What Makes Oral Presentations So Dull?
In school there's an assignment that normally frightens students. That is when they have to stand before a crowd (their classmates) to make a oral presentation about a certain topic. Now, apart from being a task that paralyzes most of the students, it's purpose has become somewhat boring and lifeless.
What many students do, with the benevolence from their teachers, is a total repetition of words that you can find in any site like Wikipedia. There's rarely an opinion, or an original idea. Much focus is placed on oral presentations that the time invested in it is not used well by encouraging personal inputs from students.
This way, students can learn how to think, evaluate, and assess for themselves. They could bring fresh ideas from different points of views and make contributions. In addition, the class would have a more lively environment.
Of course, this is a process that must involve the collaboration from both: teachers and students. These two angles are essential to create meaningful learning when oral presentation approach is being conducted.
Every student is a unique story
Teachers must keep in mind that each student can take up a subject and give an custom appreciation different from his/her peers. This is an excellent opportunity to give students true responsibility to come up with concepts stemmed from their own analysis.
Standing for their ideas is a big step toward growing up. In class it's common to see students repeating exactly what a book or webpage say. And this can't produce anything of value if there's not an input. Time is wasted and the presentation ends up being a mere formality that could be replaced by a tiresome written test.
So, when teachers arrange oral presentations, they must organize an activity that brings productive discussion. Something that can encourage students to produce their own contribution on a given subject.
Expressing real thoughts
Students also need to step out of the comfort zone. It's not only easy, but also useless to communicate only what's already known. It's like copying and pasting information. If that's the case, you can send your classmates to the original source.
They must understand that oral presentations are their chance to speak their minds. It's one of the few opportunities educational system harbor to really make students think for themselves.
This also would make them express their real thoughts. I know there are students that have opinions that could go against what the mainstream establishes. And they feel intimidated when the opportunity to come up because they think their inputs might lack of weight compared to text books written by renowned authors.
Simple but really effective strategy
Each teacher has his/her own concepts about on how to organize and handle oral presentations. But in order to make the activity valuable, they must fulfill the integral participation of the whole class. One way I've used is based on a friendly conference type. This means that the student in charge of conducting the activity introduces the topic. He or she addresses the subject with a critical thinking, and breaks the session every now and then to allow participation.
Some benefits of this strategy are:
Everyone is motivated.
The length of the oral presentation depends on the whole class and not solely on the presenter.
Original ideas can emerge.
Teachers become observers since students take up command.
The vibe is rich and the content discussed is absorbing.
Students learn how to handle debate situations and get used to explain their ideas with valid arguments.
Initiative
In order to apply the approach described above, it is necessary initiative. Obviously, it will also require freedom because it is based on the natural premise that everyone has value to give away.
Not everyone is willing to adopt this concept. As I've implied, it is easy to repeat like an anchorman what a source says, but the hardest part, and the most gratifying is to listen to a person who takes up a subject and break it down, providing insightful inputs.
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