Project work (PW) - A catalyst for teaching presentation skills for senior business English students to meet the requirements of labor market

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NHÓM DỰ ÁN - MỘT CHẤT XÚC TÁC
TRONG VIỆC DẠY KỸ NĂNG THUYẾT TRÌNH
Ph m Th Thanh Thùy
Trường Đại học Kinh tế Quốc dân
Tóm t t: Kỹ năng thuyết trình là một trong những
kỹ năng quan trọng mà các nhà tuyển dụng yêu cầu
không chỉ các nhân viên ñang làm việc tại cơ quan của
họ mà còn cả những nhân viên sắp và mới ñược tuyển
dụng. Tuy nhiên, không phải sinh viên nào cũng nắm
chắc ñược kỹ năng này trước khi tốt nghiệp. Có thể do
họ không ñược học kỹ năng này ở trường, hoặc cũng
có thể do họ thiếu ý thức về tầm quan trọng của kỹ
năng này trong tương lai nên không học nghiêm túc.
Bài viết này là kết quả của nghiên cứu về thực tế năng
lực thuyết trình của một số sinh viên tiếng Anh thương
mại tại Trường Đại học Kinh tế Quốc dân, và một số
yêu cầu của các nhà tuyển dụng về kỹ năng này trong
các cuộc phỏng vấn xin việc. Từ những thông tin về
thực tế và yêu cầu ñưa ra trong bài viết, tác giả của bài
viết giới thiệu một giải pháp- sử dụng nhóm dự án- như
là một chất xúc tác ñể giúp giáo viên trên lớp tạo một
môi trường thực tế cho sinh viên sử dụng kỹ năng
thuyết trình ñể trình bày các kết quả nghiên cứu của
một nghiên cứu thực tế của họ. Sinh viên sẽ có cơ hội
ñược “nhúng” vào môi trường yêu cầu sử dụng kỹ năng
này và rèn luyện ñể tạo thành thói quen sử dụng kỹ
năng thuyết trình trong công việc tương lai. Bên cạnh

ñó, từ những thông về yêu cầu của nhà tuyển dụng về
kỹ năng này, nghiên cứu này cũng dấy lên nhận thức
của sinh viên về tầm quan trọng của kỹ năng này trong
công việc tương lai của họ ngay từ khi còn ngồi trên
ghế nhà trường.

T

khóa: nhóm dự án, kỹ năng thuyết trình; các

bên liên quan
Abstract: Presentation skills are one among many
skills many employers require from their present staff
and newly employed officers. However, not all students
master this skill before graduating either because their
universities do not provide them with this skill, or
because they may not really be aware of the
importance of this skill and hardly learn it. This
research diagnoses the real situation of newly
graduated

Business

Students

in

the

National

Economics University, Hanoi about their capacity in
giving academic presentations, and provides some
information about employers’ requirements on this skill
in job interviews. Besides, from all the information, the
study addresses the problems by introducing project
work which can be used as a catalyst in teaching
presentation skills to help teachers provide their
students with a practical environment to immerse into
this technique presenting their own research results,
and use the technique in their future job. Besides,
information about employers’ requirements will partly
raise students’ awareness of students about learning
this most-demanded skill when they are still learning at
their universities.
Keywords:

project

work;

presentation

skills,

stakeholders.

PROJECT WORK (PW) - A CATALYST
FOR TEACHING PRESENTATION SKILLS
FOR SENIOR BUSINESS ENGLISH STUDENTS

TO MEET THE REQUIREMENTS OF LABOR MARKET
Introduction
If we have a look at advertisements at job
vacancies, it is obvious that in the 21st century,
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nearly two-thirds of all high-growth, high-wage
jobs advertised require a college degree. Besides,
In 1999, Cornell University President David J.


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Skorton once stated on a new school year
ceremony that a college/university education is
increasingly recognized as critical for career
success; therefore, some colleges/universities are
soon changed into a job training enterprise. It is
suggested that universities/colleges should change
their education curricula by adding some subjects
which can provide their students what the labour
market wants. Although changing curriculum is
not an overnight task because this task leads to
some changes in teaching methodology, teaching
time, etc. Besides, in some universities or colleges,
traditions are often entrenched and rarely any
academic department wants to take risk to change
what they are using for a long time, many
universities including the National Economics
University - a university in Hanoi which is famous

for educating economics - are aware of the
importance of changing their curricula which meet
the demands of business leaders. The National
Economics University in general and Faculty of
Foreign Languages have changed their curricula to
teach their students what is needed for the labour
market, not what is available in the universities
and department. This paper reports the results of
an action research project on applying project
work to teaching presentation skills in English for
senior students at English for Business
Department to show the effort of teachers in this
department in changing their syllabi to teach what
the society demands. With an aim to explore the
requirements of companies to their employees
about presentation skills to fill the gap(s) between
classroom and workplace, we conducted a short
survey with 14 questions (see appendix) asking
some stakeholders at some International Banks,
Non-Government Organizations, International
Enterprises and Educational Institutes, Tourist
agencies, Hotels where English Business students
may apply for jobs. Besides we also interviewed
some key leaders to find out some in-depth
information or double check the questionnaire.
The results of the survey are rather meaningful.
Since understanding what stakeholders need, it
will be easier to see how newly graduated students

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can meet these demands and how universities can
fill the gap between education/training and social
demands.
1. Demands of some stakeholders on
presentation skills in English
According to a quick survey conducting among
newly graduated students from Business English
Department (DBE) in the National Economics
University (NEU) after 6 months from their
graduation, 85% of students from DBE after their
graduation are employed, the small number of
students continues pursuing their further study
abroad or in some domestic master courses. Most
of employed students work for limited companies,
or for 100% capital foreign companies. Among
employed students, 40% work in sale department,
23% work at training department, others work at
such department as policy development, plan
development which requires them to present
weekly in English. Their presentations start from
short talks in front of their colleagues to show
their opinions, or from a formal presentation
before their company’s business campaign.
During the presentations, presenters have to use
English, which is different from normal talks in
Vietnamese. Giving presentation is becoming
popular in many companies. In most of the
companies interviewed, presentations are on sales
targets or sales achievements at the end of each

month (25%), and other kinds of presentations
have aims at introducing new policies or showing
proposals (15%). Besides, most of the
presentations in English are professional (72%)
and dynamic, which means presenters have to use
academic language and answering a lot of followup questions after their presentations is obvious.
Another piece of important information provided
by some employers is that what drives them to
success of a presentation is presentation
techniques. According to them, having an
obviously clear content is very important;
however, pace of speech is measured the most
important thing to make a presentation successful.
Followed are tone and pronunciation. Clear visual
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Ti u ban 5:

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aids, and directness are at the same rank. Question
handling, language accuracy, and styles in
presentation are measured the same role. These
points show that sometimes the presentation
content is not really the decisive factor, but what
makes a presentation successful is in fact the
techniques with which the presenter employs in
their speech. It is lucky that these techniques may
be taught in the university.

When interviewing some employers in some
foreign companies where presentations in English
are required, we were surprised at their complaint
about the lack of speaking skills that newly
graduated employees perform. At the same time,
many employers were creaming for workers who
are better trained for problem solving,
collaboration, communication, and presentation.
Many employers complained that many newly
graduated employees use new technologies and
inappropriate styles in workplace communications
for their presentations, which declines the
effectiveness of their presentations. At another
extreme, many newly graduated employees
applied too formal styles taught in their university
from books in their working presentations which
are not welcomed, which makes their presentation
less persuasive.
As for us, colleges and universities should take
responsibility in providing students with not only
basic academic knowledge (within the scope of
this paper is basic knowledge of a good
presentation);
but
also
a
practical
environment/context for them to practice to
improve their communication, critical thinking,
information

fluency,
collaborative
work,
quantitative literacy and especially accumulate
their presentation experience. To meet this
demand, project work is a good tool in the
teacher’s hand.
2. Diagnose the situation.
2.1. Problems come from class-rooms
Students learning presentation skills in our
department are taught in laboratory room where
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each student is equipped with a computer
accessing to the internet. The teacher controls the
students’ computers by pressing on controlling
buttons such as “broadcasting”, “template”,
“sending picture”, “sending voice”. When
pressing these buttons, the teacher sends his/her
screen to all the students, or the teacher can
observe the screen; listen to the voice of any
student in his/her practicing process. Sometimes,
the teacher can send one or two screens of a
template student to the whole class for comments
after a pair or a group activity. The whole class
can look at their screens and give comments on
other students’ product.
However, the laboratory with computers is a
drawback for a presentation skills class. Students
are separated by computers and partitions. With a

separated aquarium for each student, students find
it difficult to join team work or pair work assigned
by the teacher. Besides, noise from computers and
the standing air-conditioner distracts students
from focusing on the teachers’ explanation. Both
teachers and students wish to come back to a
traditional class-room where teachers don’t have
to waste their energy to “shout” in their lessons to
students and students can easily work with their
classmates in group or pair activities. Furthermore,
studying EAP speaking in a laboratory also causes
students troubles when they want to have any idea
or when the teachers call any student to present in
front of the whole class. Hardly anyone at the
back row or at the opposite row of the class can
hear the presenter(s) clearly, let alone seeing any
of them because of the distraction of the partitions
separating computers. After teaching in the
laboratory for more than two years, the teachers
understand that teaching speaking skills in general
and EAP speaking in particular in a laboratory
with computers is not suitable at all.
2.2. Problems come from teaching method
Being aware of the importance of presentation
skills in working environment, DBE designs an
EAP (English for Academic Purposes) speaking
course which can provide students relevant


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theories easily applied in working environment.
The program is designed in 15 weeks which
provide students basic knowledge about how to
prepare, how to start a presentation, how to
conduct a presentation and handle questions
during and/or after the presentation, and finally
how to end the presentation. The book Pubic
Speaking (David Zarefsky, 2008) is used as a core
course material. Besides, students are asked to
read some referent books to get useful language,
tasks and activities of presenting skills such as
Effective Presentations (Comfort, J. 1995);
Presentations in English (Erica J.William, 2008);
Presenting in English (Mark Powell, 1997) and
Giving academic presentations (Susan M.Reinhart,
2005). In each class, the teachers used slides to
teach students much basic theories about specific
steps to give a good presentation.
It is obvious that during the course the majority
of students understand the theory designed with
professional power point slides; however, before
each lesson, when being asked to remind what
they had learnt in the previous lessons, most of
students could hardly speak out useful language

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points mentioned in the previous lessons, and
applied theory into their short presentation in the

classroom. After four weeks, it was recognized
that students did not focus on the lesson, and had a
lot of private talks during the course. It seemed
that most of students were reluctant to participate
into the lessons. Although some students
enthusiastically gave some comments on the video
clips which were downloaded from the internet,
they rarely used any signpost listed in the previous
lessons. The time for practicing was also short
because most of students changed discussion time
into small talks.
From this real situation, we are aware that the
situation must be improved and changed as soon
as possible.
Besides the result of observation showed no
improvement was recognized, a small survey
asking students about what ability they CANNOT
improve was also conducted. Most of the
important features making a good presentation,
sadly, were assessed as unimproved.

Chart 1: Some unimproved criteria of students’ speaking skills after 4 studying weeks
As can be seen in the diagram, most of skills
which are really essential to make a good
presentation are considered very badly improved
under the students’ eyes. Persuasiveness and
professional speaking style are mainly used
among unimproved criteria.
Besides conducting a survey, we kept a
teaching diary/research diary which could help us

record what we felt and everything we observed in
the classroom. Some interviews with some of my
students in the class indicated that the language
we had been teaching in the classroom had little to
do with the language of the subject matter they
were learning. They felt that the slides providing
skill instructions did help them a lot in building up
presentation skills, but they had no idea how to
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transfer these skills to have a better and more
natural presentation. Moreover, more analysis of
good and bad presentations relating to specific
skills should have been added during the course.
The student feedback was consistent with our
diary entries.
3. Amended planning and Action stage:
Project Work
After realizing the problem should have been
changed, we improved the situation by applying
task-based
language
teaching
approach,

particularly project work (PW) into this subject.
By definition, a task refers to “a work plan that
requires
learners
to
process
language
pragmatically in order to achieve an outcome that
can be evaluated in terms of whether the correct or
appropriate propositional content has been
conveyed” (Ellis, 2003). We quickly asked
students to work in group of four and elicited a
topic which either based on group members’
interests or a problem in the society. After
registering the topic and title to the teacher, since
then, each group would work consistently with the
topic. The topic would be a context for students to
apply the techniques we taught in the classroom
and made a final 15-minute presentation at two
last weeks of the course. We found a big change
in the atmosphere in the classroom. Exciting
group discussion indeed filled the classroom.
Although different opinions in building main ideas
and supporting points which would be mentioned
in the presentation occasionally caused frustration
and sorrow to some members, all these differences
seemed to be reconciled because they were
constructive and built up by mutual trust and
collaboration. Most of the heated but friendly
discussion ended up with some better ideas and

students also learnt how to prioritize group
harmony for the common project goal.
Besides that, project work is also a distinctive
approach to learning in that it represents a natural
extension of what is already taking place in class.
Through participation in the project, students were
encouraged with a driving question that bears real732

world concerns. After each theory period (45
minutes) at the beginning of each class, we asked
students work with their group members and after
30- minute discussion and preparation, some
groups were called randomly to give a short 5minute presentation in front of the class. In this
short 5-minute presentation, students had to apply
what they had learnt in theory including useful
language signposts into their presentation. For
example, after being taught about how to design
and use visual aids in presentation, students had to
surf the internet to find some relevant pictures/
visual aids relating to some points in their
registered topic and designed some slides which
would be used in their short 5-minute presentation.
It is obvious that, bridging the inside of a
classroom (theory taught through slides) with the
outside world (burning topics of the society they
chose), project work enables students to go
beyond the boundary of an EAP presentation
classroom setting by which they are normally
constrained.
Project work also brings benefits to learnercenteredness. Although we (the teacher) played a

role in offering support and guidance (theory and
techniques at the beginning of each class and
comments during students’ slide preparation)
through the project work process, students were
making concerted efforts to achieve a common
goal, while gaining experience in diverse opinions
and viewpoints as well as negotiation and
reconciliation. Project work did give students a lot
of chances to develop purposeful and authentic
communication in various social contexts through
their chosen topics. Once again, project work in
this EAP presentation course created opportunities
for us (the teacher) to treat our students as
intellectual users of language rather than
“defective speakers” (Liddicoat, Crozet, & Lo
Bianco, 2000). The teacher basing on the students’
work, took the role of a facilitator to give students
some guides or comments, say adjust parallelism
in their slides, to add some more eye contacts or
have more accurate gestures in their presentations.


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Project work; in addition, assisted our students
with different language competence to participate
in a single project. Working together for many 5mintue presentations then finally at a 15-minute
presentation gave all students a sense of
achievement and boosted their motivation.
Students were allowed to choose members of their

group. The whole group after that was monitored
by a group leader who assigned tasks for each
group member. If there was any weak student,
he/she had to take great effort and learn from
other members to finish the task for the success of
the whole group. Furthermore, project work is
process-oriented in that it is emergent and
negotiated rather than pre-planned (Diaz-Rico,
2004). The process to prepare for short 5-minute

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presentations and final a 15-minute presentation of
the whole group tended to stimulate students to
maximize their engagement all along the
presentation and provide them with great
opportunities to use the target language (signposts
and useful language in the presentation) at
different project work stages. After some short 5minute presentations addressing certain techniques
in each class, at the same time, it culminates in an
end 15-minute presentation professionally.
The success of the EAP presentation course is
also confirmed through another small survey
conducted at week 14 of the course. Most of
students answered the survey felt happier at the
second half of the course.

Chart 2: Improved Skills after 14-week EAP Speaking Course
As showed in chart 2, useful language, confidence
and body language are what students thought they

had improved the most (67.3%; 60%; and 52.7%
relatively). Slides preparation for presentation was
improved a lot with the result of 49.1%.
The interviews with 9 students after week 13
also made the researcher happy. All students
interviewed mentioned to “a sense of
achievement” at the preparation stage for 5-minute
presentations, “feelings of being rewarded” with
the teachers’ comments and they had “a fresh
experience” at the final weeks of the course.

These students also agreed that they had achieved
knowledge of a certain topics they had chosen for
their presentation through thorough preparation
stages. Besides, every member in the group has
his/her own language points to share with others
and he/she can save time and energy to complete a
project. Heated discussion is also a factor that
makes the EAP course become a small society
filled with differences and diversity, which
propels everyone to reach out for his/her greatest
potential in arguing disagreeing, discussing, and
finally compromising along the process towards
the common end.
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REFERENCES

Conclusions
The pedagogical benefits when applying
project work in the EAP speaking course are great.
This approach allows teachers to consider their
students as individuals. Students took the initiative
and started conscientious preparation towards the
group goal- a persuasive 15-minute presentation.
As a process and a product, the project work
approach provides students abundant opportunities
to exercise their freedom in choosing a topic they
will develop and to develop their own voices
among the group, no matter how small the scale is.
More importantly, when working together in some
5-minute presentation and especially the 15minute work project presentation, students have
first hand experience that leads to retrospection
and introspection of the learner role as well as the
teacher role. Students find themselves important
in the presentation, control the class and depend
on each other in achieving the goal. The teacher,
in the students’ eyes is a facilitator who they can
seek help in times of difficulty. Using project
work is obviously a good teaching method which
puts catalyst for teaching presentation skills.

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