23. Feedback on my first presentation

I blogged previously about a joint presentation I gave for teachers on the trainer education course in the School of Languages. I told you that I was strangely nervous (probably as a result of not having prepared enough!), but I also think it could be because my boss (tutor) was also in the room. She was writing notes during all the presentations, and at the end she offered to give us some feedback. Well, I hadn't known in advance that she would do that, but who's going to refuse feedback, right?

I have just received her feedback. First of all, interestingly, she recorded her feedback as a sound file. That was a first for me. She has a very pleasant voice. I would like to share her feedback with you, as it may help you with your own final presentations.

Strong points:

• It was good right at the beginning to give a rationale as to why I chose my particular article. Similarly, it was important to mention the article's relevance to our teaching situation.
• I outlined the goals and methods of the research study reported in the article.
  
• The two interactive tasks generated good discussion.
• It was good to weave in stories from my own teaching experience.
  
• My use of Powerpoint was effective - the diagrams in particular were mentioned.
  
• I seem to have an "effective presentation style".
  

Suggestion:

• Since this was a joint presentation, it would be good to refer forward to what my partner is going to present.

I was surprised by all the positive points she mentioned; all I could think of was why I was so nervous and how I couldn't get my voice to work! It just shows how different the experience of presenting and being presented to really is. Always remember that the audience has no idea of what you're going to say... ;-))

21. Presentations yaaaaaa

Dear students,

In the last 2 weeks or so, in addition to your 15 practice presentations, I have watched 11 other presentations by teachers! Tomorrow I will watch 7 more teacher presentations! And in Week 14 I will watch your 15 final presentations! I have presentations coming out of my ears! :)

And on top of all that, I am spending this Friday night finishing up my own presentation (the second one in a week!) Tomorrow is the final session of my Teaching English with Technology course. 40 hours of this course have taken place online, and 10 are face-to-face. We have each been asked to present two Web 2.0 applications to the other teachers in the group. We need to cover the main features, how we might use them with students, and any limitations. It's a great idea, as it means that by the end of the session, we will have learned 16 new applications!

But wow...it takes a lot of time to prepare this sort of presentation, and I have been stupidly busy these past two weeks with the courses I teach and the three other courses I study. First you have to learn the application yourself, to the point that you feel quite confident with it. Then you have to condense the main features down into a mere 10-minute presentation. I had difficulty deciding whether to use my Macbook or my SU laptop, since one of my applications works differently in both (Much as I adore my Macbook, in the end I decided on the PC). We also have to create handouts, and I insist on mine looking professional, which also takes time. My tutor advised me "not to be too perfectionist", but come on, this is Sonja we're talking about...!

I don't know how it came to the point that I'm still working on this, literally at the last minute. Perhaps students' habits are rubbing off on me? ;-)

If you're interested, I will present on Evernote and MyStudiyo. Evernote could be endlessly useful to students; MyStudiyo allows you to create interactive quizzes and embed them in your blogs!

I will report back on how the presentation went. In the meantime, wish me luck!

Oops, The Simpsons is starting and my water is boiling...more later!

18. Reflections on my presentation

I am currently studying for a Certificate in Trainer Training - in other words, I am doing a qualification that will enable me to teach teachers. On Friday all 8 of the participants on the course - all of whom are teachers in the SU School of Languages - were asked to do 10-minute mini-presentations. We worked in pairs to choose two related articles on any aspect of teaching and learning, preferably ones that had some sort of research dimension. We could present individually or together within our pairs. The two presentations, along with questions at the end, were to last no longer than 25 minutes.

I was not at all satisfied with my performance. Firstly, although this project was assigned before the Bayram, because I went to Egypt for 5 days, I was unable to locate suitable articles until after I came back. It was much more difficult to find good articles than I had anticipated. My partner and I were not very enthusiastic about our initial choice of topic, andragogy, and I was unable to find any good research articles on it anyway. I finally came across two interesting articles on Freshmen students' conceptions of essay writing, and how student-teacher trust influences how students act on feedback comments. This was on Monday; the presentation was on Friday. Because my partner and I have very different teaching schedules, and because I also had two translations due during the week, we were forced to prepare separate presentations. I realised once again how poor my Powerpoint skills are, and how much better my students are at creating nice slides. We met up Friday morning just to briefly talk through our respective presentations.

I was strangely nervous during the presentation itself and I kept stuttering! I cannot understand why I felt this way; perhaps because I was presenting in front of my peers, rather than in front of my students. I realised that I should have perhaps made better notes; I had assumed I would just be able to talk off the top of my head. I have no idea about my timing, but I seemed to go for too long. No one asked questions at the end, which I found discouraging, although one teacher did say that my presentation had been very clear.

I know that I didn't put in as much effort as I would have done had it been assessed; I get motivated when the stakes are high, and I tend to get de-motivated when expectations are low.

I am writing this here because I felt a strong sense of empathy for all my brave students who did their presentations in a second or even third language; this is a psychological as well as an intellectual experience, and it made me appreciate your efforts even more. I was also reminded of how difficult it is to work with someone else.

It also made me realise that my April presentation at the biggest international conference for English teachers is going to be terrifying indeed, and I will need to do a lot of preparation if it's going to be successful!

17. Thinking ahead to the final essay...

'All your sensual ways' by Thomas Hawk, made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic Licence

We've seen a lot of interesting presentations these past two weeks, and heard a lot of fascinating interpretations and criticisms of the texts and stories. I would like to encourage you to think even further about these texts, bearing in mind that they could form part of the final in-class essay at the end of the semester. It would be great to see your blog posts. Here are some suggestions:

1. To what extent does the concept of women being 'marked' apply to Turkish culture? Are men 'marked' in any way? In what ways have gender roles changed since this text was published in 1993?
2. In what ways does the Turkish language 'mark' women?
   
3. In what ways can we apply the concept of 'markedness' to the woman on a roof? Tough guise? Killing us softly?
   
4. How persuasive is Winn's argument about TV as a 'plug-in drug'? Does she use good evidence? Does she limit her claims, or does she overgeneralise? Can you counter her argument in any way?
5. There are two articles on SU Course which challenge Winn's argument about TV; "Is TV really the plug-in drug?" and "Questioning the plug-in drug". To what extent do you accept these counterarguments?
   
6. What connections can you make between Katz's thesis in Tough guise and Dave in "The man who was almost a man"?
   
7. Did Dave actually become a man at any point in the story? If so, at what point? Justify your interpretation.

Happy blogging!
:-p

9. Writing Centre workshops for Freshman students