Gayle Jones
Pratique Orale
Fall 2010
Objective- In this course, you will practice making a developed and sustained speech in English. Your main assignment is to deliver a formal presentation. After your presentation, you will respond to questions and comments from your classmates. On days when you are not presenting, you are responsible for creating a lively discussion after others’ presentations. You will sign up for your presentation date in the second week of the semester. Students must be prepared on the date they choose. Students who are not prepared will be severally penalized unless they present a doctor’s justification. In the first few weeks of the semester, we will discuss things you want to think about as you prepare your presentation, and I will be more than happy to meet with you to discuss your presentations or to respond to questions through email.
Length of Presentation
L2- 10 to 15 minutes
L3- 15 to 20 minutes
Topics
L2: Science and Society, Cinema, Language, Internet and Communications Technology
L3: Open
Grade for the semester
50% on your presentation
50% on your class participation-Regular attendance is required. Student’s who miss classes without justification will not receive a passing grade. To receive a strong grade in participation, you must make the most of your time in class to improve your English, and you must contribute regularly to the discussions that follow other students’ presentations.
Pratique Orale: Presentations
Selecting a topic and an approach:
You should select a subject that interests you and that you can find a way to make interesting to the rest of the class. The introduction to your presentation should grab the attention of your audience (i.e. your professor and your classmates). Is there a widely held myth about your subject that you plan to debunk or show how it came into being? Is it a topic that might not at first seem to have wide interest, but you are going to show why we should be interested? Is it a controversial topic about which you have an opinion that you wish to defend while also introducing the arguments on the opposing side(s)?
Research:
The information/sources used to prepare the presentations should be varied and should be at least five in number. Presenting or at least exploring different viewpoints will help to make your presentation more interesting and more informative and open up the subject for debate.
Format of the Presentation:
1. The presentation should last between 10 and 15 minutes
2. You may use a note card to help you organize your thoughts, but you should not read from the card.
3. Images or other visual aides that are relevant can be very useful in clarifying a point or detail and for engaging your audience.
4. You should finish your presentation with concluding remarks that will then lead to a discussion/debate about your topic.
5. Prepare at least 5 questions to help stimulate the conversation if need be.
Hints for a successful presentation:
1. Be sure to enunciate and speak at a volume and speed at which your classmates can follow you without difficulty.
2. Visual aids may be helpful but are not required.
3. You should rehearse your presentation ahead of time so that you are able to deliver it smoothly and also so that you have a sense of how long it will last.
Your presentations will be graded on 4 criteria.
1. Content and Structure-Be Analytic and critical. Avoid strictly descriptive content. You should be asking and answering how and why questions in your presentations. Do not simply summarize the plot of a movie or tell the story of an actor’s life. This sort of presentation leads to little or no discussion and is not particularly engaging for the audience. Give us something to think about as we listen. Telling us Cary Grant’s life story from his birth until his death is not a good subject for a presentation. Analyzing how Cary Grant’s facial gestures create suspense in Rear Window or trying to explain to us why Cary Grant remained such a popular actor for so many years would be better. There should be a how or why question at the center of your presentation. Presentations that simply summarize or describe will receive no higher than 8/20.
For your structure, there should be a central idea, question, or claim that lends coherence to what you present. The introduction should present this claim clearly and give the audience the essential background information they need to follow your development of this idea. If you are presenting on a film, this is the time to briefly summarize the plot so that your audience can follow your analytic ideas. Avoid beginning with “So today I’m going to talk about…” Try to give the audience something intriguing that makes them want to listen right away.
Each portion of your presentation should develop the central idea or provide a portion of the answer to your central question. You don’t necessarily have to have three parts. You do, however, need to make sure that each portion somehow contributes to your central topic and that there is a logical progression from one part to the next. In planning, ask yourself whether each part is related to your central question or claim. If you’re analyzing the way Cary Grant creates suspense in Rear Window, do you really need to talk about his biography?
Once you have developed the answers to your central question or once you have given the supporting arguments for your central claim, your final task is to bring your presentation to a conclusion. Your conclusion should not be a repetition of what you’ve already said. You’re trying here to answer the question “So what?” Once you’ve shown that Cary Grant uses his facial expressions to create suspense, you might use this idea to suggest that he was unique for his era. You might talk about how acting in suspense movies has changed since the 1950s, you might talk about whether these gestures work across cultural barriers. You might speculate about the importance of the face to communicate and create emotions. This portion of your presentation is relatively open but make sure it’s not simply a repeat of what you’ve already said.
2. Pronunciation- Your pronunciation must be clear enough so that we understand everything you say. Pronunciation errors that prevent comprehension will count heavily against you. To receive an excellent pronunciation score, your speech will resemble closely that of a native speaker. Make sure that you use the English pronunciations of words that exist in both languages and for names. If you are talking about Cary Grant, you need to pronounce his name with an English/American accent.
3. Grammar and vocabulary- Your presentation should be relatively free of grammatical errors, and you should familiarize yourself with the vocabulary you need to discuss your topic.
4. Presentation Are you making eye contact with the audience? Are you speaking loudly enough? Are you talking to us and not reading? For your notes, you will be limited to one side of an A5 card.
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