PRESENTATIONS

Five-minute Presentations
Authors note:
Presentation Classes happen every 2 months. All students are requested to give a
presentation on a certain topic. At the end of this module, you will find helpful guidelines
to help you out in your drafts. Follow the procedures they will help you improve the
language you employ. The main objective of this activity is to give the teacher a chance
to analyze students planned speeches and their linguistic content regarding language
appropriateness, language addiction, grammar choices, cohesion and coherence of
discourse. Most students complain they do not have time to work out assignments. We
kindly request you (if this is your case) to change your mind. Research is a key tool to
advanced students constant improvement. Your teachers feedback at the end of each
presentation will certainly increase your language awareness. It takes some work but it
is a wonderful experience to the ones who want to really achieve a proficient command of
the English language.

GENERAL

PROCEDURES FOR PRESENTATION CLASSES

First moment - A warm-up about the topic in question to discuss students choices and
issues.
Second moment - A five to ten minutes presentation of each student with no
correction but free for interruptions from the teacher and students to clear up doubts or
question the information given.
Third moment - A teachers feedback to each student (open to the whole class) about
the presentations regarding the following items:
a)
b)
c)
d)

Grammar choices
Language addictions
Language appropriateness
Cohesion and Coherence of speech

TOPICS

1. A city inside a city ( Description)

Goal: Each student should prepare a presentation on the place they live focusing on the
view students have from their cities as well as information about the places they usually
go to. The presentation must sound like a guidebook that contains the following
information:

- general location
- cultural profile
- quality of life / services
- general sightseeing tips
- facilities for tourists
- entertainment
- current problems
2. Sports (Procedures)
Goal: Each student or pair of students must present a sport how a sport is played: its
origins, rules, no of players, importance in Brazil and/or other countries, current
championships etc. They must focus on its procedures. Students will mainly be checked
on the cohesion and coherence of speech. The audience must not get confused while the
procedures are being explained. Reinforce clarity, organization and sensibility to
listeners understanding. The teacher should ask questions if the procedures of the game
are not clearly stated.
3. Professional and Educational Background (Narration)
Goal: Each student must prepare a formal and chronological presentation about his/her
background focusing on his/her educational and professional experience. The closing
must contain a short approach to future plans. Language appropriateness regarding
polite / formal speech and addictions will be analyzed in detail by the teacher at the end.
4. Political or Economical Plan (Defend Your Point of View)
Goal: Each student or pair of students must select a problem that the city, the country
they live in, or the world is going through. They must organize a presentation about a
plan that would solve the issue. The entire plan must be built upon a concrete and
powerful basis. Students must be prepared to be questioned and doubted. Capacity of
improvisation (non-planned speech) will be analyzed as well as use of intonation to
reinforce understanding and convince people.
5. World Event (Narration)
Goal: Each student or pair of students must choose a historical world event and present
to the class:
- the setting of the event
- a set of causes
- an overall narration
- a set of consequences
- his/her point of view about the event.

6. Something you know and nobody knows (Procedures and Defend your
point of view)
Goal: Each student must select a skill that (s)he has or an activity that (s)he knows how
to perform that they consider absolutely unusual or different. It really doesnt need to be
something serious, it can be something extremely simple or funny. For example, students
could explain how to eliminate bugs from a house, how to spend $10.000 in 1 hour, how
to find the man/woman of your dreams, how to cut expenses in the supermarket, etc.
Teachers should join the presentations. During the presentation, students must reinforce
the usefulness of what they are exposing, no matter the subject in question.
7. A Biography (Narration and Defend your point of view)
Goal: Each student or pair of students must select a person (famous or not) and give a
presentation on his/her life. Important: the student or pair should not tell who the person
is. The class must find out who the person in question is by the exposure of events and
emotional connection of the speaker. Note: This person can be the most famous pop
singer of the moment as well as an ancient Greek philosopher oryour 3-month-old son.
This presentation must be chronological but dates dont need to be mentioned.
8. A new device (Description / Procedures / Defend your point of view)
Goal: Each student or pair of students must create a new device / tool / machine that
would solve a worldwide problem. This presentation must contain:
- the worldwide problem
- the device
- how it works
- the profit of its use.
9. An event I wont forget (Narration)
Goal: Each student must narrate a moment in their lives they wont forget. Varying from
humorous to emotional moments, student should experience time line narrations.
time and place
contextual setting
sequence of events
outcome of events
10. The life of my dreams (Narration and Description)
Goal: Each student should prepare a full description of the they life they would live if they
could. The activity is aimed at working on students hypothetical description and
narration.
Earnings and work
Place to live
Every day routine
Family, friends, lovers, marriages
Spare time

11. A movie (Narration / Defend your point of view)

Goal: Each student present the best movie he or she has ever seen. It should work on
students capacity of joining concise narration with argumentation
- the plot of the movie
- sequence of the most relevant actions
- the ending
- why it called your attention.
12. Abstract Concepts (Definition)
Goal: Each student should select an abstract concept that everyone treasures like
money, life, love, passion, freedom, time, friendship or a happy marriage and prepare his
own definition of it.
-

what is (happiness, love, money, freedom)

how to achieve it
difficulties in achieving it
your own advice

Preparing your Presentation

A presentation is made of two important elements: content and form. The content is
mainly what you have to say about a certain issue. The form could be divided into two
topics:
1. the organization of your thoughts
Language appropriateness, grammar choices, cohesion and coherence of

discourse See note on Language Awareness in the Useful Guidelines below.

2. the flow of the speech
Flow of speech is basically the organization of your stops, stress and intonation,
while reading a text or presenting a subject. Sometimes a speech can be
meaningless because it was poorly said or read. The reader stops or stresses
where (s)he shouldnt. Understanding can be easily blocked by this simple but quite
important skill that must be developed.
First, we must notice that texts are made of chunks. Organizing your speech
perceiving these bits of language, is an important device to improve your capacity of
presenting lectures or expressing points of view.

Useful Guidelines

Introducing
A good way of introducing the topic is by giving a historical background (quite formal)
or narrating an episode (more of a relaxed attitude). Other techniques are: quoting
important famous phrases or defining your issue in a theoretical level. There are many
ways of introducing a topic; the least acceptable is the one which starts by I think...
Developing
A very suitable way of convincing people is by giving examples taken from real life.
There are others which are: logical deductions (quite formal); commotion (a kind of
heart to heart dialogue); comparing and contrasting (a difficult, but quite powerful way
of getting a critical point of view of the issue).
Showing the consequences
The presentation of the consequences of your thoughts can be shown in the same way
things were developed.
Concluding
You can present your point of view in many ways, but dont allow them to be personal.
They must sound like the best and more suitable option. You can underline your points in
many different ways: feedback analysis (As Ive said before...); contrasting old
solutions/ offering yours; statements of general truth (Love is the most important
feeling in our lives so...); not concluding (getting people together for a debate).

Language Awareness

After preparing your presentation, check the appropriateness of the language you
used to convey the meanings you want. We know that sometimes, structures or words
that are considered to be correct uses of the language may not be appropriate for the
context or register in question.

Check also for language addictions you may have fallen into. (language that you
may have gotten addicted to using grammar or phonological patterns as well as
lexical choices that are not appropriate or correct forms.)

Be aware of cohesion and coherence of discourse.

By cohesion we understand the grammatical connections between clauses and
sentences (written discourse) and between utterances (speech). Elements like
pronouns, demonstratives, conjunctions are extremely important for bringing cohesion
to discourse. Structuring individual utterances, clause and sentence, as well as larger
units are intimately connected to creating coherence in a text.
Coherence is the quality of a discourse of being meaningful and unified. Such quality
is clearly necessary for successful communication. A coherent discourse is that which
the listener or reader can make sense of, even if a large amount of information is not
explicitly expressed.