Problems of presentation skill encountered by the students of thuongmai university

ABSTRACT Among soft skills, presentation has been claimed to be an important skill to communicate Presentation takes an important role in teaching and learning, especially in Thuongmai University However, many students find it difficult to give a presentation This study was conducted to explore the difficulties of TMU students when doing presentation in class This research also collects students’ expectation of their teachers to solve the problem 200 TMU students, who have to presentations as tasks in their semester, participated in this research Questionnaire and interview were employed to collect data for the research The findings of this study revealed that there are many difficulties encountered by TMU students in doing presentation Among these difficulties, “Body language”, "Nervousness" and “Visual aids” constitute the most serious difficulties encountering students in the process of delivering presentation On the basis of the findings of this study and in the light of the difficulties encountering students in giving the presentation, the students expect some supports from their teachers to overcome these difficulties and to improve the learning process generally in presentation proficiency in particular ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to all those who have given me great assistance in the completion of my research work First and foremost, I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to my supervisor, the MA of English Faculty, Mrs Pham Thi Phuong, for her invaluable guidance, critical feedback, and especially, her enormous encouragement, without which my thesis would be far from completion I am greatly appreciative of all my colleagues and students at Thuongmai University for their contribution to the data collection and their constructive suggestions for this research I also wish to acknowledge all the authors whose materials have been used in the study Thanks to them, I could accomplish my study Last but not least, the whole-hearted thanks and debt gratitude are reserved for my dear family and friends who have supported and helped me to overcome the difficulties during my study TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS No Abbreviati on UEE TMU ESL EFL PREP OHP English meaning University Entrance Exam Vietnamese meaning Kỳ thi tuyển sinh đại học CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale To achieve success in work and in life as well, besides learning and improving knowledge, soft skills are equally important They are often not learned in schools or related to professional knowledge, but each individual needs to practice and improve on their own These soft skills determine who you are, how you work… They are also a measure of your efficiency at work The important soft skills can be mentioned as Teamwork/collaboration skills, Flexibility/adaptability, Leadership skills, Critical thinking… Among these skills, presentation is recognized as the most difficult and necessary A perfect presentation can bring success beyond what we expect American billionaire Warren Buffett once said: “To shorten your way to success, focusing on improving your presentation skill” Presentation is an effective communication tool that plays a huge role in individual success Despite the obvious significance of presentation skill, there still remains some problems in learning and improving it, particularly at Thuongmai University Perceiving the importance of presentation skill and problems that students are confronting, therefore, the author decided to conduct a research into “Problems of presentation skill encountered by the students of Thuongmai University” in order to figure out the difficulties of presentation skill that the students usually get as well as propose the possible solutions to resolve these problems 1.2 Previous studies In relation to presentation skill, there are many researchers who have conducted research projects on this topic The author have read a lot of relevant material, such as books and previous studies in both Vietnamese and foreign language According to Nancy Duarte (2010), “Moving an idea from its inception to adoption is hard, but it's a battle that can be won simply by wielding a great presentation Presentations are a powerfully persuasive tool, and when packaged in a story framework, your ideas become downright unstoppable” It is essential to point out difficulties and improve presentation skill as this is the key to achieve grand success in the future That is the reason why there have been a lot of researchers working on this field and they have, in fact, made a substantial contribution to the development of language learner’s presentation skills Such titles as “Presenting in English” by Powell (2000), “Effective Presentations” by Comfort (1995), The Business Communication Handbook” by Dwyer (2000), “Giving Presentations” by Ellis & O’Driscoll (1992), etc have so far caught a great attention from a significant number of readers In Vietnam, there have been a lot of studies on oral communication skills and many of them are presented in M.A theses However, problems of presentation skill have not been extensively investigated For that reason, the author decided to have her own research in which she tried to conduct an investigation of Thuongmai University’s students difficulties when giving presentations and propose possible suggestions on how to teach and learn presentation skill efficiently 1.3 Aims of the study The main purpose of this study is to find out the subjective and objective difficulties of TMU students in learning presentation skill The study also aims at finding the reasons for those problems and then proposing the solutions for both teachers and students in teaching and learning the presentation skill The targeted subjects of this thesis are mainly students; nevertheless, all people who are interested in presentation skills can consider it as a useful reference for improving their presentation skills as well By using quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection, the study attempted to answer the following research questions: • What are the difficulties that TMU students face when studying presentation skill? • What causes lead to those problems? • What are the possible solutions to solve those problem? 1.4 Scope of the study This study is about TMU students’ problems in learning presentation skill The study was conducted in the second semester of the academic year 2019-2020 Because of the limitations of time and knowledge, the shortage of reference materials, this study could not cover the whole issue of presentation skill It only concentrated on exploring common difficulties students confront in presentation skill 1.5 Research methodology The study was designed to use a combination of various methods to accomplish its aims and objectives The study was carried out with quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection The researcher decided to use a questionnaire and a semi structured interview The first instrument which was employed in this study was questionnaire The questionnaire was distributed for 200 TMU students and used to collect information about the difficulties the students encountered when learning presentation skill The second data gathering instrument which was used in this study was interview The purpose of the interview was to reorganize the information that was obtained through the questionnaire; to acquire data on how the difficulties which had been ascertained through the questionnaire influenced the students’ learning presentation skill; to collect information about the explanation behind the learners’ difficulties; and to find out if there are any other presentation problems that affect the learners Moreover, by giving students the opportunities to report in their own words, the researcher might get some insight into their understanding of and attitude towards some of these problems 1.6 Organization of the study This study consists of four chapters, organize as follows: Chapter 1: Overview of the study The first chapter presents background information and reasons for conducting the research Besides, this chapter introduces the previous studies, the research aims and subjects The scope of the study and the research methodology are also mentioned Chapter 2: Literature review The second chapter provides the theoretical background for the thesis This chapter includes two main part They are overview of presentation skill and problems of presentation skill Chapter 3: Research findings Research findings is the main part of this study, it is the results of research and investigation in fact This part also discuss the results after applying research methodology to investigate Chapter 4: Recommendations and suggestions The last chapter provides summary, limitation of the study and suggestions for further studies as well as some recommendations to improve presentation skill for TMU students CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Overview of Presentation skill 2.1.1 Definition of Presentation Presentation is considered as one of the most important soft skills that need to be acquired in order to achieve success at work and in life as well That is the reason why it is being paid more attention to So far, there have been a number of definitions of presentation by different linguists such as Josef (1998), Brian (2002), Powell (2003), Emden & Becker (2004), Peter and Graham (2006), etc Presentation is an extension of oral communication skill There are many ways to propose its definition According to Josef (1998), presentation means “a short talk by one person to a group of people introducing and describing a particular subject” Barker (2000: 113) maintains that oral presentation is like a formal conversation Brian (2002: 5) also asserts, “A presentation is a transmission of a message” In the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2010: 1190), a presentation is defined as “an act of showing something or of giving something to somebody” Peter and Graham (2006: 4) agree with the idea stating that “By presentation we mean a talk or speech given by a presenter (sometimes more than one) to an audience of two or more people” Generally, it can be said that oral presentation or public speaking is a form of communication which is intended to convey certain ideas, messages and information in a clear, structured way In “Guidelines for oral presentations” (Ohio Wesleyan University), presentation is defined as “brief discussions of a focused topic delivered to a group of listeners in order to impact knowledge or to stimulate discussion The ability to give brief presentations is a learned skill and the one that is called on frequently in the workplace” There exist a number of reasons why presentation skill should be developed According to Emden & Becker (2004), they hold the idea that the “ability to speak well enough to interest, influence or persuade other people is a major asset for whatever thay want to in the future and it may change them in ways that they did not expect” That idea is true since the learners can get benefits from presentation skill First of all, presentations often provide the presenters the chance to de develop their ability of public speaking In fact, it involves all language skills which we should be proficient in In addition, through the mastery of speech, individuals come to be fully effective in organization, in the management and expression of ideas and arguments, especially when they write a report or even write an essay (Powell, 2003) After all, when we are able to present clearly and convincingly, we will gain enormous confidence, which according to Emden and Becker (2004), “will result in an even better presentation next time” and “ the newfound confidence may affect other areas of your work” 2.1.2 Presentation Organization According to the literature on presentations (Comfort: 1995; Dwyer: 2000; Emden & Becker: 2004, etc.) an oral presentation consists of three main parts: the introduction, body and conclusion, in which the introduction aims to “attract the listeners’ interest and focus their attention on the topic” When you give a presentation at work, listeners usually have an immediate need for the information presented Therefore, they have a clear reason to pay attention to the presentation In the first part, the presenter tells the audience some brief information about his/her name, the title of the presentation, the purpose(s) of the presentation, the length of time he/she will take, 10 4.3.1 For students It is the common knowledge that to become effective presenters, students should adopt good presentation strategies because the presentation strategies are the tool to improve the presentation competence Therefore, to be a more effective presenter, students should pay more attention to the followings:  Content In order to give a good content of a presentation, students must always bear in mind question “What should I say?” They must know clearly about objective of their presentation It is also advised that being prepared is by far the most important element for a successful presentation Preparation is the key to giving an effective presentation In the preparation step, according to Dwyer (2000), students should write the presentation, rewrite it for the ear, practice and revise it, organize the visual aids  Organization The students should organize their presentations in a logical structure Most presentations are organized in three parts: Introduction, Body of the presentation and Conclusion, then followed by questions In the Introduction, students should welcome audience, introduce subject, explain the structure of presentation, and explain rules for questions In the Body of presentation, they had better present the subject itself Finally, in the conclusion, they should summarize the presentation, thank audience and invite questions Students are advised not to read their presentations because reading a text is boring and will send audience to sleep Therefore, presenters had better use notes to remember everything they need to say  Verbal skill • Pronunciation 38 In order to have better pronunciation at an EFL presentations, students are advised to practiced carefully at home They should check the pronunciation of the words in the dictionary, record by tape or video to check it repeatedly if possible • Voice quality The first thing an audience will notice when the speaker begins is the tone and inflection of the speaker’s voice While most people understand that a monotone dialogue is disastrous to a message, few of us consciously vary the volume and pace of our speech to preclude such a delivery However, one of the major problems of the English majors at TMU was that most of them spoke at a monotonous voice and the volume was always complained as too soft and made the audience could not follow the presentation Therefore, paying more attention to the volume of the speaker is necessary According to Carolyn (2001), by increasing and decreasing volume on important words, speeding up or slowing down the tempo of our conversation, and effective use of pausing, a student can force the audience to adjust their listening skills to match the new pace, thus preventing listeners from becoming too comfortable with what’s happening and from going into automatic listening mode An added advantage is that it requires the listeners to remain more attentive, which, in turn, improves the chances that they will actually hear and understand what is being said To improve the volume of the voice, students can use the voice exercise suggested by Emden and Becker (2004) In short, in order to be able to be heard clearly, presenter should try to vary his voice as: - Speed: student can speak at normal speed, can speak faster, can speak more slowly, and can stop completely! Silence is a very good technique for gaining audience’s attention 39 - Intonation: student can change the pitch of his voice He can - speak in a high tone or in a low tone Volume: student can speak at normal volume, loudly or quietly Lowering the voice and speaking quietly can again attract audience's interest  Nonverbal skill It is common knowledge that 55% of a presentation is delivered via non-verbal information, such as eye contact, facial expressions, gestures and body movements • Eye contact Since the visual sense is dominant for most people, eye contact is an communication especially The way important presenters type look of nonverbal at someone can communicate many things, including interest, affection, hostility, or attraction Eye contact is also important in maintaining the flow of conversation and for gauging the other person’s response Therefore, students should practice establishing eye contact with audience to make them feel included, spend several seconds looking at one person before moving r visual focus to another person and they should not maintain eye contact of longer than 35 seconds because it can make a participant uncomfortable • Facial expression The human face is extremely expressive, able to express countless emotions without saying a word In addition, unlike some forms of nonverbal communication, facial expressions are universal The facial expressions for happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, and disgust are the same across cultures So students are advised to use facial expressions to show concern, enthusiasm, empathy, and understanding and smile naturally as much as possible to gain audience’s attention • Gesture and body language 40 Students should gesture naturally, not mechanically and be careful not to make unnatural hand movements that could be interpreted as culturally offensive They should not make erratic or unorthodox movements, like bouncing, rocking, pacing, or other distractions  Visual aids It is also common knowledge that 80% of what we learn is learned visually (what we see) and only 20% is learned aurally (what we hear) This means that visual aids are an extremely effective means of communication There are many advantages in using visual aids during the presentation Visual aids can create a powerful effect, help keep students' attention, and illustrate main ideas However, the disadvantage of overusing visual aids is that the attention of the audience will be divided and students may stand aside and have visual aids take their place Therefore, students must remember the basic rule is to use visual aids to support the presentation, not to dominate it  Anxiety management Emden and Becker (2004:29) stated, “the single most important message about nerves is that they are a good thing Be grateful for your nerves and don’t try to get rid of them” As a result, students should recognize and accept the signs of nervousness They can reduce nervousness by knowing content and presentation ahead of time and rehearse several times prior to presenting They are also encouraged to breathe deeply and slowly before beginning in order to establish composure or pause frequently to take a deep breath during presentation and direct attention toward a friendly face occasionally for reassurance  Questions and answer management In reality, most students are afraid of this part They are always scared of being asked by friends and teachers However, 41 this is a very important part because how the presenters handle questions from an audience can often be the deciding factor as to how their presentation is received Then it's absolutely vital to handle questions well Fairweather (2005) an international business speaker suggested “9 Tips for Handling Public Speaking Questions” as followings: • • • • • • • • • Be prepared for questions Make it clear at the start Never finish with questions Listen Thank the questioner Repeat the essence of the question Answer to everyone Keep it simple Don't bluff or bluster  Learning from their presentations Most of the informants in the survey were generally aware of the importance of learning from their presentations However, they did not know how to learn from their presentations effectively Here are several useful ways for students to learn from their previous presentations Firstly, they are supposed to learn how to evaluate their own presentations As for evaluation, here, the term should be understood as self-evaluation: “Learners themselves evaluate their own performance, using clear criteria and weighting system agreed on beforehand” (Ur, 1996: 245) The students have to “step into the shoes of the teacher and judge their own works as objectively as they can” (Scharle and Szabo, 2000: 7) In so doing, students can formulate the idea of their level of proficiency, know their weak and strong points and set the targets for their next presentations In turn, by planning the directions of progress (setting targets) for themselves, students are more likely to 42 consider the targets their own and feel responsible for reaching them Emden & Becker (2004) offer a set of evaluation criteria that is commonly used The goal is to be effective and evaluation criteria can give the learner a roadmap for measuring his/her effectiveness For example, the learner, after practicing the speech three to four times at home, records it either on audio-cassette or video and then fills in the following self-evaluation form Then, he/she listens to the final speech and fills in the final Introduction Speech Evaluation Form and adds specific comments in the “Other comments” section Also, the learner has to set goals for the next speech If he/she would like to evaluate his/her speech with one or two partners, together discuss his strengths and weaknesses and then fill in the evaluation form If he/she wishes, he/she can include feedback from his/her partners on the form (Refer to appendix for a sample completed evaluation form) In the class, they should take the teacher’s feedback and correction into consideration To summarize, the main points to pay attention to are the quality of the speaker’s voice, his/her rapport with the audience, use of notes and use of visual aids Thorough preparation and practice help the speaker reduce anxiety and also help him/her respond to any questions and challenges from the audience as Dwyer (2000: 206) concludes, “The more opportunities you have to practice, the more confidence and skill will increase So, experience and good preparation are the best strategies for overcoming nervousness” 4.3.2 For teachers According to King (2002), “Working with students on oral presentations is a challenging job for teachers” because it not only involves 43 training in other disciplines such as speech communication and public speaking, but also demands more of teachers in terms of time and effort in lesson planning and teaching strategies… The teacher in this case is “the guide, organizer, consultant, resource person, and supporter” He also added that the teacher's role in oral presentations not only involves preparing detailed guidelines, organizing groups, helping students to select topics, guiding their research and helping them learn the use of various visual aids, but also the holding of Q & A sessions, providing feedback on the sequencing of ideas, and evaluating their performance Race et al (2005:79-80) provided some advice in assessing presentation for the teachers as followings:  Be clear about the purposes of the student presentation  Make the criteria for assessment of presentation clear from the outset Students will know what is expected of them  Get students involved in formulating or weighting the assessment criteria This can be done either by allowing them to negotiate the criteria themselves or by giving them plenty of opportunities to interrogate criteria the teachers share with them  Ensure that students understand the weighting of the criteria This will help them to know what are the most important aspects of their presentations  Give students some prior practice at assessing presentations  Let the students have a mark-free rehearsal  Involve students in the assessment of their presentations When given the chance to assess each other presentation, they take them more seriously and will learn from the experience If they are evaluating each presentation using an agreed set of criteria, they tend to engage themselves more fully with the process and in doing so, they learn more from the content of each presentation  Ensure that the assessment criteria span presentation process and the content of the presentation sensibly 44  Make up grids using the criteria that have been agreed Allocated each criterion a weighting and get all the groups to fill in the grids for each presentation The average peer-assessment mark is likely to be at least as good an estimate of the relative worth of each presentation as could be the view of single tutor doing the assessment In addition, teachers also should give students regular and useful feedback Teachers should give more praise, compliments, encouragement than criticism Moreover, they also should invite feedback and compliments from the audience It is very helpful for the presenter because often it is very difficult for him to evaluate himself on the stage In conclusion, the teacher plays a very important role in the success of students’ presentations Therefore, they need to help the students to improve the competence of giving effective presentation 4.4 Recommendations for further studies Because of limitation, this study could not cover all of aspects of the study Besides, the study only focuses on difficulties students at Thuongmai University in order to help them improve their presentation skill Moreover, for the further studies, to get better results, the researcher should invite more participants and the data collection method Together with using with using survey questionnaires and interviews, observation is also necessary to get more persuasive conclusions All in all, despite the study can avoid to the limitation, the research has been completed under the guiding of the supervisor and self-effort Any comments and criticism will be highly appreciated for better further study 45 CONCLUSION Presentation skill is one of the most important skills that both a graduated student and a senior employee need to equip themselves This skill will be very useful not only at work but also in their life, it decides one’s ability of social communication Effective presentations and public speaking skills are applied in a very wide range of careers such as business, sales, training, teaching, and even student presentations in class For most learners, however, it is not easy to master presentation skill which is considered as the most difficult to learning Here are the most common problems in presentation affirmed by the learners: the time they spend on self-studying is too little, their self-confidence is poor, and the leaners’ inappropriate strategies would be a hindrance for their presentation skill To improve the skill, the students should change their strategies and habit when presenting, as well as enrich their knowledge… Above all, they should spend more time on practicing presenting daily In addition, the teachers should pay more attention to their students and find out the learners’ difficulties in order to help their students overcome these problems and improve their presentation skill The writer hopes that her minor research may partly contribute to improving the quality of teaching and learning presentation skill at Thuongmai University 46 REFERENCES Al-Issa, A (2000) Taking the floor: Oral presentations in EFL classrooms Journal of Language & learning, 2006a, 2006b Brian, L (2002) The Easy Step by Step Guide to Giving Confident Presentations (Easy Step by Step Guides) London: Rowmark Burns, A., & Joyce, H (1997) Focus on Speaking Sydney: National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research Carolyn J L (2001) Effective Speaking and Presentation PM: January-February, 32-35 Chivers, B & Shoolbred (2007) A Students’ Guide to Presentation Making your Count Los Angeles: London, New Delhi, and Singapore: SAGE Publications Comfort, J (1995) Effective Presentations Oxford: Oxford University Press Duarte, N (2010) Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences John Wiley & Sons Ltd Dwyer, J (2000) The business communication handbook New Jersey: Prentice Hall Fairweather, A (2005) Tips for Handling Public Speaking Questions Print Article 10 Guidelines for oral presentations (1984) Ohio Wesleyan University 11 Khaled, A., Nitham, M H (2004) The Important of Presentation Skills in the Classroom Journal of Computing Science in Colleges 12 King, J (2002) Preparing EFL Learner for Oral Presentation Dong Hina Journal of Humanistic Studies, 401 -114 13 Larsen-Freeman, D and Long (1986) Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching Oxford University Press 14 LeBeau, J (2012) Paper presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Evaluation Association, Washington, D.C 15 Meloni, C & Thompson, S (1980) Oral Reports in the Intermediate ESL Classroom TESOL Quarterly 16 Nguyen, T B V (2009) Investigating How to Improve Oral Presentation Skills for the Second- Year English Majors of the Foreign Language Department Technology and Education at Hung Yen University of 17 Nguyen, T T T (2010) An investigation on the difficulties in making business English oral presentation of the first year nonmajor English students at Faculty of Accounting at Dai Nam University and some solutions 18 Nina O'Driscoll, Mark Ellis (1992) Giving presentations Longman Business English Skills 19 Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2010) Oxford University Press UK, 1190 20 Powell, M (2000) Presenting in English: How to Give Successful Presentations Boston: Thomson Heinle 21 Peter and Graham (2006) Testimonial Justification: Inferential or Non-Inferential The Philosophical Quarterly Journal 22 Race, P., Brown, S., Smith, B (2005) 500 tips on assessment RoutlegeFalmer, New York, 79-80 and Szabó (2000) Learner autonomy: A guide to 23 Scharle developing learner responsibility Cambridge, England: Cambreidge University Press 24 Tsui, A (1996) Reticence and anxiety in second language learning K M Bailey and D Nunan (eds) 25 Ur, P (1996) A Course in Language Teaching Cambridge University Press 26 http://www.englishclub.com/teflarticles/english-speaking-practice- presentations.htm 27 https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/presentationmistakes.htm 28 https://www.summerboardingcourses.co.uk/blog/the-importance- of-presentation-skills/ 29 http://www.sciedu.ca/journal/index.php/ijhe/article/view/6252 30 https://minds.wisconsin.edu/ APPENDIX SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE Dear, Thuongmai University students! I am Nguyen Thuy Trang, the final year student at Thuongmai University This survey questionnaire is designed for my graduation paper namely: “Problems of presentation skill encountered by the students of Thuongmai University” To complete these questions, please choose the answers by ticking at the items in a checklist or expressing your idea in the blanks Your assistance in responding the following questions will help me a lot for the study Please answers the question sincerely as only this ensures the success of the study The data collected is used in the research paper only, and not for any commercial purposes Thank you for your cooperation! Part 1: Personal information □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ Your class: K52 K52 K54 K55 Others……………………………………………………………… Your gender: Male Female Where you come from? Remote/mountainous area Rural area City/town Others………………………………………………………………… Part 2: Information about presentation skill In your opinion, how important is presentation skill? (Tick out the best answer) □ Very important □ Important □ Neutral □ □ □ □ □ □ Less important Unimportant On average, how many presentations you have in a semester? 0-2 3-5 6-8 More than Part 3: Difficulties in studying English listening skills and the causes of these problems What difficulties did you encounter when learning presentation skills? (You can tick more than one) □ Lack of knowledge to outline the main points □ Incompetence in using body language: eye contact, facial □ □ □ □ expression, body movements, hand gestures Incompetence in using visual aids: overhead projectors, computers Nervousness Teacher’s lack of enthusiasm to help students Others………………………………………………………………… In your opinion, what are the reasons for those problems? (You can □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ tick more than one) Lack of background knowledge, careless preparation Lack of confidence Lack of conductive facilities Lack of feedback and assessment from the teacher Lack of good voice quality Lack of time for your presentations Lack of experience Unawareness of the importance of oral presentation skill in your □ future job Others………………………………………………………………… Part 4: Suggested solutions to improve presentation skill In your opinion, what should you to improve your presentation □ □ □ □ □ □ skill? (You can tick more than one) Prepare your presentation’s content and knowledge carefully Improve your confidence Get Teachers’ help to improve your skill Get access to conductive facilities Have a suitable training program Try to use your body language to connect with audiences □ Others………………………………………………………………… What you think teachers can to help you? (You can tick more □ □ □ □ □ □ than one) Innovate teaching methods Give students some prior practice at assessing presentations Offer a variety of topics Provide adequate modern equipment Let the students have a mark-free rehearsal Others………………………………………………………………… Thank you for your cooperation! APPENDIX INTERVIEW QUESTIONS How you evaluate your presentation proficiency? What are the difficulties that you encounter when learning presentation skill? In your opinion, what causes lead to those problems? What should you to improve your presentation skill? In your opinion, how can teachers help their students overcome their problems? ... conduct a research into ? ?Problems of presentation skill encountered by the students of Thuongmai University? ?? in order to figure out the difficulties of presentation skill that the students usually get... responses to the survey questionnaires as well as the interview questions about the difficulties in presentation skill encountered by the students of Thuongmai University, the possible causes of those... evaluate their proficiency in presentation skill Most of them supposed that their presentation level was quite low Only three of the students were self-confident with their presentation skill whereas