A study on oral presentation difficulties encountered by firstyear Englishmajored students at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions

THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY
ENGLISH FACULTY
------

GRADUATION PAPER
TOPIC:
A STUDY ON ORAL PRESENTATION DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED
BY FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS AT
THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

HANOI - 2021


ABSTRACT

Oral presentation has become an important part of language teaching to
increase student’s awareness of communication skills, especially in the university
environment.

The effective oral presentation will enable students to function

successfully in the future professional surrounding, and prepare them for their
possible further academic career. Because of this reason, designing an effective oral
presentation has become more and more critical to Vietnamese students.
Therefore, students’ presentations become an important element in delivering
positive learning experiences. They are an integral part of almost every professional
environment, as professionals need to communicate with other professionals at
meetings, seminars, conferences. However, it is not easy for first-year Englishmajored students to make an effective oral presentation. This descriptive study aimed
to explore the difficulties that first-year English-majored students at Thuongmai
University might encounter when giving presentations in the classroom setting and
some suggested solutions. The study has been conducted in the form of survey

research, with the informants of ninety three first-year English-majored students at
Thuongmai University.
The study reveals that the students’ low language proficiency including unclear
pronunciation, their bad voice quality, lack of confidence all made it difficult for them
to be understood. For those reasons, the study recommends some solutions to improve
the students’ presentation skills.

1


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This Graduation Paper would not have been accomplished without the
guidance and help of some people, who in one way or another, contributed and
extended their valuable assistance in the preparation and completion of this study.
During the process of completing this graduation paper, I have faced many problems.
However, with the great help, assistance and encouragement from these people who
are teachers, family and friends; I have overcome these difficulties and completed this
graduation paper successfully.
First and foremost, I would like to extend my sincere and heartfelt obligation to
my supervisor, MA. Pham Thi To Loan, one of the lecturers at the Faculty of Business
English in Thuongmai university, whose supervision and encouragement help me a lot
with managing this Graduation Paper. Without her invaluable suggestions and
instruction, I could not have completed the Graduation Paper. Thanks to Mrs. Loan’s
recommendations and feedback, I was encouraged and motivated to resolve obstacles
and difficulties during the process.
Besides, I would like to send my greatest thankfulness to all of the lecturers in
the Faculty of English at Thuongmai University for their useful and invaluable lessons
during my four-year study, which has been then the foundation of this study. In
addition, my sincere thanks are also sent to first-year English-majored students, who
enthusiastically helped me complete the survey questionnaires at Thuongmai

University.
Last but not least, I owe a debt of gratitude to my family and friends for their
dedicated assistance and encouragement during the process.
In spite of my hardest attempt, this Graduation Paper certainly contains some
mistakes due to the limitation of information resources, time, knowledge and practical
experience. Therefore, I look forward to receiving feedback and recommendations
from readers. It would be valuable luggage to help me improve my knowledge later
and make the Graduation Paper more perfect.
Hanoi, April 15 th, 2021
Do Thi Hong Ly

2


TABLE OF CONTENT
ABSTRACT..............................................................................................................i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS....................................................................................ii
TABLE OF CONTENT............................................................................................i
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS................................................................................iii
LIST OF TABLE AND CHART............................................................................iv
CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY......................................................1
1.1 Rationale............................................................................................................. 1
1.2. Previous studies.................................................................................................2
1.2.1. Studies abroad.................................................................................................2
1.2.2. Studies in Vietnam..........................................................................................3
1.3. Aim of the study................................................................................................4
1.4 Research subjects...............................................................................................4
1.5. Scope of the study.............................................................................................5
1.6. Research methodology......................................................................................5
1.6.1. Research design..............................................................................................5

1.6.2. Research questions.........................................................................................5
1.6.3. Participants.....................................................................................................5
1.6.4 Research instruments:.....................................................................................6
1.6.5. Procedures......................................................................................................7
1.7. Organization of the study.................................................................................8
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW...............................................................9
2.1. Presentation.......................................................................................................9
2.1.1. Definition of presentation...............................................................................9
2.1.2. The importance of oral presentation..............................................................9
2.1.3 Types of presentation.....................................................................................11
2.1.4. Stages of presentation...................................................................................14
2.2. Difficulties when making presentations........................................................16
2.2.1. Linguistic knowledge....................................................................................17
2.2.2. Presentation skills.........................................................................................17
2.2.3. Psychological factors....................................................................................18
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS..............................................................20
3.1. Results of the questionnaire...........................................................................20
3.1.1. General information.....................................................................................20


3.1.2. English usage and English level...................................................................20
3.1.3. Difficulties in preparing the presentation..................................................24
3.1.4. Difficulties in rehearsing the presentation...................................................26
3.1.5. Difficulties in delivering the presentation....................................................27
3.1.6. Difficulties in using visual aids in the presentation.....................................31
3.1.7. Causes of the difficulties in making individual presentations.....................32
3.1.8. Proposals for solving difficulties in making oral presentation....................34
3.2. Results of the interviews.................................................................................36
3.2.1. Difficulties in preparing the presentation....................................................36
3.2.2. Difficulties in rehearsing the presentation...................................................37

3.2.3. Difficulties in delivering the presentation....................................................38
3.2.4. Difficulties in using visual aids....................................................................39
3.3 Conclusion........................................................................................................39
CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVING PRESENTATION
SKILLS..................................................................................................................41
4.1. Limitations......................................................................................................41
4.2. Recommendations for students......................................................................41
4.2.1. Making good speaking habits.......................................................................41
4.2.2. Participating in using English activities.......................................................43
4.3. Recommendations for teachers and university.............................................43
4.3.1. Recommendations for teachers.....................................................................43
4.3.2. Recommendations for university..................................................................44
4.4. Conclusion.......................................................................................................45
CONCLUSION......................................................................................................46
REFERENCES......................................................................................................48
APPENDIX 1............................................................................................................I
APPENDIX 2.........................................................................................................VI
APPENDIX 3........................................................................................................VII


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
EFL
ESL
ESP
MCSER
PhD
TOEIC

English as a foreign language
English as a second language

English for Academic Purposes
Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences
Doctor of Philosophy
Test of English for International
Communication


LIST OF TABLE AND CHART
Chart 1: The period of time the students have been studying English....................20
Chart 2: Student's evaluation about presentation skills............................................21
Chart 3: The activities of speaking English students joined at TMU.......................22
Chart 4: Student’s evaluation about their English presentation level.......................23
Table 1: Descriptive statistics for the answers to questions about difficulties in
preparing the presentation........................................................................................25
Table 2: Reliability Statistics...................................................................................26
Table 3: Item-Total Statistics...................................................................................26
Table 4: Difficulties in rehearsing the presentation..................................................27
Table 5: Difficulties in delivering the presentation..................................................29
Table 6: Reliability Statistics..................................................................................30
Table 7: Item-Total Statistics...................................................................................31
Table 8: Difficulties in using visual aids in the presentation....................................32
Table 9: Difficulties in making individual presentations..........................................33


CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
1.1 Rationale
Today’s challenging economic situation means that it is no longer sufficient
for a new graduate to have knowledge of an academic subject; increasingly it is
necessary for students to gain those skills which will enhance their prospects of
employment” (Fallows & Steven, 2000). Employability skills include the following

abilities: the retrieval and handling of information; communication and
presentation; planning and problem solving; and social development and
interaction, creative thinking, problem solving critical thinking, active and reflective
application of knowledge (Fallows & Steven, 2000; Driscoll, 2000). To meet the
demand of internationalization, students need to improve their English skills to
achieve success in their future workplace.
Among English skills, speaking is not the most but very vital skills showing
the users’ ability in English. Speaking is the most popular way of communication
because we use it every day. In reality, large international companies often use
English to communicate between offices and subsidiaries. As for those people who
are working, apart from using the language as a tool for oral communications, they
have the desire to use it for their jobs. One of the desires is to present in English. As
a matter of fact, giving an effective presentation requires a mastery of a broad range
of skills and techniques. To achieve the objective of the presentation, the presenter
is supposed to master techniques of identifying the purpose, topic, theme,
organization so that the audience can easily follow the talk. In addition to that, the
speaker’s use of intonation, articulation, stress, pacing, emphasis, etc., to get the
audience’s attention and concentration is considered essential to contribute to
his/her success.
However, for many years, the Vietnamese first-year students in general, and
the first-year English-majored students at TMU in particular, have been good at
using grammar correctly and fluently as well as they can speak English but can
hardly present in English. Especially, all students at TMU from first-year students to
seniors have to make presentations at the end of subjects, many of them have never

1


made an English oral presentation since they were in high school. Therefore, when
they have to give oral presentations at TMU, they seem to pay more attention to

lexis and grammatical structures than presentation style and presentation skills. This
leads to the fact that not many first-year students after a long time learning English
find themselves able to deliver a presentation successfully.
This study will indicate obstacles, difficulties for first-year students of the
English Faculty who have just entered the university. Many of them seem to lack
the skills and confidence to make effective presentations. They know the topics and
the ideas are written down, but their presentations do not go well. Sometimes their
audiences appear uninterested. Another time their audiences might lose interest
before the students have made half of the presentations or seem to be confused and
embarrassed with the listeners’ questions.
The above-mentioned problems are the researcher’s primary concern and
also the motivation for doing the thesis. I would like to conduct the study in order to
help first-year students of English Faculty improve their presentation skills and
deliver a presentation successfully and meet the demand of society.
1.2. Previous studies
In language learning, the great importance has been attached to strategies of
improving and developing students' oral communication skills and enhancing their
oral competence. That is why a growing number of linguists and institutions in the
world and Vietnam do the researches. Before getting up to study, I will indicate
some reviews about the related study “A study on oral presentation difficulties
encountered by first-year English-majored students at Thuongmai University and
some suggested solutions.”
1.2.1. Studies abroad
The thesis with the topic “The Importance of Oral Presentations for
University Students” by Sladana Zivkovic, PhD for Mediterranean Journal of Social
Sciences MCSER (2014) should be mentioned the importance of designing
effective oral presentations in the university environment as well as some
recommendations to support students to develop better communication and
presentation skills.
2

Other institutions like the University of Canberra, Ball State University are
working on this field and make a substantial contribution to the development of
language learners’ presentation skills. Such titles as “Presenting in English” by
Powell (2000), “Effective Presentations” by Comfort (1995), “The Business
Communication Handbook” by Dwyer (2000), “Giving Presentations” by Ellis &
O’Driscoll (1992), etc. have so far caught the great attention from a significant
number of readers. Unquestionably, in their books and course descriptions, they
give instructions to stimulate learners’ skills in making oral presentations both in
theory and in practice but those experts just mainly focus on business contexts and
other professional situations (see O’Driscoll & Pilbeam (1987), Dwyer (2000),
Reinhart (2002)). In addition, they do not touch upon the difficulties that language
learners encounter when giving oral presentations in the classroom setting and the
reasons why they experience such problems. Furthermore, the solutions and
recommendations given from those books are just drawn from a group of research
subjects. They are somehow based on the writers’ own observations and
perceptions, so the solutions tend to be applicable for some subjects.
1.2.2. Studies in Vietnam
The research “Difficulties in English communication reflex of fourth-year
students of English Faculty, Thuongmai University.” (2020) by Nguyen Thi Anh of
English Faculty, TMU mentioned the factors and difficulties faced by the fourthyear English majors at TMU when improving communication reflex. The findings
pointed out that the difficulties related to the speaking and listening process as well
as the lack of physical setting. After that, the author suggested some main solutions
to enhance their communication skills such as expanding vocabulary, participating
in extracurricular activities.
Another thesis I would like to refer to is “Challenges to speaking skills
encountered by English-majored students: A story of one Vietnamese university in
the Mekong Delta” (2017) by Vo Phuong Quyen, Pham Thi My Nga and Ho Thao
Nguyen School of Foreign Languages, Can Tho University. The thesis focuses on

the difficulties encountered by university EFL students while participating in oral
classroom activities: Speaking skills. The findings show that students faced both
3


internal and external challenges, especially the latter ones regarding the limitation
of English speaking environment and extracurricular activities. By the way, the
authors expect through the study, English-majored freshmen at Can Tho University
can overcome these challenges improve their English speaking in order to get a
brighter future.
By and large, there have been a lot of studies on communication skills and
speaking skills. These studies have indicated quite clearly and specifically many
obstacles and difficulties when communicating in English of students in different
fields but oral presentations have not been extensively investigated. In particular,
there has been so far no study on the oral presentation difficulties that Englishmajored freshmen might encounter. For this reason, I have decided to conduct my
own study in which I have tried to have an investigation of English-majored
freshmen’s difficulties when giving oral presentations and give possible suggestions
on how to teach and learn oral presentation skills efficiently.
1.3. Aim of the study
The study is done with the following aims:
Firstly, the study would like to investigate the obstacles and difficulties
encountered by English-majored freshmen when making an oral presentation in the
classroom setting.
Secondly, the study is also aimed to figure out possible causes of those
difficulties.
Last but not least, the study will give some possible solutions to help
English-majored freshmen overcome those difficulties in order to deliver
presentations successfully in general and improve their speaking skills in particular.
1.4 Research subjects
Based on the rationale and the aims of the problems, the subject of this

research is “A study on oral presentation difficulties encountered by first-year
English-majored students at Thuongmai University”. It is obvious that there is one
main subject here: Presentation skill. Therefore, there is one main subject of “A

4


study on oral presentation difficulties encountered by first-year English-majored
students at Thuongmai University”:
 To figure out the difficulties that English-majored freshman experience
when making their oral presentations.
 To give some suggestions to improve their presentation skill.
1.5. Scope of the study
This study mainly focuses on presentation skills in English in the classroom
setting, then explore the difficulties encountered by English-majored freshman
when giving an oral presentation. This study is conducted questionnaire surveys in
the second semester of the 2020-2021 school year over the internet with the
participation of 93 first-year students of the English Faculty, TMU. I hope that this
study will help freshmen find the best ways to improve their process of enriching oral
presentation skills. Specifically, the students will be able to improve their speaking
skills to get a better opportunity for their possible further academic careers and
future jobs.
1.6. Research methodology
1.6.1. Research design
This study followed a descriptive design in which difficulties that English
Faculty's freshmen encountered when making oral presentations were investigated.
In order to collect the data, a questionnaire on difficulties that participants may have
when making individual presentations and an interview on potential causes for the
problems was conducted.
1.6.2. Research questions

In order to explore the difficulties of the English-majored freshmen at TMU
when making oral presentations, it is necessary to answer the following questions:
 What are the difficulties encountered by English-majored freshmen when
giving oral presentations?
 What do they perceive as the causes of their difficulties?
 What should they do to improve their oral presentations?

5


1.6.3. Participants
93 English Faculty's freshmen were the participants in this study. These
students have learned the course of Speaking, Listening, Basic Communication and
have given some oral presentations in the courses such as Basic English Grammar,
Speaking etc. These students were chosen as participants on the basis of three
criteria.
Firstly, they have learned a little about how to produce English sounds (i.e.,
consonants, vowels, diphthongs, clusters), as well as English intonation. Their
knowledge of English pronunciation is not enough to practice in the university
environment where they meet native teachers or where they have to use English
entirely.
Secondly, they have not been trained in presentation skills and delivered
individual presentations in front of the audience since they were in high school.
Thus, the students have many difficulties preparing and delivering a presentation,
especially an individual presentation.
Lastly, all of these participants are English-majored students so their future
jobs require good public speaking skills. Therefore, the solutions and
recommendations in this study can help them improve their presentation skills to get
more job chances.
1.6.4 Research instruments:

The instruments of the study include a questionnaire and an interview.
1.6.4.1. Questionnaire
The questionnaire was designed based on the questionnaire of Tong (2009).
However, many items were adapted to suit the study. The questionnaire includes 25
items with 3 multiple-choice questions that are used to explore students’ difficulties
in making individual presentations. The items of the questionnaire were grouped
into 4 clusters:
 Difficulties in preparing a presentation.
 Difficulties in rehearsing a presentation.
 Difficulties in delivering a presentation.
 Difficulties in using visual aids.
6


The questionnaire was designed using a five-point Likert scale. The
respondents had to rate the item on a scale from 1 to 5 corresponding to the degree
that they agree or disagree with each statement (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree,
3= undecided, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree). After collecting the answers, the
researcher analyzed the data with SPSS software to verify the reliability and
evaluate what was the most serious problem encountered by English Faculty’s
freshmen in making an oral presentation.
1.6.4.2. Interview
The interviews helped the researcher explore in-depth information about
difficulties encountered by English Faculty’s freshmen in making individual
presentations. The aim of interviews is to confirm the data collected from the
questionnaire. Particularly, if the findings from interviews match with those from
the questionnaire, the reliability of the results will be ensured. In the interviews, the
interviewees were asked about what difficulties they often face in giving oral
presentations such as in the preparation, rehearsal, and delivery stage and the use of
visual aids. The interviews which were conducted in Vietnamese included questions

to find out the causes of the interviewees’ difficulties. The number of participants
taking part in the interviews was 10; they answered 2 detailed interview questions.
(see appendix 2)
1.6.5. Procedures
1.6.5.1. Questionnaire procedures
Amid the complicated development of COVID-19 pandemic, the
questionnaires were delivered on the internet with the participation of 93 English
Faculty’s freshmen, TMU. The respondents had about ten minutes to complete the
29 questions.
1.6.5.2. Interview procedures
The two questions used to interview were prepared, and the answers were
recorded carefully on the phone. The researcher contacts 10 students and carries out
Vietnamese online interview to create comfortable and friendly atmosphere as well
as avoid mistakes. After summarizing the interviewees’ answers, the researcher
7


translated these answers into English. Another reason to conduct online interview is
that all students of TMU have applied the online learning method via Trans due to
the development of COVID-19, which seems difficult to have a face-to-face
interview with them.
1.7. Organization of the study
This thesis is organized into 4 chapters as follows:
Chapter 1: The introduction gives the rationale, the aim of the study, the
research subjects, scope of the study, methodology and the organization of the study
Chapter 2: The literature review shows the background literature directly
relevant to the study being discussed.
Chapter 3: Research finding includes the result from the study, evaluation
and analysis from the survey questionnaire
Chapter 4: Recommendations and suggested solutions for improving

presentation skills of English Faculty’s freshmen at Thuongmai University.

8


CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Presentation
2.1.1. Definition of presentation
There are various ways that the term presentation is defined. According to
Oxford (2006, p. 560), presentation means “a meeting at which something is shown
or explained to a group of people”. The definition of this term is shown in more
detail by Ohio Wesleyan University, in their “Guidelines for Oral Presentations”
(2001), presentations are defined as “brief discussions of a focused topic delivered
to a group of listeners in order to impart knowledge or to stimulate discussion. They
are similar to short papers with an introduction, main body and conclusion. The
ability to give brief presentations is a learned skill and the one that is called on
frequently in the workplace”.
There are many different definitions of oral presentations. The University of
Adelaide, in their “Oral Presentations” (2014), defined that “oral presentations are
a common feature of many courses at university. They may take the form of a short
or longer presentation at a tutorial or seminar, delivered either individually or as
part of a group. You may have to use visual aids such as PowerPoint slides.
Researching, planning and structuring an oral presentation is similar to the process
of writing an essay, except you use spoken language instead of written language and
you need to be mindful of a live audience.” Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998)
suggest that oral presentation work usually consists of the stand-up, prepared talk
accompanied by visuals; besides, what makes an effective oral presentation is
language, skills and confidence.
Overall, despite the variety of definitions, a presentation is a talk in which
the message and information of the speaker are conveyed to audiences in either

formal or informal situations. In reality, presentation skill is one of the most
important skills for students to get a better opportunity for their possible further
academic career.

9


2.1.2. The importance of oral presentation
Oral presentation has become a helpful and effective tool in educational,
social and professional life. Emden & Becker (2004: 1) stated that the “ability to
speak well enough to interest, influence or persuade other people is a major asset for
whatever they want to do in the future and it may change them in ways that they did
not expect”. Another idea held by Morley (2006) “oral presentation skills is
essential for employability and true academic study as they lead students to enter
into debate and sustained reasoning”. That is true as oral presentation skill is a key
to get more opportunities in the development of careers. Therefore, improving and
practicing the oral presentation skill gradually become more and more crucial in
many universities including TMU. To gain an effective presentation skill and keep
up with the changing world outside of school, students are stimulated to
participating in extracurricular activities and English contests organized by the
English Faculty, English clubs such as Olympic, The Speaking Contest, etc.
Through the contests, students’ presentation skills have improved quickly and
effectively.
In the literature on oral presentations, there are a number of reasons why oral
presentation skills should be developed. First of all, oral presentation skills can
bring more opportunities for students even if they are learning at university. In some
cases, for students, who lack presentation skills and other English language skills,
are finding a part-time job to earn extra income to help their family, they just find
manual jobs such as a server in restaurants, and shops. On the other hand, if the
students have good English language skills as well as presentation skills, they can

apply for potential positions such as English teaching assistants, translators,
interpreters, freelance guider, salesmen at tourist shops. It is both a great
opportunity for students to earn extra money and give them a wonderful
environment to practice and develop their English skills.
Besides, through the process of preparing and rehearsing a presentation,
students can learn the ability to collect and search information, narrow down the
topic, memorize the content, present naturally and pay attention to audiences.

10


Finally, when students gain a good oral presentation skill, they definitely can
speak clearly, convincingly, confidently as which as Emden and Becker (2004: 2)
put it “will result in an even better presentation next time” and “the newfound
confidence may affect other areas of your work”. Especially, during the process of
delivering of presentation, audiences can ask some difficult questions, with good
presentation skills, presenter can give brief and reasonable answers. In addition,
they can advance their reflex and develop their time management skill.
In short, giving an effective oral presentation is one of the vital skills that
students need to acquire to develop their competencies and benefit their future
work. In the context of English Faculty, TMU, presentation skill is one of the most
essential skills for students to improve their own academic knowledge,
communicate, exchange information with their peers and thereby develop personal
confidence.
2.1.3 Types of presentation
Oral presentations are classified based on their purposes and forms or
manners of delivery. The following is an overview of several common types of
presentations and their purposes given by Jim Aspinall (2017). There are 5 types:
informative, instructional, arousing, persuasive, and decision-making.
To begin with, the informative presentations are brief and to the point. They

are basically descriptive, generally stick to the facts and avoid complicated
information and usually used to describe facts to avoid complicated information.
They are organized from the most important topic and become the best way for
breaking big information down into small. The presenter, firstly, must keep an
informative presentation brief and relevant; secondly, stick to the facts and avoid
complicated information; finally, choose one of the following organizational
structures for this kind of presentation: time, place, cause and effect, and logical
order. University lectures, school classes, and research results are typical examples
of the presentation.
The second type of presentation is instructional presentation. The purpose of
an instructional presentation is to give specific directions or orders. These
presentations will probably be a bit longer, because they have to cover the topic
11


thoroughly. In an instructional presentation, listeners should come away with new
knowledge or a new skill, explain why the information or skill is valuable to the
audience and the learning objectives of the instructional program as well as
demonstrate the process if it involves something in which the audience will later
participate such as tutorial classes, safety demonstrations.
Another type of presentation, arousing presentation, is designed to make
people consider a certain problem or situation. Presenters want to arouse the
audience’s emotions and intellect so that they will be receptive to your point of
view. They use vivid language in an arousing presentation– project sincerity and
enthusiasm. They usually use stories or real-life examples of the topic to arouse
interest. They can describe a situation and show the need to solve the problem and
illustrate it with an example and call the audience to action to help solve the
problem. For example, these presentations consist of a debate, a motivational
speech or a church sermon.
The fourth type, persuasive presentation such as debate or business proposal,

is to convince audiences to accept and agree with the presenter’s proposal. A
convincing persuasive presentation offers a solution to a controversy, dispute, or
problem. To succeed with a persuasive presentation, presenter should show
sufficient logic, evidence, advantage and emotion to the audience. These
presentations are often highly emotional to help gather support and approval.
The final type of presentation, decision-making presentation, is designed to
convince listeners to act on the presenter’s proposal. A decision-making
presentation presents ideas, suggestions, and arguments to persuade an audience to
carry out presenter’s requests. In a decision-making presentation, the presenter
should tell the audience what to do and how to do it and let them know what will
happen if they don’t do what you ask.
In terms of manners of delivery, presentations can be impromptu,
extemporaneous, written or memorized. Dwyer (2000: 198-199) offers a thorough
description of five presentational forms or speeches, as he calls them. They are
impromptu, manuscript, memorized presentation, the briefing and the team
briefings.

12


The impromptu presentation, firstly, is unexpected and delivered without
preparation. As the occasion for this kind of presentation usually takes the speaker
by surprise, the speaker is quite knowledgeable about the subject. For example, if
called on to speak in class, a student might give a short impromptu speech about a
topic that was in the assigned readings. The speaker is advised to follow the PREP
formula, in which P stands for the main point; R stands for the reason for the
speech; E stands for the example to illustrate the main point and P stands for
restating the main point.
Secondly, manuscript presentation is a written text read to an audience from
a paper script or teleprompter. Manuscript speaking is generally employed during

official meetings, conferences, and in instances where the subject matter of the
speech needs to be recorded. The purpose of this speech is to convey precise and
succinct messages. Public officials speaking at conferences, and their speech being
telecast, is a pertinent example.
Thirdly, a memorized presentation is a speech that is recited from memory
rather than read from cue cards or using the assistance of notes. When giving a
presentation from memory, speakers tend to have a very robotic tone to their voice,
so it is important to remember to add voice inflection. For more effective
memorization, it is recommended to keep the speech relatively short.
The next type of speech, the briefing, is a short oral summary or report of a
plan, event or operation. Its aim might be to inform, propose or justify solutions, or
persuade the audience. For this type of speech, the speaker is expected to:
• prepare the briefing
• concentrate on its main purpose
• present background information; discuss alternatives
• analyze their advantages and disadvantages
• encourage audience participation, questions and suggestions
• show interest in audience response
Finally, team briefings are most often used for staff meetings, reports to
supervisors and managers on progress, results or problems. As the name suggests,
team briefings refer to team members working together for their presentation. First,

13


the team considers the purpose of the presentation and the nature of the audience.
Then they design the structure of the presentation and organize it into sections. A
particular section is then allocated to each speaker. So it is important to decide
which team member will be responsible for presenting the introduction; developing
the main body of the presentation; reinforcing the ideas outlined in the main body

and presenting the conclusion.
Although there are various ways that the term presentation is defined,
common types of presentations in the classroom are informative and persuasive
ones. With reference to classroom presentations, Lucas (2004) mentions that
presentation classes offer students opportunities to develop their communication
skills before applying them outside the classroom; moreover, students are given a
great chance to inform or persuade other people. In the present research, individual
presentations will be focused on.
2.1.4. Stages of presentation
Making a presentation consists of a sequence of stages. Before delivering the
presentation in front of the audience, the presenter has to prepare for the
presentation and rehearse it carefully. Therefore, there are three stages to make an
effective presentation: preparation, rehearsal and delivery.
2.1.4.1. Preparation
The first step of making a presentation is to prepare for it. According to
Lucas (2004), and Gregory (2005), speech preparation consists of selecting a topic
and purpose, analyzing the audience, gathering materials, and organizing the
speech.
Analyzing the audience is the first step in preparing a presentation. It's a
good idea to obtain some information on the backgrounds, values, and interests of
the audience so that the presenter can understand what the audience members might
expect from the presentation. Lucas (2004) suggests that when making a speech,
either in class or in forum, the speaker should be audience-centered; that is, the
speaker should analyze the audience and should adapt the speech to their interests
and beliefs. Therefore, the presentation will be clear and persuasive to the audience.

14


In addition, the presenter has to choose a topic that is of interest to the

audience. It will be much easier to deliver a presentation that the audience finds
relevant, and more enjoyable to research a topic. In the classroom setting, most of
the topics are based on the topic of every chapter in students’ textbooks, so students
do not have to find their own topic.
After selecting the topic and purpose of the presentation, the presenter needs
to prepare the content of the presentation by finding materials. According to Lucas
(2004), speakers can gather materials in different ways: getting information in the
library, searching the Internet which is considered the world’s the biggest library,
having personal interviews with someone on campus or in the community.
Then, the presenter should organize the presentation. The body of the
presentation is where the presenter expresses the ideas. To present your ideas
convincingly, speaker will need to illustrate and support them by indicating data and
facts, citing quotes from experts, relating personal experiences, and providing vivid
descriptions. A well-organized presentation could not lack an introduction and
conclusion as well. The aim of the introduction is to capture the attention of the
audience and build interest by making the introduction relevant to the listeners'
goals, values, and needs; asking questions to stimulate thinking or beginning with a
joke or humorous story. If the presenter does not have a good introduction, listeners
will turn their attention elsewhere and the presenter has a difficult time getting it
back. The final section – conclusion- is also very important. During the conclusion
of the presentation, presenter can reinforce the main ideas he or she communicated.
Remember that listeners won't remember the entire presentation, only the main
ideas. By reinforcing and reviewing the main ideas, speaker will help the audience
remember them.
2.1.4.2. Rehearsal
Most people spend hours preparing a presentation but very little time
practicing it. When you practice your presentation, you can reduce the number of
times you utter words and phrases like, "um," "well," and "you know." Rehearsing
the presentation will help develop confidence and fluency. As a rule, rehearsal is a
useful stage to help presenter have a successful oral presentation.

15


2.1.4.3. Delivery
The delivery stage is when the presentation is delivered. The speakers can
employ different methods to deliver the speech. It is the most important stage
deciding whether the presentation is successful or not. It relates the use of voice and
nonverbal communication to convey messages to audiences.
The way speakers use their voice is important when they speak in front of the
audience. The speakers should speak loudly enough for all of the audience to hear.
The way speakers use their voice is important when they speak in front of the
audience. The speaker should speak loudly enough for all of the audience to hear.
Besides, intonation plays a crucial part in the success of a presentation
because it shows the speakers’ enthusiasm for their subject. The audiences will be
bored if the presenter speaks monotonously (Le, 2002). One more aspect of the
speakers’ voice is pauses – a momentary break in the vocal delivery of a speech. If
the speaker fills in the silence with vocalizations such as “uh”, “er” or “um”, the
listeners may be distracted or feel annoyed.
Apart from voice, nonverbal communication has a great effect on the
audiences. Among many aspects of nonverbal communication, there are eye contact
and gestures. First of all, eye contact is defined as direct contact with the eyes of
another person. Students are encouraged to contact the audience while delivering
the presentation. Looking at the audience is not enough, the way that speakers look
at them is also important. Speakers should try to make eye contact with every
listener so that listeners have the feeling of being involved in the presentation. In
addition to eye contact, nonverbal communication is closely connected with
gestures – motions of a speaker’s hands and arms during a speech. The gestures
should be natural and spontaneous, strengthen speakers’ ideas, and be appropriate to
the audience and occasion. In reality, if speakers use gestures and eye contact

appropriately, their message will be enhanced.
2.2. Difficulties when making presentations
When making presentations, students may have to encounter a variety of
difficulties which fall into 3 main categories: lack of linguistic knowledge, lack of
presentational skills and psychological.

16


2.2.1. Linguistic knowledge
Based on the linguistic perspective, in linguistic problems, there are three
factors that contribute to students’ presentation problems including grammar,
vocabulary and pronunciation. (Meli Arya, 2017).
In terms of grammar, students often have difficulties with word order. They
usually make sentences that seem to be strange to the native speakers due to the
wrong word order. In fact, word order is more important in English than in other
languages. Furthermore, verbs also cause difficulties to learners with complicated
tenses, voices, and moods. Besides, learners have difficulties with prepositions and
nouns.
In addition to grammar, vocabulary is one of the main difficulties with
students. Without sufficient vocabulary, people cannot express their feeling both in
the form of spoken and written effectively. The more people master vocabulary the
more they can speak and express messages they want. Wilkins in Thornbury (2004)
states that without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing
can be conveyed. It means that even someone has good grammar but it will be
useless if they do not know the vocabulary.
Besides, pronunciation is problematic to Vietnamese students. The English
language has gone through a lot of transformations in its history, especially in
relation to phonology. These changes have altered the pronunciation of the words.
The discrepancy in English is bigger than in the other languages, in the case

Vietnamese. The English pronunciation is complicated and confusing for learners,
because the system of vowels and consonants have a lot of different sounds with
stress, rhythm and intonation. This is the reason why it is so hard for non-native
speakers to deal with English pronunciation.
2.2.2. Presentation skills
Many students have difficulties in making presentations due to the lack of
presentational skills, such as organizational skills, empathy for the audience and
poor use of visual aids, non-verbal communication and use of voice. Lewkowicz
and Cooley (1998) stated that many students lacked such presentation skills as
organizational skills, lack of empathy for the audience and poor use of visual aids.
17


In other words, lack of knowledge of organizational skills causes difficulties in
making an oral presentation. Besides, presenters are expected to understand their
audience. They should know clearly the audiences’ interests, attitudes toward what
they will inform, for example. Furthermore, using visual aids (i.e. posters, pictures)
effectively helps enhances the speakers’ message.
Additionally, to give a successful presentation, the speaker should improve
nonverbal communication. For example, if you’re faced with a presenter sending
mixed and he’s acting appears different from what he’s saying, so which would you
likely believe? Therefore presenter should use body language properly to convey
messages and information when speaking with the audience. Nevertheless, speakers
meet various difficulties with nonverbal communication skills, such as gestures and
eye contact. For instance, students do not often make eye contact with their
audiences as well as use their hand gestures, postures effectively during the
presentation.
One further aspect that speakers need to deal with when speaking in front of
the audience role of public speaking. Consequently, lacking skills in using voice
causes speakers several problems. The audience will be bored if the presenter

speaks monotonously (Le, 2002). One more aspect of the speakers’ voice is pauses
– a momentary break in the vocal delivery of a speech. If the speaker fills in the
silence with vocalizations such as “uh”, “er” or “um”, the listeners may be
distracted or feel annoyed.
2.2.3. Psychological factors
Another factor comes from psychological or nonlinguistic problems called:
Lack of confidence and fear of making mistakes. Horwitz (1986:127) claim that
“the psychological component contributes at least as much and often more to
language learning than the linguistic aspect”. This means that the psychological
aspect is related to the output process in communication.
A variety of research has been conducted on students’ public speaking
anxiety. Woodrow and Chapman (2006) did research into second language speaking
anxiety of learners of English for Academic Purposes (ESP) in Australia. The
findings of the study revealed that among the stressors influencing students, making
18