Poor oral presentation skills amongst ESL speakers are frequently linked to weakness in general English proficiency. However, the literature has also identified the lack of a systematic and effective pedagogical method to develop students' multimodal oral presentation skills to meet 21 st century communication realities. This paper elucidates the application of a pedagogical initiative for multimodal oral presentations skills, informed by the Sociocultural Theory of Learning created by Vygotsky (1978), and the Pedagogy of Multiliteracies introduced by the New London Group (1996) and further developed by Cope and Kalantzis (2009). This initiative was experienced by 20 students through the action-reflection cycle methodology and was implemented for 13 weeks in a tertiary ESL classroom. Preliminary findings based on focus group interviews indicated that the initiative left a clear positive impact on student abilities in various multimodal components of oral presentation skills. Furthermore, the initiative positively affected students' learning experience and raised their self-awareness of themselves as presenters. The findings also suggested that techniques employed in the initiative such as videos, feedback, collaborative learning and Web 2.0 could scaffold the students' development of multimodal oral presentation skills. Based on these findings, significant implications for teaching oral presentation skills systematically are offered to be referred by ESL practitioners and researchers; in particular, the proposed multimodal oral presentations skills model as a multiliteracies pedagogy and the potential use of web 2.0 tools in promoting collaborative learning and creation of creative content by the learners.
Technology both complicates and liberates oral presentation pedagogy in higher education. On one hand, 21st century communication realities require students to deliver multimodal oral presentations but educators have only begun to experiment with the relevant pedagogy. On the other hand, Web 2.0 offers vast pedagogical potential which practitioners have just begun to explore. Confronted by a pedagogical predicament and intrigued by the affordances of Web 2.0, we designed the Responsive Multimodal Oral Presentation Pedagogy (RMO2P) to enhance the learning of multimodal oral presentation skills among EAP (English for Academic Purposes) students. RMO2P integrated Facebook as a Web 2.0 tool with videos, collaborative learning and feedback. A teacher-researcher implemented RMO2P in a public speaking class of 20 EAP students for a semester. Thematic analysis of multiple sources of data which included student artifacts, observational data and inquiry data contributed to the findings. The findings indicated that Facebook was a feasible Web 2.0 tool that can be effectively integrated with other pedagogical techniques. As a result, the participants demonstrated enhanced conceptual knowledge and heightened self-awareness as presenters of multimodal oral presentations. Since Facebook was integrated as a Web 2.0 tool in a responsive method for multimodal oral presentation skills to overcome situational constraints including inadequate learning management systems (LMS), stakeholders who are seeking alternative methods to enhance the teaching of oral presentation skills may adapt the intervention to enhance learning outcomes. Keywords Facebook; multimodal oral presentation skills; pedagogy; higher education; Web 2.0
This article introduces a classroom innovation, which was developed based on the principles of multiliteracies and scaffolding to enhance the mastery of multimodal skills of oral presentations among tertiary English as Second Language (ESL) students. The innovation, named the Responsive Multimodal Oral Presentation Pedagogy (RMO2P), was designed to systematically scaffold learning through the integration of TED (Technology, Education and Design) videos with Web 2.0, collaborative learning and teacher feedback. RMO2P aims to disrupt conventional ways of teaching by transforming the prevailing passiveness among ESL students during classroom learning into active engagement. This article explicates the rationale underpinning the responsive pedagogy and describes the five learning phases, which were developed based on the pedagogical principles and students’ learning needs, and complemented the designated textbook. Classroom data revealed enhanced conceptual knowledge, engaged interests and improved oral presentation skills among the students after one semester of implementation. Hence, the findings affirm the potential of RMO2P as an innovation that can be adopted or adapted for the teaching of oral presentation skills in similar ESL contexts.
Within the scope of pedagogy, established methods have been found to be incongruous with the multimodal skills required of oral presentations in the 21st century. Despite pedagogical innovations situated in native-speaking and advanced countries being so productive in experimenting with pedagogical techniques for various types of oral skills, multimodal skills of oral presentations have still been overlooked. The author is a practitioner in Malaysian higher education who struggles with this pedagogical dilemma in her daily professional life. Therefore, to respond to this practical issue and theoretical gap, the author designed a pedagogical model named the Responsive Multimodal Oral Presentation Pedagogy (RMO2P) to respond appropriately and proactively to the gap in oral presentation pedagogy. A practical action research that was based on McNiff & Whitehead’s (2011) action-reflection cycle was implemented in a tertiary Malaysian classroom for 13 weeks contributed to five applicable and theoretically informed design principles of RMO2P which are based on the spirit of responsiveness. It is hoped that the explicit discussion on its design principles could inspire other teachers with no external funding and sophisticated technical expertise to embark on research for pedagogical improvement.
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