Showing as sense-making in oral presentations: The speech-gesture-slide interplay in TED Talks by Professor Brian Cox

This research study explored the changes in and effects of TED talks on Chinese postgraduate students’ English speaking performance and speaking anxiety over a period of 10 weeks. In this research, TED talks were used as a learning mode to provide a quasi-realistic sociocultural context for speaking English. 166 students from the experimental group using TED talks and 156 in the conventional mode participated in the quasi-experiment. They made eight-minute oral presentations and answered the 12-item English Speaking Anxiety Scale prior to and after the experiment. Analyses of the data revealed three major findings: 1) both the experimental and control groups did significantly better in English speaking performance and became significantly less anxious about speaking English over the 10-week period, 2) the experimental group did significantly better in move structure and were significantly less anxious about speaking English than the control group at the end of the 10-week period, and 3) the learning modes had a significant effect on students’ move structures of oral presentations but had no effect on their oral presentation performance and English speaking anxiety. These findings support the benefit of supplementing EFL (English as a foreign language) teaching and learning with TED talks and other similar virtual situated learning. Thus, the present study not only contributes to the current literature, which is short of studies on the effects of technology on SL/FL teaching and learning and the dynamic characteristic of the emotions associated with SL/FL learning, but also suggests that virtual situated learning like TED talks should be incorporated into SL/FL teaching and learning.

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Getting Closer to Authenticity in the Course of Technical English: Task-Based Instruction and TED Talks

English Language Teaching ◽

10.5539/elt.v12n11p10 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (11) ◽

pp. 10

Author(s):

Aránzazu García-Pinar

Keyword(s):

Classroom Environment ◽

Linguistic Features ◽

Authentic Materials ◽

Based Instruction ◽

Task Based Instruction ◽

Authentic Language ◽

Oral Presentations ◽

Ted Talks ◽

Instruction Approach ◽

Engineering Undergraduates

Authentic materials, if appropriate to the learning situation, might turn the classroom environment into a more engaging place, where motivation might be generated through the performance of meaningful tasks. This article describes how a Text-Based Instruction approach can provide the basis for the design of an ESP syllabus based on relevant, varied and engaging tasks to enhance authentic language use among engineering undergraduates. The design of these tasks mainly draws on TED Talks that are specifically technological and connected to engineering undergraduates, as the talks develop novel and thought-provoking ideas which are interesting and personally meaningful and relate to different engineering fields. These tasks are specially designed to enable students to carry out a process of talk deconstruction through the analysis of distinct discourse and linguistic features specific to the spoken genre of TED Talks. This analysis ultimately aims at the eventual construction of students’ oral presentations. Oral presentations can be conceived as an activity that approximates the real world and future workplace of engineering undergraduates, and in consequence, promotes students’ instrumental motivation.

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Don’t go all “TED Talks” on them, but... make a good presentation! – teaching the oral genre through the didactic sequence procedures

Revista da ABRALIN ◽

10.25189/rabralin.v20i3.1938 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1119-1136

Author(s):

Rafael de Souza Timmermann ◽

Luciane Sturm

Keyword(s):

Exploratory Study ◽

Social Practices ◽

Theoretical Discussion ◽

Positive Strategy ◽

Academic Events ◽

Teaching Learning ◽

Oral Presentations ◽

Ted Talks ◽

Oriented Approach

Language teaching in a higher education (HE) environment is complex and challenging, much more so when we consider the contemporary demands concerning the additional languages, specifically, English. We start from the understanding that a genre-based approach in teaching is established as a positive strategy for teaching/learning and developing students’ linguistics skills. However, reflections and questions emerge when, as professors, we discuss the role of the HE and its disciplines in potentializing students' actions through language in real social practices, which can contribute to their personal and professional development. Our premise, as well as a problem, considering there seems to be a gap regarding this point, is that academic oral genres should be taught in a systematic and clear way in HE. Seeking to solve this problem, by the supports of Applied Linguistics, we structured two questions to guide this qualitative and exploratory study: 1) What would be an appropriate theory-oriented approach to support the teaching of oral genres in HE? 2) Considering the HE contexts, what would an achievable proposal aiming at the mastery of an oral genre be like? In order to answer these questions, we brought a theoretical discussion and also a Didactic Sequence (DS) regarding oral presentations in academic events as a proposal to show that the Socio-discursive Interactionism and the DS model can be powerful educators’ allies in planning and organizing classes that allow students to perform through language in different academic routines

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