Using multimedia presentation in the foreign language classroom to form tertiary students’ oral presentation competence

Анотація

The article deals with the problem of learner-centered approach, one of the main educational strategies, involving the use of creative method in teaching foreign languages. Till date, foreign language educators involved in teaching language and communication to tertiary students in the context of the New Ukrainian School paradigm face an uphill task in developing future professionals’ communicative competence. The special accent in the research is done on the benefits of implementing effective presentation skills and communicative competence as important developmental qualities for future professionals’ learning. Yet identifying the definitive qualities and methods to practice those skills has had minimal emphasis in current education programs. In addition to traditional abilities such as making clear presentations, speaking well, articulating some arguments, students are faced with an explosion of options for organizing and presenting information using multimedia technologies. The fundamental belief underlying this article is that the goal of implementing multimedia into foreign language educational contexts is to exploit the attributes of multimedia technologies in order to support deeper, more meaningful student-centered learning and to develop undergraduate students’ communicative competence. In view of this, the use of students’ presentation skills is perceived to be significant in the development of communicative competence. We attempt to analyse the notion of oral presentation competence (henceforth OPC), as a life-ability complex to mobilize and deploy a communication immediacy and multimedia technology literacy in order to respond appropriately and effectively to the modern demands and learning environment challenges presented by foreign language communicative context in countless real-life situations and interactions. The main integrative components of OPC were identified. The challenge of tertiary students’ foreign language OPC formation is accentuated by apparent lack of effective activities aimed at forming a set of OPC skills. One of the most effective ways to do this is to develop a series of activities to form OPC during introduction and conclusion presentation stages by means of multimedia presentation (henceforth MMP). In this medium the communication will be richer simultaneously engaging both the auditory and visual faculties of the audience. It results not only in increased attention levels and meaningful absorption of the presented information, but also in retention of the information by the audience. The MMP is viewed as one of the effective learner- centered activities that can be used in the language classroom as an effective tool for improving students’ foreign language OPC. It is aimed at foreign language speaking skills and based on development of the given competence that can be applied with the purpose of improving tertiary students’ 21st century “life-skills”. The examples of students’ Power Point slides performance are being considered.