SEEU Review vol. 6 Nr. 2 (pdf) - South East European University

SEEU Review Volume 6, No. 2, 2010involving the audience, presenting the topic clearly, organizing the slides ,overcoming the fear of speaking in front of classmates and assessing thepeers presentations using given rubrics which involves and evaluatesdifferent aspect of delivering a presentation.King (in Webster, 2002) in his article states that "oral presentations are aface-threatening activity" and "speech anxiety and limited presentation skillsare the major problems that lead to learners' oral presentation failures"(King, in Webster 2002). However, oral presentations are a successful wayof developing speaking proficiency, organizing thoughts and ideas,presenting a topic to the audience in a successful and organized manner.Webster (2002) emphasizes the following: “When we use language, weemploy particular genre, which are like pre-determined linguistic formulaefor achieving an outcome. Therefore, learners need to be equipped with theseformulae in order to communicate effectively, in this case in the context ofan oral presentation”. According to Hammond et al, the teaching-learningcycle consists of four stages in order to present the best techniques ofpresentation teaching (in Webster, 2002), which comprise the following (1)building knowledge of the field (learners discuss the basic characteristics oforal presentations), (2)modelling of the text (teacher gives model oralpresentation to class), learners then analyze staging, (3)joint construction ofthe text (learners work together on developing their presentations ) and (4)independent construction of the text (learners give their presentation to theclass).The above named steps are used by ELT instructors in the context ofAcademic English courses and level 4 courses.Critical Thinking and Critical ReadingWe can define critical thinking as an ability to complete certain taskseffectively. Critical thinking is a skill that a person uses to assess the validityof something (statements, news stories, arguments, research, etc. Chance(1986, p 6) in Burrell (2007, p.27) defines critical thinking as the ability toanalyze facts, generate and organize ideas, defend opinions, makecomparisons, draw inferences, evaluate arguments and solve problems.Ennis (1987 in Burrell, 2007, p.28 ) suggests that "critical thinking isreasonable, reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe ordo."177