY, AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS Supervisor : Mrs Pham Minh Hong, MA Student : Do Thi Ngoc Ha Class : K54N4 Student’s code : 18D170159 Hanoi, 2022 ABSTRACT The study is concerned with factors affecting the oral presentation skills of the firstyear English majors at Thuongmai University in the classroom setting The research aims at finding out difficulties in presentation skills and some possible solutions A survey questionnaire was carried out to get data for analysis through the quantitative method A total of 52 English majors freshmen at Thuongmai University participated in this study The research reveals that problems with mental pressure, language skills; a lack of presentation skills such as insufficient preparation, time management, visual aids, teamwork, voice, body language and memorization contributed to their unsuccessful presentations Based on these findings, the study offers some recommendations for both students and teachers to improve the students’ presentation skills i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My first and big appreciation goes to my first supervisor, Pham Minh Hong, for her noble guidance, support with full encouragement and enthusiasm I have benefited greatly from your wealth of knowledge and meticulous editing Sincere gratitude is extended to her generous participation in guiding, constructive feedback, kind support, and advice during my study Thank you very much Ms Hong! Deepest thanks to my friends at Thuongmai University for their kind assistance during the time I collected data for the study This work would not have been possible without the participants of 52 first-year English-majored students who so generously took time to fulfil my survey questionnaire Very special thanks to roommates Van Nguyen and Phuong Truong for their continuous encouragement and support Last but not least, my warm and heartfelt thanks go to my family for their tremendous support and hope they had given to me Without that hope, this thesis would not have been possible ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vii CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Previous studies 1.3 Aims of the study 1.4 Research Subjects 1.5 Scope of the study 1.6 Research methodology 1.7 Organization of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Theoretical overview 2.1.1 Speaking skills 2.1.2 Communication skills 2.1.3 The definition of oral presentation and oral presentation skills 2.1.4 Types of oral presentation 2.1.5 The important role of oral presentation in learning English 2.2 Factors affecting English learners’ presentation skills 2.2.1 Student’s language proficiency 2.2.2 Mental elements 10 2.2.3 Teacher’s role 11 2.2.4 Performance condition 11 iii 2.3 Characteristics of a good presentation 11 2.4 Difficulties in presentation skills 12 2.4.1 Difficulties in language skilsl 12 2.4.2 Lack of presentation skills 13 2.4.3 Computer literacy 13 CHAPTER 3: MAJOR RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 15 3.1 Research methods 15 3.1.1 Participants 15 3.1.2 Research instruments 15 3.1.3 Data collection process 16 3.2 Data analysis 16 3.3 Research Findings 17 3.3.1 Current status of presentation skills of first-year students at English Faculty, Thuongmai University 17 3.3.2 The result of the survey questionnaire 17 3.3.2.1 General information 17 3.3.2.2 English and presentation skills usage of first-year English-majored students 18 3.3.2.3 First-year English-majored students’ attitude towards presentation skills 20 3.3.2.4 First-year English-majored students’ perceptions of the necessity of oral presentation skills 22 3.3.2.5 First-year English-majored students’ evaluations of their own presentation skills 23 3.3.2.6 Factors affecting students’ oral presentation skills 24 3.3.2.7 Difficulties in presentation skills encountered by first-year Englishmajored students 26 iv 3.3.3 Students’ suggested solutions 30 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 33 4.1 Summary of the study 33 4.2 General recommendations 33 4.2.1 For Thuongmai University 33 4.2.2 For teachers 34 4.3 Some possible solutions to enhance presentation skills of first-year English majors 35 4.3.1 Practicing speaking and presenting more and more 35 4.3.2 Having thorough preparation 36 4.3.3 Developing both verbal and non-verbal language 36 4.3.4 Joining extra activities 37 4.3.5 Videoing for the trial performance 37 4.4 Limitations and suggestions for further study 38 4.4.1 Limitations of the study 38 4.4.2 Suggestions for further study 38 CONCLUSION 39 REFERENCES viii APPENDIX x v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviation English meaning LCD Liquid crystal display vi LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Chart 3.1 First-year English-majored students’ English usage 18 Chart 3.2 First-year English-majored students’ presentation skills usage 20 Chart 3.3 First-year English-majored students’ level of interest in giving an oral presentation 21 Chart 3.4 First-year English-majored students’ perception of the necessity of oral presentation skills 22 Chart 3.5 Students’ evaluations of their own presentation skills 23 Chart 3.6 Factors affecting first-year English-majored students’ oral presentations 24 Chart 3.7 First-year English-majored students’ feelings when making a presentation 25 Chart 3.8 Difficulties in presentation skills encountered by first-year Englishmajored students 26 Chart 3.9 Student’s suggested solutions to improve presentation skills 31 vii CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale The English language has played a vital role, especially in international communication contributing to the development of education, economy, and politics This is the reason why there has always been an increased demand for learning English in Vietnam Presently, English proficiency is needed for all people including students and a large number of students choose to study this language as a major at the university with the expectation of finding a decent job after graduation In this day and age, presentation skills in general and English presentation skills in particular play an essential part to perform effective communication activities Presentation skill is believed to be one of the effective ways to express opinions and gain achievements in life, career and business In reality, most students graduating from college today lack the basic skills necessary for presenting the information What is more, many college subjects require presentations, but the students are often told to them without being shown how to them Actually, the students aren’t given the right feedback to improve their skills As a matter of fact, learning how to make presentations effectively becomes one of the pressing issues At Thuongmai University, an English Faculty was established in 2007 and has made some remarkable achievements during its development Thanks to well-qualified teachers, English major students are comprehensively trained through a system of specialized knowledge, especially presentation skills It is the teachers of English who teach their students oral presentation skills Making oral presentations brings students a lot of benefits which are reducing the gap between language study and language use in practice Firstly, it gives students a good opportunity to practice their speaking It also increases the student's confidence in using English Furthermore, it can be a good practice for those students who will actually need the skill in their future professional lives And lastly, it is an excellent generator of spontaneous discussion To get the best presentation result, students need to master a variety of skills and techniques such as the use of language, the way to organize all ideas, the ability to speak clearly and confidently, and the use of body language However, it cannot be denied that there exist some problems concerning students’ presentation skills Making effective presentations is quite challenging for many first-year English-majored at Thuongmai university In fact, to the English majors here in general and the English majors freshers in particular, presentation skills seem to be new and difficult Although some students spend much time and put great effort into their oral presentations, they not get the intended outcomes They have a lot of ideas, but they not perform well in the class to attract the audience’s attention This is the reason why I chose to conduct a research entitled: “A study on difficulties in presentation skills of first-year students at English Faculty, Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions” 1.2 Previous studies In this part, some previous studies relating to this study will be reviewed These studies were carried out to identify the difficulties in oral presentation and therefore suggested some possible solutions Nurwahyuni (2019) in her study “Students Difficulties on Oral Presentation in Classroom Interaction at the Fifth Semester Students of English Department in Makassar Muhammadiyah University” found out that difficulties faced by the students were anxiety, unconfidence, blankness, problems in understanding the topic, organizing the ideas, teachers’ expectation, and time management Furthermore, anxiety and lack of confidence became the students' greatest fear, particularly when giving oral presentations Ayman Hassan Abu El Enein (2011) studied “Difficulties Encountering English Majors in Giving Academic Oral Presentations during Class at Al-Aqsa University” The results of the study pointed out that more than 58% of the students were in consensus that "Speakers don’t act cheerfully and smile when speaking", "Presenter is unable to use tools such as LCD and powerpoint effectively", "Speakers don't keep eye-contact with audience", "Speakers don’t stick to the objectives of the speech" and "Speakers don’t use appropriate Chart 3.9 Student’s suggested solutions to improve presentation skills This is a multiple-choice question It can be clearly seen from the chart that the majority of students considered practicing with friends and foreigners as the most effective method to improve presentation skills Finding people to talk to and practice English with used to be a lot more difficult in the past Nowadays, students are getting more and more confident, and they seek ways to practice whenever and wherever they want Students could get pairwork or small groups speaking to make English daily conversations From the chart, the smaller proportion of students (69,2%) chose to involve body language skills to engage the audience, including eye contact, body gestures, etc., to make the presentation more attractive In addition, teacher comments and feedback (57,7% of students) are also helpful methods to help find out a student's weaknesses and mistakes in their presentation At the same time, 30,8% of them thought that joining more speech contests might upgrade their presentation skills Speech competitions allow participants to showcase their public speaking skills by using voice control, body language, and gestures to convey their message to the audience Learning how to speak naturally and fluently and developing public speaking skills would boost students' self-esteem and thus stimulate their motivation to communicate and study English Furthermore, 31 participation in a speech contest allows students to practice various language skills because speeches must be written, memorized, and delivered effectively Besides, 19.2% of students selected the ''other solutions" option as many other possible solutions The researcher will provide possible solutions to upgrade students' presentation skills in chapter 32 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 4.1 Summary of the study The study focuses on the first-year English majors at Thuongmai University in order to identify difficulties in oral presentations skills experienced in the classroom The researcher did a survey questionnaire to achieve the aim The major findings are as follows: Firstly, factors such as their mental elements, language proficiency, pressure to perform well, time for presentation, listening ability, technology ability, teacher's role and physical setting mainly affected their presentation performance Secondly, there are many difficulties in presentation skills encountered by first-year Englishmajored students They include problems with mental pressure, language skills, insufficient preparation, time management, visual aids, teamwork, lack of body language and memorizing problems Thirdly, the researcher provided some suggested suggestions in order to help students improve their presentation skills For students, it is necessary for them to practice with their friends or foreigners, develop the use of body language, ask for teacher’s feedback and join more speech contests 4.2 General recommendations To sum up, it is primarily the responsibility of both students as well as teachers to work together to overcome the challenges in oral presentation sessions Based on the findings from the study on some difficulties in presentation skills of first-year English majors at Thuongmai University, some recommendations are offered as follows 4.2.1 For Thuongmai University In order to support the student to improve presentation skills, Thuongmai University should periodically organize more practical courses, or arrange seminars and workshops on ‘oral presentations skills’ for the learners These activities greatly contribute to enhancing students’ motivation, their sense of autonomy and communicative skills to upgrade their presentation skills 33 Thuongmai University should also create favorable conditions for students to participate in extracurricular and community activities to improve students' teamwork and communication skills This would offer the students a great opportunity to enhance their ability to communicate professionally in a work environment, in an academic environment or in a social environment By becoming competent communicators, students have high chance of achieving success in our modern society Additionally, certain presentation contests can be organized by the university authority to encourage the students positively More attractive rewards should also be offered by the university in order to encourage students’ participation in these beneficial competitions 4.2.2 For teachers Firstly, lecturers ought to remove the negative psychological factors in order to ease their minds Therefore, a friendly, patient and non-threatening error attitude of the lecturers would likely be effective in relaxing students and improving their academic performance The teacher should assist students in overcoming anxiety and shyness by acting friendly and helpful in the classroom It is better to encourage students not to be afraid of making errors as making mistakes is a part of learning, and providing clear instructions and sufficient advice Secondly, the teacher should create an English-speaking atmosphere by encouraging students to use English in the classroom as a habit, allowing them to access films or videos in English, and increasing the regularity of English usage in the class so that students could have more exposure to the language Thirdly, teachers should create a supportive learning atmosphere and encourage students to contact the teachers if they meet any difficulties For example, students may find it difficult to pronounce words, organize their ideas, or control the tone of voice, etc Teachers also need to give some encouragement to those who are genuinely making an effort instead of complimenting only those who are the most successful Teachers should avoid comparing the performance of one student to that 34 of another Comparing a student's performance with his or her last own presentation would be more constructive Finally, when teachers assign the presentation, they should focus more on informing students of the evaluation form Relying on this form and requirements could make it easier for them to prepare their presentations Students are thus informed in advance of the criteria that will be used to evaluate their presentations 4.3 Some possible solutions to enhance presentation skills of first-year English majors As for the students, they should first understand the importance of presentation skills in their daily life as well as their future career path in this world of globalization Their awareness of their studies may result in their motivation for learning Below are some possible solutions that the researcher believes would be helpful to upgrade a student's presentation skills 4.3.1 Practicing speaking and presenting more and more English-majored students can practice speaking English through daily conversations outside the academic sections and rehearse the academic presentation inside and outside the university It is much better if the way students practice gradually becomes a habit They would be more active in acquiring and developing language abilities Nobody is born to be a professional, everyone must practice in order to become an expert Therefore, practicing could allow students to determine whether they are speaking too quickly or not to control the pace Most individuals would spend a long time preparing a presentation but just a little time practicing it By practicing their presentation in front of someone, students may limit the amount of times using words and phrases like "uh," "well," and "you know.'' But if it is shy to deliver in front of someone, students should try doing it in front of the mirror, it would help them in the same manner Practicing following this method may also modify your material to ensure that you cover the most critical aspects in the time allowed 35 4.3.2 Having thorough preparation First, students should be well-prepared by practicing speaking and presenting as fluently as possible in order to become good presenters They might increase their oral presentation skills and gain confidence for a good presentation with careful preparation and practice Indeed, there is no absolute preparation as variables may happen in unavoidable situations However, early preparation is completely necessary for students to build their confidence Fully preparing for the related topical knowledge and visual aids, selecting a good presenter on behalf of the group, anticipating critical questions might be some essential parts of the presentation 4.3.3 Developing both verbal and non-verbal language Students should focus more on both verbal and non-verbal language: Regarding English language proficiency, especially pronunciation, stress and intonation, students could learn about the shadowing technique Shadowing is defined as ‘a paced, auditory tracking task which involves the immediate vocalization of auditorily presented stimuli’ (Lambert, 1992) To make it more clear, students could listen to audio recordings and pay attention to the pauses, stress, and the rise or fall of the speaker’s voice After that, students will repeat and copy the rhythm of these words many times and say it out loud Students could shadow with or without a transcript based on their level This method is great for developing speaking fluency in English, especially the physical aspects of fluency like pronunciation or rhythm Regarding non-verbal skills, students should have awareness of the role that nonverbal language plays in making a public speech They should understand how and when to use appropriate body languages such as eye contact, gestures, posture, and facial expression Non-verbal skills actually can be learned and adapted through other friends who deliver successful presentations or famous speakers such as Steve Jobs 36 4.3.4 Joining extra activities Another possible solution to enhance presentation skills is participating in extra activities inside and outside the school campus These days, several extracurricular activities are designed to help with public speaking at school and in society Some of them may include clubs, speech contests, practical courses for presentation skills, or seminars and workshops where many famous speakers share their valuable experience in speech delivery One of the currently trending programs that attract people's attention is TED Talk A TED talk is a video created from a presentation at the main TED (technology, entertainment, and design) conference or one of its numerous satellite events held around the world TED lectures are limited to 18 minutes in duration but can be on any topic The genuine nature of TED Talks provides students; especially English-majored students, the opportunity to study and expose to speeches and presentations By using TED talk videos as learning materials, students could learn a lot from many effective speeches and achieve better results in the presentations Such kinds of activities enhance the students' language skills and make them gain confidence, which helps in faster learning processes There is a long list of mostwatched TED Talk videos to upgrade your own skills as their speech is incredible For example, students can watch videos of Sir Ken Robinson, Bill Gates, Casandra Brené Brown, and many other famous names 4.3.5 Videoing for the trial performance Many first-year English majors need to improve their voice quality due to difficulties in presentation skills shown in chapter 3, which involves volume, speed and fluency, clarity, and pronunciation The voice quality will be improved if they practice beforehand in a room and take a video of the trial process It is better if they can record the speech and evaluate themselves or seek friends or teachers' comments They could control how loudly or softly they wanted to speak in the following presentation by videoing their performance Additionally, they could also decide where they want to emphasize and have good time management 37 Furthermore, students should be a good audience to evaluate the others' presentations as they can learn a lot by watching others speaking According to many educational experts, peer assessment highlights learner autonomy as each student takes responsibility for their active learning By taking part in peer evaluation activities, learners gain a firm knowledge of the form and process of what makes an effective presentation 4.4 Limitations and suggestions for further study 4.4.1 Limitations of the study A considerable effort has been made to discover the activities which can be used to make it easier for the first-year English majors in giving oral presentations at Thuongmai University Nevertheless, due to limited time and ability, there are a variety of related areas and knowledge that the researcher can not cover in the study First, the research subjects are only 52 English-majored freshmen at Thuongmai University Besides, the researcher mainly concentrates on studying students’ difficulties in presentation skills while other language skills such as reading, writing and listening are not involved in the study process 4.4.2 Suggestions for further study With the above limitations, I hope the further research on the topic might include more students and extend to the other skills of English to help students learn English better Future research can concentrate on the organization of the academic presentation, the criteria of a presentation, and the social and psychological factors of the presentation Furthermore, it can also focus on the schools' academic oral presentation, which might influence the academic performance of the oral presentation More research should be dedicated to examining the role of foreign culture in the presentation delivery of students who study in other countries 38 CONCLUSION This study aimed to investigate the difficulties that the first-year English-majored students at Thuongmai University experienced when delivering the presentations and some possible solutions to improve their presentation skills The study results indicate that the students faced many problems such as mental pressure, language skills, insufficient preparation, time management, visual aids, teamwork, lack of body language, and memorizing problems The results also show that there were many factors affecting students speaking performance Based on the findings, the researcher provided recommendations for Thuongmai University, teachers, and students Firstly, Thuongmai University should organize more practical courses, arrange seminars and workshops, presentation contests and create favorable conditions for students to participate in extracurricular and community activities Secondly, teachers should create an English-speaking and supportive-learning atmosphere for their students Students should practice speaking and presenting more and more, prepare thoroughly, develop both verbal and non-verbal language, and join extra activities and videos for the trial performance to improve their presentation skills To conclude, oral presentation skills are essential for students, especially in their future career paths Becoming an effective presenter is not easy at all Therefore, each student has to actively find the most appropriate and practical solutions to improve their presentation performance 39 REFERENCES Nguyễn Thị Thúy (2021) A study on the extra-activities on improving the first year English majored students’ oral presentation skill at Hai Phong Management and Technology University (Doctoral dissertation, Đại học Quản lý Công nghệ Hải Phòng) Al Harun, M O F., Islam, K A., & Rahman, M A (2016) Challenges in oral presentation in English for the freshers at tertiary level Green University Review of Social Sciences, 3(1), 137-157 Comfort, J (1995) Effective presentations Oxford University Press El Enein, Ayman Hassan Abu (2011), "Difficulties encountering English majors in giving academic oral presentations during class at Al-Aqsa University." Unpublished Master’s thesis, Islamic University of Gaza King, J (2002) The Internet TESL Journal, Vol VIII, No3, March 2002 Lambert, S (1992) Shadowing Meta: Journal des traducteurs/Meta: Translators' Journal, 37(2), 263-273 Levin, P., & Topping, G (2006) Perfect presentations! McGraw-Hill Education (UK) Nurwahyuni (2019), Students Difficulties on Oral Presentation in Classroom Interaction at the Fifth Semester Students of English Department in Makassar Muhammadiyah University, Makassar Muhammadiyah University Rod, E (1985) Understanding Second Language Acquisition Oxford: Oxford University Press 10 Stern, H (1992) Issues and Options in Language Teaching Oxford: Oxford University Press 11 Ur, P (1996) A course in Language Teaching Practice and Theory Cambridge: Cambridge University Press viii 12 Van Emden, J., & Becker, L (2016) Presentation skills for students Macmillan International Higher Education 13.https://www.adelaide.edu.au/writingcentre/sites/default/files/docs/learningguideoralpresentations.pdf ix APPENDIX SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE This survey questionnaire is designed for my research: “A study on difficulties in presentation skills of first-year students at English Faculty, Thuongmai University, and some suggested solutions.” It will be highly appreciated if you spend your time completing truthfully the questionnaire Data collected will remain confidential and be used for the research only Thank you for sparing your precious time! I Personal information Please circle the most appropriate to you or answer the questions: Your email Classification o Fresh (first year of college) o Sophomore (second year of college) o Junior (third year of college) o Senior (fourth year of college) Place where you lived before university o Urban o Rural How long have you been learning English? o Under year o 2-4 years o 5-7 years o More than years How much time you often spend learning English? o Less than hour x o 1-2 hours o 2-3 hours o More than hours How can English be used in your daily life and study? o Presentation o Speaking contest o Most of the lessons at the university o Communicating with foreigners o Daily conversations with your friends How often u use presentation skills in your study? o Every lesson o Sometimes o On discussion day o Never Are u interested in giving an oral presentation in class? o Not interested o Normal o Interested o Very interested Many students believe that English presentation skills are very necessary for their study What's your opinion? o Strongly agree o Agree o Disagree xi o Strongly disagree 10 How would you rate your presentation skills? o Very bad o Bad o Average o Good o Very good II Factors affecting oral presentation skills 11 What factors affect your oral presentation skills? (You can have more than one choice) o Time for preparation o Pressure to perform well o Listeners’ support o Mental elements (confidence, anxiety, etc.) o Listening ability o Technology ability (Powerpoint, visual aids) o Physical setting o Teacher’s role o Language proficiency o Other factors 12 When giving a presentation in class you will feel? o Anxiety o Shy o Normal xii o Excited III Difficulties in presentation skills 13 What are your difficulties in presentation skills? o Voice o Mental pressure o Lack of body language o Time management o Language skills o Memorizing problem o Teamwork o Insufficient preparation, o Visual aids IV Solutions to improve presentation skills 14 What are possible solutions to improve your presentation skills? o Developing the use of body language o Practicing speaking with friends and foreigners o Asking for teacher's feedback o Joining more speech contests o Other solutions Once again, I am extremely grateful for contributing your valuable time and your honest information Thank you very much! xiii ... to study this language as a major at the university with the expectation of finding a decent job after graduation In this day and age, presentation skills in general and English presentation skills. .. workplace Individuals with strong communication and presentation skills have a greater chance of getting a job and promotion in their career path 2.1.3 The definition of oral presentation and oral... might increase their oral presentation skills and gain confidence for a good presentation with careful preparation and practice Indeed, there is no absolute preparation as variables may happen in