Investigating the Relationship between Interactive Features and the Delivery and Appreciation of Oral Presentations in EFL classrooms

Abstract

The study has investigated the potential relationship between the use of interactive features, delivery and appreciation of oral presentations in EFL classrooms. It also investigated the attitudes of the students who deliver oral presentations and the teachers’ opinions about the role of interactivity in the process of delivering oral presentations. A classroom observation of ten presentations was done with third-year licence and first-year- master students of English at University of Mohammed Seddik Ben Yahia, Jijel. It followed by two questionnaires; the first one was submitted to 20 students who delivered the presentation, and the second one was submitted to 10 teachers who assign oral presentations tasks for students’ evaluation. The current research work revolves around one basic hypothesis which is if a presenter uses interactive features which check audience comprehension, elicit responses, and modifies talk, this will impact positively on the delivery, comprehension and evaluation by the audience; teacher and students. To this end, the analysis of the results generated by classroom observation demonstrated that the most frequent interactive feature used by the presenter was elicitations. Moreover, the resultsobtained revealed that students’ participation, good delivery and appreciation by the audienceare related to the use of interactive features by the presenter. Likewise, the analysis of the results generated by the presenter questionnaire as well as the teacher questionnaire revealed that the vast majority of students and teachers hold positive attitudes towards interaction in the delivery and appreciation of oral presentations. They consider the interactive type as more effective in the delivery rather than monologic type of oral presentations, and the aspect of interaction is a main criterion for evaluating the presenters’ performance.