Part 2: Inquiry into language learners

Minimizing oral
apprehension andstage fright: A report
on developing the oralpresentation skills of
non-native speakers ofEnglishMark Surma
Niigata University of Healthand Welfare
surma@nuhw.ac.jp

Miyuki Usuki
Joetsu University of
Education
usuki@juen.ac.jp

75•

More A u t o n o m y You

Aski

76

•

Surma &

Usuki

About MarkI have been teaching English in Japan for more than 10 years. Myresearch interests include
teacher and learnerdevelopment, development of oralpresentation skills among non-native
speakers of English, and ComputerAssisted Language Learning.

?~-%%mLtcm^W(CALL)Xlro
About Miyuki

I am a Special Assistant to the President at Joetsu University of Education, Niigata, Japan. I
hold a Ph.D. from Edith Cowan University, Western Australia. Presently, I am in charge of a
research project for post-graduate overseas study programs supported by Monbukagakushou(Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology). I am also involved ininternational exchanges between Joetsu University of Education and overseas universities. My
research interests include learner autonomy and learner beliefs in language education andteacher education in Japanese language teaching.
^«ifsm±e®*±##^rfsijM^TTo ^ i x ^ / ' t - x h ^ u T f f l o x f ^ •s\)KDm9YffinXuX7A*m^LX^£to £tz±.M%L^±¥tm?b<D±¥t(Dl£&S#0tfU-7, B*M©^fiiCWTf.
Acknowledgements

First of all, we would like to thank our international students in the Oral Presentation course

for giving us the opportunity to include their feedback in this paper. Many thanks also go to
Miki Kohyama and Eric Skier for their proofreading of our paper and their very encouraging
words. Finally, a big thank you to YokoWakui for her comments.
Abstract

The aim of this paper is toreport on the2004 Oral Communication Courseforpostgraduate students ata national university in Niigata Prefecture, and toreflect on whatwelearned from teaching thecourse.
As well as helping students to improve their oral presentation skills, the purpose of ourproject was tolearn about the learners' needs, how theyinteracted with each other in the international environment,
and how they developed their presentation skills. Through the students' perspectives, we have tried to
improve the course structure andits content throughout the semester andthroughout the 2005academic
year. In the class, wefocused on developing speech ideas in groups, discussing effective methods for
preparation and delivery of various presentations, andgiving briefspeeches. Students also learnt how
toselect, prepare, andpresent an academic paper in their own field ofexpertise infrontofan audience,and take an active participation in the discussion anddebate thatfollowed.
z(Dmx\t. ffimmoimiLAmz&Dz, 2oo4*Eg.<D7<:¥fo&wi<D*—7)v-zi$3.-ir-iy3y<D=i-x\zzj^x^^ufkrzm^(Dms^»^xn^^rzzt\zzo^x^mt^zt^smt-t^<,Z(DXnyx.^b(DSWM,^§L(D^-y)V-7'yify^-y3ymtl^m^;b<D^Xfs.<^7Sm(D=-X m®MfeM%x*foBWL'&^ yy^y^-yay(D7^)i^± .^tzt>^nz>ztxfoz>*^fS-XV-^yj—>'3>T<0MU&fcOViT, MbX/ls-Vyf—yay&tZ>Z.k\Z£.*2T7M—<¥•<&
7^f:j7£7ii-7°ftxm±tf'z>zt\zM&z^xfc, *fc, ^&imft<D&r*iftm<D^mmx*
msiu mmu mm<DMx-m%L, mmmmmtmmizmwx^mz-D^x^/vtL

—

LD

SIG

2006

Anthology —yy•Minimizing o r a l appr e h en s i o n

Introduction

If you have not done so yet,probablyone dayin the future you willneed to speak in front of an
audience of two or more people. By not speaking at all,your relationships with others, and evencareerprospects may be adversely affected. A sad truth is that speaking in front of an audience
for many people can be a real problem. In fact, it has been well documented that when it comesto speakingor presenting in public, many people sufferfrom Communication Apprehension(CA).

Grice & Skinner (2001) defined CA as "perceived fear or anxiety associated with either realor anticipated communication with another person or persons" (p.44). Whalen (1995) goes
further by saying that "the speech anxiety occurs when the speaking occasion has not happened
yet, and the stage fright occurs when the speaker is in front of an audience and fear takes over."(p-93)
Although what we have just said may sound scary to many of us, Whalen, Grice and Skinner
claim that CA is normal and almost everyone experiences stage fright.
Therefore, let us not worry about something that is natural and many speakers experience.
What we need to do, is to approach the topic in a pragmatic way supported by theory. Then,and only then, will our learners be able to minimize their CA and at the same time develop
their presentation skills.
Background

Have you ever thought about what makes one an effective communicator, and why somepeople are better communicators than others? Have you ever thought why some people had somany excellent ideas,but nobody wanted to listen to them? Finally, have you ever thought thatyou too, if desired, could be an effective communicator as well?

There is plenty of literature to suggest that effective communication skills, including public
speaking, although not easily, can be learned by almost anyone (Cole, 1993; Gaulke, 1997;
Moss, 1994; Whalen, 1995; Williams, 1983).

However, there is not much literature on teaching those skills to non-native speakersof
English. In fact this "mishap" is clearly indicated byHaringtonand Lebeau (1998) in Speakingof Speech, teacher's book (p. i). Also, there is a kind of unconscious inclinationby many
authors to simplywrite about how to make or deliver speeches, rather than how to present
to an audience. Harington and Lebeau have made a cleardistinction between speech andpresentation, by saying:

We define "speech" as a language intensive activity. The speaker mayor may not use
visuals. The primary medium of communication is the spoken word.... On theother hand a "presentation" is image intensive. The visuals are the central meansof communication. After all, to "present" means to show.... In a sense, a speech
maximizes the importance of the language. The speaker must be very competent in thelanguage. Presentation, on the other hand, maximizes the importance of visuals andthereby reduces the importance of language competency, (p.80)

With this distinction in mind, wehave decided to construct our own course specificallydesigned for our students. Simply speaking, wewanted to help our international learnersto
masterbasic presentation skills, withoutworrying too much about speech making, and theirlevels of English. Thus,at the end of the course, each student would be able to presenttheir—More Autonomy You

Aski —

78•

Surma &

Usuki

own topicof interest within a certain timelimit. As Williams (1983) puts it,"These days,
audiences expect a speaker to be on hisfeet for about ten minutes, and during this period it is
his job to hold the attention and the interest of his listeners." (p.10)
Therefore, our challenge was enormous,aswehad to prepare our learnersto deliver aten-minute presentation keeping as much of the audience's attention as possible. Taking into
consideration the fact that many the learners in this course came from different countries withdifferent backgrounds, represented different departments and had different interests, scared
us a lot. As a result of such circumstances, in addition to all the theory covered in the class,this course had to present our learners with opportunities to develop their practical skills. We
thought that covering theory alone would be a failure unless students had opportunities to gain
hands-on experience in presenting to an audience. How would we expect one to learn how toswim or to drive a car from reading only a book?
We also had to be careful, as Cole (1993) points out, that we should not try to talk at people,
but talk to people or with people. Therefore, we needed to develop a message by consideringothers' points of view. Questions such as why should the audience listen to us, what they
will gain by listening and how both, the speaker and the listener can be satisfied, should beanswered by each presenter. Then, only after considering these questions, the presenter would
be able to communicate with the audience.

Purpose of the course

As there were many oral assignments planned ahead, such as oral reports on students'
research, or presenting at seminars and lectures, the main purpose of the course was to help
students improve their oral presentation skills. Students were given a number of techniquesand strategies to manage communication apprehension, think critically, research, prepareand deliver effective persuasive messages, understand cultural and gender differences, become
effective listeners, and work effectively individually as well as in a group.

The second purpose of this course was for the teachers to learn how to teach better, how tointeract with people better, and to gain more knowledge about the subject matter. We always
asked our learners not to be selfish to think that they will only learn from us. The teachers are
only facilitators of learning and they want to develop their skills as well, just like anybody else.
In fact, if we wanted our students and ourselves to succeed, we believed that we should be able

to learn from each other whenever we could. Learning should be continuous, not temporary,and not be limited to the class environment only.This is what we have tried to have ourlearners understand.

The participants of the course

The class consisted of 14 postgraduate students from five different countries (including Japan)of mixed technical majors. There were two students from Malaysia, two from China, three
from Thailand, one from Venezuela, and six Japanese students. For this reason, the mode ofcommunication amongst all of the class participants and instructors was the English language.
Despite the fact that all of those students were non-native speakers of English, they werequite fluent in the language. Thisfact however, does not mean that theywere perfect (nativelike) speakers of English. Richards, John &Piatt (1992) define language fluency as"a level ofproficiency in communication, which includes: ... the ability to speak with a goodbut notnecessarily perfect command of intonation,vocabulary, and grammar...." (p.141)

—

LD

SIG

2006

Anthology

79*

Minimizing o r a l app r e h en s i o n. . .

Moreover, the main reason whyall these students enrolledin this elective coursewas to learn
how to present their research findings at conferences, as this was one of their requirements
to graduate. In addition, the learners had to pursue their normal studies and cope with othersubjects as well.
When asked why they had decided to enrol in the Oral Presentation course all the students
gave almost the same reasons:
1. Lack of confidence in English

2. Fear of speaking in front of an audience
3. Fear of not knowing what, how and when to say something, and finally
4. Fear of not being able to handle questions from an audience
From now on we will elaborate on the above points by integrating some practical examplesof activities covered each week in the class.It is not our intention to explain all the theory
covered in the class, but to select only a few examples of practices where the students'
development can be clearly seen. For theoretical background on the topic, the reader shouldrefer to the list of references at the end of this paper, or to any books on oral presentation or
speech making.
THE CONTENT OF EACH LESSON

The period of the course was one semester, and there were 15 180-minute lessons in total. To
fulfil the main purpose of the course, a schedule of weekly activities was set by the instructors.
Throughout the course, the theories behind the oral presentation skills improvement wereintroduced to the students. Based on these theories, various activities were put into practice.
Therefore, the weekly programme was as follows:
Week i: Short interviews in English

The week started with short interviews in English. This was done in order to select only thestudents whose level of English was at least conversational.After the interview, study guides
made by the instructors were distributed, and the course content, including its requirements,
was explained in detail.
Weeks 2 and 3: Communication

Learners were introduced to the "Communication Model" (Sadler & Tucker, 1987), withdetailed analysis of it. They were told that the model is made of three components (source,channel, and destination) and that for communication to be successful, the recipient of themessage had to provide the sender with appropriate feedback.
While describing the model, we were happy to see students' involvementby trying tounderstand what each part of the model was for. They asked us lots of questions; however, one
thing that our learners could not agree with was the feedback. Most of them were under the
impression that once the sender (source) sends the message to the recipient (destination) the
job would be done.
Therefore, in order to stress the importance of the feedback in communication, we decided
to use a very common activity called "Chinese whispers":

A messagewas given to one member of the class who had to whisper it to another person,
who then had to whisper it to another. This had to continue until all the class members had—

More Autonomy You

Aski

8o

•

Surma

&

Usuki

heard the message. Then, the last personwho wrote the message on the board found out that itwas completely different from the original message.
In addition, for those learners who stillhad any doubts about the importance of feedback,an examplewas givenof a person asking another person to buy a tomato sandwich. The result
was that the buyer brought him a ham sandwich.
Week 4: Communication apprehension (CA)Students were told that fear, as previously described, is perfectly normal, and is part of the
body's natural reaction to threat, and that most people experience fear or stage fright (Whalen,
1995,p.93). For those students who were nervous before or during the presentation, themessage was not to try to eliminate nervousness, as nervousness is natural, and can evenquite often benefit the speaker (Greece & Skinner, 2001). This is because, as the authors state,"nervousness is energy, and it shows that you care about performing well." (p. 45)
There was one activity asking learners to introduce themselves in front of the class. They had
only five minutes to prepare the talk and another two to five minutes to present it. This partof the exercise was deliberately administered on our students, so they could experience speech
anxiety and stage fright.
Students were also told of possiblecauses of CAand of possiblesolutions on how to manage
them. In another activity, learners were required to state at least 10causesof their own CA and how
they think they should manage them. The reason for this activitywas that, we believed that once
students became aware of their own problems, it might be easierfor them later to present in public.
Week 5: Non-verbal communication

Have you ever been in the situation where someone was saying something, but you had
a feeling that he or she was not telling the truth, or there was something else odd in thepresentation? Have you ever thought that the reason might have been in the lack of an
appropriate match between his words and his non-verbal behaviour?
There is abundant material on non-verbal communication, and writers sometimes see thetopic from different viewpoints (Harrington & Lebeau, Greece & Skinner, Sadler & Tucker).
This is however not important. What is important is that we do not speak only with our lips;
the way we move, the way we look at people, the way we dress up, everything counts. Simply
speaking, we communicate with our bodies as well. Accordingto Mahrebian (1968) 93% of aperson's message comes from non-verbal communication, 55% come from facial expressions
and body posture, and 38% come from voice qualities.
One of the activities of this course required students to indicate with their bodies thefollowing feelings and emotional states: self-satisfaction, aggression, shame, superiority,
tension, relaxation, etc.

The purpose of this exercise was to experience how reliably we can communicate our
feelings through our posture.
Week 6: Speech making and oral presentation skills

We explained what speeches were for (Sadler &Tucker, 1987) and how a typical speech should
be structured. One of the activities of the lesson required students to implement some of the

speech techniques learned in the lesson, and to prepare a three-minute speech on any topic of
their choice.

LD

SIG

2006

Anthology —8i•Minimizingoral appr e h

e n s i on

Week 7: Oral presentation

This presentation was for three minutes and was videotaped.After the presentation, thevideotape was played back and suggestions on how to improvein the future were made. The
presenterwas also asked to summarize the commentsmade by the audience, and to evaluate
him/herself. For the teacher's record an Oral Presentation Rubric for each student was filled inand collected at the end of the lesson (see MAYA! website for Appendix 6A).
Week 8: Team work and team presentations

Reasons for working in teams were explained while the advantages and disadvantages ofteamwork were discussed. Students were told that a team or a group must have a leader, andtherefore were told of Dwyer's (1993) leadership styles: Authoritarian, Democratic, and Groupcentered. In one of the activities of the lesson, students were asked to state which leadershipstyle was best and why? They were also asked to identify their own leadership style.
There was also an activity on how to handle hostile (including unnecessary) questions. For
example, students in groups of four were given a list of questions (problems) to which they had
to find solutions. Later they had to read their answers out loud and the best answer was chosen
through a discussion and debate among all the members in the class.

Finally,there was an activity on how to get to know your classmates better. Students had towrite down four things about themselves. Three things had to be true; one had to be false. The
goal was to create a believable lie about oneself, something that another person, when meeting
you, would believe to be true. The reason for this activity to be introduced in Week 8, and notearlier, was that we wanted our learners to clearly see that even after knowing their partners fortwo months, it was still impossible to make accurate assumptions about one another.
Week 9: Online seminars

Based on their homework, students presented their Online Seminars. For an Online Seminar,
the students had to search the Internet (for example,YAHOO search engine) on any topic ofinterest, and later report it to the class.The purpose of this assignment was to help students:• Further develop their researching, note-taking, listening skills;•

Get new ideas on presentation techniques, and;•

Increase their overall general knowledge.
Week 10: Listening strategies

Students were reminded that communication was a two-wayprocess and involved active
listening as well. As Sadlerand Tucker (1987) stated, we may be hearing all the time, but
onlyfor some of that time are we actually listening, that is taking in the information, storing,
analysing, or evaluating the content. First, students were asked in groups to list some of thefactors that influence listening skills, and to list how speakers can improve our listening
attention. After identifyinglistening strategies, the major part of the lesson was spent on theactivity called"Listening to PersonalityTapes" (Sadler &Tacker, 1987). It was important thatthe person on the tape was not identifiedby name, gender,or any other specific way. The
purpose of this exercise was to encourage participants to listen attentivelyto the speech and theuse of the voice of the speaker.What we hear when someone speaks, besides the informationof ideas, was the keyquestion. Then, questions were asked about the speaker's gender, age,physical features, job, character, etc.

—

More

Autonomy You

Aski —

82

•

Surma

&

Usuki

Week 11: Discussion and debate

Students were told why debating was important in a democratic society and things to be careful
about. For example, they weretold to use clear language that couldbe understood by everyone
involved, evidence to support what they had to say, be sure of facts, avoid emotionalism, and be
sure not to attack the arguer, but the topic under consideration.

The activity was to conduct a debate in class, either formally or as an open discussion.
Participants were divided into small groups and had to select a topic from a given list or a topic
of their own.

Week 12: Message packaging and message delivery

Quite often presenters seem to be all very wise after the presentation, instead of during thepresentation, and be able to think of all sorts of things to say afterwards. Students were asked
why those sorts of things happen to people and how to avoid them. Regarding the solution to
the above problem, students were told of the importance of strategies to be used by an effective
speaker such as; determining the purpose of his/her presentation; being aware of the audience's
needs; and planning the presentation in three stages: opening, body, and conclusion.
Weeks 13 and 14: Oral presentations

Weeks 13 and 14 were devoted to students' oral presentations and were based on the students'
field of expertise. For their presentations, students were given five to seven minutes. Twice asmuch time was spent on video viewing,discussion, and evaluation. We have adhered to thefollowing steps:•

Student's oral presentation (5 to 7 min.)•Questions and discussion (2 to 4 min.)•Video viewing (max. 5min.)•Student's self evaluation (1 to 2 min.)•Written peers evaluation (1 to 2 min.)Peer evaluations were based on the previously mentioned rubric that was developed by us,
and has been slightlymodified in order to accommodateall the students in the class.
In the rubric, the last column (total score divided by 4) means that the total mark was
divided by FOURevaluators: that is eachstudent was evaluated by two lecturers and two
different students selected at random. The instructors believed that this was the way to evaluate

students fairlyby shifting some authority to students as well.
Week 15: Course overview and course evaluation

This daywas for completing unfinished tasks and the collection of students'assignments andfeedback about the course. The feedback from the students is presented and discussed in thenext section.

Getting the students' feedback

As was mentioned earlier, the secondarypurpose of this project was to learn about the students'
needs, feelings, problems,and how theyinteracted with eachother in the international
environment of the classroom. This was done for the purpose of improving our teaching

—

LD

SIG

2006 Anthology —83•

Minimizing o r a l apprehension

methods, andto gain more knowledge about the subject matter.
In order to elucidate the students' needs, feelings, problems, and theways oftheir interactions,right from the beginning of the semester, weasked students to write their reflections aboutclassroom learning. We recommended that the students write their reflections at home,on thesame day, while their memories were fresh. Students did notneed to worry about being critical,
because theyknewwewerelooking for constructive criticism from them, and that wewanted
to learnaswell. We believed that thiskind of approach would make our students write theirreflections honestly, astheycould see usaspartners in learning, ratherthan as teachers.
Below are the five questions that we asked our learners to reflect on each week:
1. What have you learnt today?
2. What did you like about the lesson?
3. What didn't you like about the lesson?

4. Comment on any difficulties you had today.
5. How would you evaluate your participation in class?

All responses were written in Englishby the students. Some examples of the students'
responses are presented in Appendix 6B on the MAYA! website.
Our learning from the students' feedback

Based on the students' comments it can be clearly seen that it took them two to three weeks
to adjust to the course structure and level. This is evident in the comments such as "somestudents are too quiet in the class," or "the three-hour lesson is too long." However, from thefourth week, almost all the students came to enjoy the lessons to the extent that some students
complained to us that the three-hour lesson was too short. Clearly they wanted to talk more
and be more involved in the classroom activities.

Another finding concerns Question 3 (What didn't you like about the lesson?). Only somestudents answered this question. The majority of the students did not reply to this question, orjust replied with "No difficulties," or "It was OK."

Question 4 (Comment on any difficulties you had today?) was also not answered by many
students. Those students who answered this question complained mainly about their levelof English.With time however, as we progressed with our schedule, students who had earlier
problems with English, tended to relax and feel that making mistakes was part of their learning.
Reflections on the course and suggestions for further studies

It was quite interesting to see how a group of international students could overcome theirEnglish language barriers and work collectively throughout the course. Their eagerness to swap
partners for different group activities, and work on their own, clearlyshowed the learners'
independence from the teacher, and enthusiasm to learn on their own. In groups, students hadtime to discuss things on their own, were not afraid to make mistakes, could learn about eachother more, were relaxed, and therefore could participate in the class even more actively.
Regarding the students' comments, as there were some students who hoped for frequent
two-way communication with us, probably next time instead of waiting almost until the end of
the course, we should collect their reflections at least on a fortnightly basis. This would provide
us, the teachers, with valuable feedback on the course, and in case of a problem or inquiry, it
would allow us to attend to it as soon as possible.

More

Autonomy You

Aski

—

84 * Surma & Usuki

Conclusion

This project was done for two main purposes. The first one was to report on the 2004 Oral
Communication class for postgraduate students at a national university in Niigata Prefecture.
And the other on was to reflect on what we, as instructors, could learn from teaching thecourse. In the course, we focused on developing speechideas in groups, discussing effective

methods for preparation and delivery of various presentations, and giving brief speeches.
From the students' reflections, we have tried to improve the course structure and its content

throughout the semester and throughout the 2005 academic year. It was quite interesting to see
how a group of international students with multicultural backgrounds could overcome theirEnglish language barriers and work collectively throughout the course. Their eagerness to swap
partners for different group activities, as well as workingon their own, clearlyshowed us their
independence from the teacher, and enthusiasm to learn on their own.

—

LD

SIG

2006 Anthology —85•

Minimizing o r a l a p p r e h e n s i o n

Critical Reader Response i

Hiromi Ishikawa

Some people say, "Just try to imagine that yousee potatoes in front of you as an audience andnot a single person listening to you." Other people say, "Write a Chinese character meaning 'a
person' three times on your palm and pretend to swallow those 'people' one at a time. Then you
won't get nervous." OK. Let me try. However, as soon as I start my presentation, I find that theiradvice doesn'tworkfor me. I get frightened and mylegs start to shake. Mytrembling voice
makes me feel embarrassed. This happens even when I speak in Japanese, and in the caseof
English, the level of communication apprehension increases a hundredfold. No exaggeration!
The chapter by Surma and Usukimade me look back on my own past experiences of stage
fright. For this reason, as I read along their paper, I felt like being one of their students.
As a non-native speaker of English, I think that being incompetent in English is the maincause of communication apprehension no matter how much image intensiveness overcomesthe language competency in the presentation. If I had been conducting this research myself,
I might have wanted to include everything in class, that is, both content and skills. However,
Surma and Usuki decided to focus mainly on developing the students' presentation skills
without worrying too much about speech making. Their decision of what to focus on surely
made their teaching procedures step-by-step ones, guiding their students to what they should
learn from class. Also I learnt that their careful analysis of their students' circumstances was
the base of their decision-making. In this way, their teaching procedures and the class content
were carefully chosen and organized by adapting both theory and the students' needs, whichsurely resulted in the students' satisfaction of taking the course.

I liked the idea of "talking to people or with people" by Cole (1993) in their quote. When I
finish making speeches or doing presentations, I just say to myself, "OK. I'm done!" without
considering the audience's feelings. However, thanks to the quote, I now realize that making
speeches or doing presentations are part of bilateral communication. This means that it isessential to learn presentation skills to hold the audience's interest and keep them listening toyou.

I also think that it was good for the students to think about their possible causes ofcommunication apprehension and manageable solutions themselves beforehand. I believethat they could be mentally prepared in advance. I thought about my own stage fright and its
reasons while reading this chapter. The mixed feelings of my strong desire to be a "good"speaker and the anxieties of language incompetence and being less-experienced in public
speech make me feel nervous while I prepare for my presentations or speeches. However, after
all, I am energized by my nervousness to try to put myself on a higher pedestal. I'm glad tofind Greece & Skinner's quote in Surma and Usuki's paper to support my analysis that reads"nervousness is energy."

From my experience, I can say that experience can be also one of the solutions to avoid
nervousness. The point is how teachers can make their students be independent enough to try
in and outside the class. From this point of view, the students' feedback shows that Surma andUsuki's project successfully implemented the importance of being autonomous. This is a great
example of a well-balanced success of teacher and student autonomy.

—

More

Autonomy You

Ask;

86

*

Surma &

Usuki

Critical Reader Responses 2

Nanci Graves

This article provides a valuable reminder that, for a considerable number of people, public
speaking ranks as a major phobia even when done in the native language. It was interesting tonote that allof the reasons students gave for electing to takethe course described in this study

were negative ones, based on recognition oftheir lack of autonomy in thecontext of speaking
in front of an audience in English. Such motivation suggests that theywere admirably seekinga kind of'aversion therapy' in order to confront their fears and build both their presentation
skills and self-confidence, thus increasing their sense of autonomyto handle public speaking
situations with greater courage. As a result, the writers' focus not onlyon providing guidedpractice in effective presentation techniques but also on helping learners analyse their
nervousness and establish a friendly relationship with their audience seems especially
noteworthy. Although nothing can alter the fact that a presentation is always going to involve atest of an individual's communication abilities, learning how to view oneself more objectively
and re-visualize one's image of an audience as supportive listeners rather than threatening
adversaries can go a long waytowards reducing the fear of being judged. This self-reflective
approach could also be used more extensively in general English classes to encourage learner
acceptance of the idea that while it is normal to find communicating in a foreign language adaunting undertaking, nonetheless there are ways to meet the challenge and work throughone's fears with success. The authors have therefore provided a useful model of how to scaffold
learners' development of both inner and outer autonomy in a very clear,systematic, andlearner-sensitive way.
Stacey Vye

This study prompted me the revisit the value of inviting the learner to experience the processof learning theory (in this case presentation skills), integrated with relevant practical weekly
activities, which allows learners spaces in the decision-making. Equally interesting, at theonset of the paper, Mark and Miyuki suggest that speaking in front of an audience is a real
problem, and many people suffer from Communication Apprehension (CA). Subsequently,
the authors interacted with MAYA readers by posing questions about public speaking in the'Background' section. As a consequence, that action helped me to reflect on my own dread of
public speaking. In addition, I thought certainly even the seasoned researcher is concernedwith problem solving in overcoming stage fright and tackling vague questions in their own
language, so these issues would be major concerns for these students presenting in a foreign
language as their comments suggest. For this reason, I was tantalized by the students' feedback
and wanted to know more about their comments. Perhaps it is significant during the beginningof the course some students claimed that three-hour sessions were too long, however after the
fourth week some students complained that the sessions were too short. These comments most
likely were made because Mark and Miyuki assisted the students through carefully thought
out activities that encouraged learner reflection. This helped to naturally allow the students
discover for themselves autonomously which presentations skills they would like to work on,leading them to want more session time to do so.

LD

SIG

2006

Anthology