From observing and discussing Japanese students’ presentation today, we have found useful information on how to give feedback on our future students’ presentation and prepare them for presenting their work in public:

– The feedback should be given in an organized way. In other words, we should give comments and suggestions in different categories like visual aids used in the presentation (effective or distracting), verbal language/ speaking skills (vocabulary, specialist terminology, sentence patterns), non-verbal language (body language and/or facial expressions), etc.

– We can notify the presenter at the outset of their presentation which areas/aspects of a presentation they wish to have feedback on because they may have individual learning  needs that the teacher/audience is not aware of. In this way, the presenter can receive more precise and constructive feedback that help them improve their next performance.

– One more thing that we realized from observing the Japanese students’ presentation today is the audience needs to have the ability to have an objective assessment of a presentation about which they normally barely has background knowledge of. Regarding this point, the presenter also needs to think about what they should bring up in their presentation that can help bridge the knowledge gaps of the audience (many listeners may not have sufficient knowledge of what the presenter has been working on despite their shared disciplines) . As a result, the presentation can be delivered more smoothly.

– It is also important to keep in consideration the goals of adult English learning students. These students may have specific reasons for learning English (such as these future scientists from Japan) which is the pursuit of the sciences. Therefore, it would be helpful and very considerate on the part of the English teacher to provide authentic materials within this context.

– Another thing we noticed was that all of the Japanese students had a strong Japanese accent that prevented the audiences from understanding their presentations well. But the fact that they took time to deliver their speeches allowed the listerners to make sense of what they were saying. Also, they seemed to have practiced their body language in a way that it was not too disruptive during their presentations and only made minimum gestures that were necessary to get attention of the students. So pronunciation and body language are important components of successful presentation as well.

– In addition, while they did a good job explaining their concepts to a non-scientific audience several students exceeded the time limit. In a professional presentation setting where these students would be defending their research before a scientific audience, time management would be essential. Therefore, it is another responsibility of the English teacher to teach presentation expressions in order for their students to save time.

Team members: Minh, Brieanna, and Jerry.