STRATEGIES IN FACING DIFFICULTIES IN ORAL PRESENTATION: A
CASE STUDY
THESIS
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
BRAM SIVADJATI 112012050
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION PROGRAM
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
ii
STRATEGIES IN FACING DIFFICULTIES IN ORAL PRESENTATION: A
CASE STUDY
THESIS
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
BRAM SIVADJATI 112012050
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION PROGRAM
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
vii
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any course or accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and my belief, this contain no material previously published or written by any other person except where the reference is made in the text
Copyright@2016 Bram Sivadjati and Gita Hastuti,S.Pd., M.A.
All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Department, Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga
viii
TABLE OF CONTENT
INSIDE COVER………...ii
APPROVAL FORM……… ………iii
PUBLICATION DECLARATION……….vi
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT ... vii
TABLE OF CONTENT ... viii
ABSTRACT ... 1
INTRODUCTION ... 2
LITERATURE REVIEW... 4
Oral Presentation ... 4
Students’ Difficulties in Oral Presentation ... 4
Strategies to Handle Difficulties in Oral Presentation ... 7
THE STUDY ... 10
Research Questions ... 10
Context of the Study ... 10
Participants ... 10
Data Instruments ... 11
Data Collection Procedure ... 12
Data Analysis Procedure ... 13
DISCUSSION ... 14
CONCLUSION ... 31
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... 33
References ... 34
1
STRATEGIES IN FACING DIFFICULTIES IN ORAL PRESENTATION: A
CASE STUDY
Bram Sivadjati
ABSTRACT
This is a case study that aims to investigate the strategies used by the members of a study group in the English Language Education Program (ELEP) in dealing with their difficulties during an oral presentation. Having good skills in speaking in front of public is one of the competences that the learners have to master since the Faculty of Language and Literature often uses presentation as an assessment. Oral presentation is categorized as an important task which is beneficial for the student’s future. Nonetheless, many of ELE students are having a lot of problems when doing an oral presentation. Therefore, it is important to uncover the strategies used by students that have good skills in speaking in front of public. The participants of this study are 5 students of English Language Education major. The researcher uses qualitative method by using interview in revealing the student’s tactics. The result of this study shows that the participants have challenges such as: grammatical problems, having problem in understanding the topic and organizing the idea, difficulties in the audience’s interest, speaking speed, memorizing problem, anxiety, teacher expectation, and time problem. Additionally, anxiety becomes the biggest fear when doing an oral presentation. As for the strategies to overcome those problems, the participants proposed; studying more about the grammar, looking for the information in the internet, mastering the topic, be entertaining, adjusting the speed in speaking, practicing, taking a deep breath, not looking straight to the audiences eyes, changing your mindset and calculating the time
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INTRODUCTION
Giving an oral presentation is a challenge because the presenter needs to be able to deliver a message with a good language so that the audience could understand it easily. Giving an oral presentation is believed to be “an important element in delivering positive learning experiences” (Alshare & Hindi, 2004, p.6). In other
words, giving an oral presentation is a good practice to equip the students with not only experience in delivering their materials in public with a proper language but also opportunities to improve their confidence. In fact, to be able to do so, the presenter needs to have good presentation skills. Just as Rajoo (2010) argued, “oral presentation skills will empower students to communicate complex ideas and information in a manner that would be easily understood by the audience” (p. 43). Furthermore, having good oral presentation skills was very useful in the future especially for the students’ career (Emder & Becker, 2004, as cited in El Enein, 2011).
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deals with the transfer from L1 into L2. In other words, students have problems in dealing with the oral presentation because they have limited capacity in translating from L1 into L2. However, language transfer is not the only problems in giving oral presentation. A researcher like Rivers (1986) in Tuan and Mai (2015) found that understanding the topic become one of the students’ problem in doing an oral
presentation. Not only Rivers (1986) but also Gibson (2014) pointed out that organizing the ideas based on the topic that was given by the teacher became one of the students’ considerations. To handle those problems, proper strategies are needed.
This case study aims at revealing a study group member’ strategies in dealing
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LITERATURE REVIEW
Oral Presentation
Oral presentation or speaking in public is a type of communication whose purpose is to communicate or deliver some thoughts, information, and messages to the audience. In other words, oral presentation is a part of communication skills whose function is to share some important ideas (Rajoo, 2011)..
Chivers (2007) stated that there are some purposes of having an oral presentation as a part of a lesson. The first one is to train the presenters in order to have self-confidence in speaking in public. Second, it was to inform that the presenters should communicate with the audience and give them as much information as possible. Third, it is a way used by the teacher to assess the students’ ability. Fourth, it is for advocacy or persuasion. Fifth, it trains students to take some important decisions. Sixth, oral presentation is a good activity to teach others and learn something from one’s mistakes in presenting.
Students’ Difficulties in Oral Presentation
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First is about students’ difficulties in constructing good grammar in speaking.
Thornbury and Slade (2007) believed that one of the students’ problems in speaking was transferring L1 into L2 which was done manually. Therefore, it will make the presenter has another problem in constructing a good sentence with correct grammar/vocabulary because the presenter needs to think twice about the grammar rule. Rajoo (2010) pointed out that grammar also plays an important role in the students’ mistake. It is because students sometimes make a sentence without
considering the grammar.
Second is difficulty in understanding the topic. Rivers (1968) in Tuan and Mai (2015) said that it is difficult for the learners if the teacher gives a topic which is not familiar to the students and as a result it will make the students confuses because they did not have enough knowledge about the topic. In relation with the topic, the students also face some difficulties in organizing the presentation. The students should know about the organization of the presentation about the topic that was going to be presented (Gibson, 2014).
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Fourth is the pace in speaking. Speaking speed also became one of the student’s challenges in speaking in front of public. There was a study which
examined the student’s problems especially about the tempo. Rajoo (2010) said that most of the student’s tended to speak too fast. As a result, the audiences could not
understand well.
Fifth is the memorizing problem, which led to the blankness. Rajoo (2010) also found that memorizing problem become one of the students’ considerations in speaking in front of public. Rajoo said that the students suddenly forgot what they would say when speaking in front of public.
Sixth is the anxiety. Recent studies have found that anxiety becomes the most difficult obstacles that the students face when speaking in public (Basic, 2011; Al-Nouh, Abdul-Kareem, & Taqi, 2015). Furthermore, according to Emden and Becker (2004), as cited in El Enein (2011) that most of the learners or students were very nervous about presenting in public.
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Last is time problem. A study which was done by Tuan and Mai (2015) investigated on the students’ problem in doing an oral presentation. They stated that
the students also faced time problem when they were doing the presentation.
Moreover, a study who have done by Rajoo (2011) also categorized the students’ difficulties during oral presentation into 4 groups;
vocabulary/language/grammar (not fluent in speaking English, grammatical problem and lack of vocabulary), contents/ideas (having problem in giving examples, topic problems, difficult in attracting the students’ interest, being afraid if the points are not correct), personal traits (talk too fast, nervousness, memorizing problem, not confidence enough and teachers expectation), and external factors (lack of preparation, lack of time).
Strategies to Handle Difficulties in Oral Presentation
Some studies also revealed the strategies in dealing with the speakers’ problems when doing the oral presentation. First is the strategy when dealing with grammatical problem. Lewis (2011) argued that reading more about the grammar and the structure was the best way in overcoming the students’ problem in regarding with grammar and structure error.
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strategy to conquer problem in organizing the ideas. Gibson (2014) also argued that the students, who suffered from organizing the idea of the presentation, should master the topic or the material and organize it really well. Organize it really well means that the presenter should divide the main body of the presentation into some points.
Fourth is a tactic on how to keep the students interest. In order to keep the audiences’ interest, putting some jokes, story, etc. inside the presentation was a good strategy. It is because it could make the audience become comfortable to listen to the presenter’ presentation (Kim, 2014)
Fifth, in dealing with the speaking speed problem, the students should adjust their speed. Pain (2014) pointed out that adjusting the speed or slowing down the speed is the answer if the students’ have problem in their speaking speed because the way the presenter gives the presentation, especially in the pace of speaking is very important.
Sixth is the strategy in dealing with memorizing problem. Mitchell (2009) gave a useful guideline for the students who are bad at memorizing. He believed that keep talking or repeat the previous point when the presenter could not memorize the material was very useful strategy.
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he/she was doing an oral presentation. Additionally, Buchler (2013) examined the strategies in dealing with the sixth graders’ problem especially about anxiety when
the students did the presentation in front of the public by doing an experimental study. Buchler (2013) stated that breathing exercise is the most effective strategy in dealing with the nervousness because when the students controlled their breathing they became more relaxed.
Eighth is the strategy about changing the students’ mindset when the students feel afraid of what the teachers were expected to the presenter. In dealing with teachers’ expectation, Allan (2015) said that changing your mindset into the positive
one was a good choice in dealing with the under pressure feeling. Further, he also said that the way narrator’s think which turned the negative into the positive thinking affect their performance in giving an oral presentation later.
Last is handling the time problem. Marshall (2009) stated that in dealing with the time problems or length of time when the students did an oral presentation, the students should calculate the time well. If the students calculated the time, the students would know which unimportant parts that needed to be erased.
10 THE STUDY
Research Questions
The research questions below were used to collect the data, which were: 1. What are the study group members’ difficulties during oral presentation?
2. What are the study group members’ strategies in handling their difficulties when presenting?
Context of the Study
This research was conducted at the English Language Education Program of the Faculty of Language and Literature that is located in Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga. In this program oral presentation has become one of the assignments that could not be separated from many offered courses. In other words, it was very common having an oral presentation as a form of teachers’ assessment in many courses. However, the English Language Education Program students still faced some difficulties in doing the presentation and could not handle their problems well. An outstanding study group was chosen to be a role model in handling those difficulties.
Participants
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this group because all of the participants used English as a communication tool when discussing the materials or sharing their ideas inside and outside classrooms. In addition to that, their GPA was between 3.2-3.6 and each of them had an A grade for the public speaking course. Those two parameters indicated that the participants had had good English language skills, especially the skill in speaking in front of public. For additional information, all of the researcher’s participants had ever been selected to participate at particular events such as LOVED (English competition which was held by the Faculty of Language and Literature) and national competition as story tellers and speakers of speech. Three of them were story tellers and the rest were speakers.
Data Instruments
In order to get the data, the researcher used semi-structured interview. Semi-structured interview was used because of the flexibility: the researcher could add some follow up questions if it was necessary. There were initially five questions to ask, they were:
1. In your opinion, what are some factors that affect your performance in presenting?
2. Do you have any difficulties in doing an oral presentation? What are they? 3. What is the biggest difficulty in speaking in public?
4. How do you cope with your difficulties when doing an oral presentation? 5. Do you use any kind of tools in handling your difficulties during the
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In addition to those five questions, there would be some follow-up questions to make the data wealthier. Other than that, the flexibility of semi-structured interview also helped the researcher to add or change the questions whenever necessary. Audio recording is used in order to transcribe the data as a proof of the interview section.
Before getting the actual data, the researcher conducted a pilot study with the aim of testing the reliability of the questions. For the pilot study, the researcher interviewed two students of batch 2012. The result of piloting study showed that several questions’ answers were not coherence with the researcher expectation.
Therefore, the researcher decided to change the five questions above into three questions, which were:
1. Do you have any difficulties in doing an oral presentation? What are they? 2. What is the biggest difficulty in speaking in public?
3. How do you cope with your difficulties when doing an oral presentation? Data Collection Procedure
13 Data Analysis Procedure
14
DISCUSSION
To answer the research questions: 1. What are the study group members’
15 Problems and Strategies
Figure one. Students’ difficulties and strategies
Difficulties Frequency
(N=5)
Strategies Categories
Grammatical
problems
2 Study more Vocabulary/language/grammar
Understanding the
topic
1 Look forthe
information
from the
internet
Contents/ideas
organizing the
ideas
1 Trying to
master the topic and organize more carefully Contents/ideas
Attracting the
students interest
1 Be
entertaining
Contents/ideas
Speaking speed 1 Adjust the
speed
Personality traits
[image:23.612.105.533.186.712.2]16 problem
Anxiety problem 3 Practice more
frequently
Take a deep
breath
Don’t look
straight at the
audiences
eyes
Personality traits
Teacher
expectation
1 Change your
mindset
Personality traits
Time problem 1 Calculate the
time
External factor
Figure 1shows that the difficulties mentioned by the participants, four problems such as anxiety problem, speaking speed, memorizing problems, and teacher expectation are related to personality traits, three problems which are understanding the topic, organizing the ideas, and attracting the students’ interest are connected to content, one problem which is grammatical problem is linked to vocabulary/language/grammar, and one problem which is time problem is associated with external factors. From the difficulties under personality traits category, anxiety is found to be experienced by three out of five participants.
[image:24.612.104.536.118.609.2]17
vocabulary/grammar/pronunciation, and last is the problem under external factor. Each of the problems is trailed by the participants’ strategies.
Personal Traits
Anxiety problem
Nervousness or anxiety problems that the participants had during an oral presentation became one of the biggest difficulties since three of five participants chose anxiety or nervousness as the most difficult problem that the participants experienced. This fact is supported by recent studies which were done by Basic (2011), Al-Nouh, Abdul-Kareem, & Taqi (2015). They found that the anxiety became the most complicated obstacle which the students had to struggle with. Further, one of the participants also said that he could not prevent the nervousness problem.
“I am always nervous. Even though I have already well prepared I felt [sic] that the anxiety is still there”
(Participant E)
Emden and Becker (2004) in El Enein (2011) supported the statement by saying that most of the students could not evade from nervousness or anxiety when they have to present in front of public.
Since the anxiety problem became the most difficult obstacle in doing an oral presentation, some of the participants shared some information or tips to handle it.
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(Participant A)
“at the first minute our voice is still shaking or tremors. The solution is doing the breathing exercise or take [sic] a deep breath so that you can adjust your voice and make you more relax [sic]”
(Participant B)’
“didn’t look people in the eye because it would ruin you. So looked [sic] at them above their head”
(Participant E)
The first strategy is practice more. As Participant A mentioned before, practice makes perfect. As a result, the presenter will be more comfortable when speaking in front of public. Second is taking a deep breath. This strategy is very useful when the presenter is nervous which led to unstable voice. Therefore, taking a deep breath can make the presenter more relaxed (Participant B). Last is not looking straight to the audiences’ eyes. Based on the participant E’ experiences, it is not
recommended to look straight at the audiences’ eyes because it can make the presenter more nervous and it will mess up the presenter.
An expert also believed that those strategies (practice, breathing exercise, don’t look straight at the audiences’ eyes) could reduce the anxiety level on the
students while he/she was doing an oral presentation (Daniel and Hall, 2014).
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The pace of speaking when the speaker gives a presentation also has a big role in oral presentation. According to participant A, he couldn’t avoid his problem regarding his tempo in speaking. He often speaks too fast and as a result the audience cannot understand him.
“I speak too fast and the audiences can’t understand what I am talking about”
(Participant A)
This phenomenon was also found in Rajoo (2010) study that presenters tend to speak so fast that the audience cannot understand them.
Besides sharing his problem, Participant A also shared his strategy in dealing with the pace on his speaking. The apprentice who would do the presentation must:
“the only way to overcome that problem is; I need to adjust my speaking speed when I’m speaking”
(Participant A)
As Participant A said above, the only way to overcome his problem is slowing down his pace in speaking so the audience will understand what he is saying. Pain (2014) also believed that the way the presenter gave the presentation is very important especially in pace of speaking. She also pointed out that if the presenter has problems in their speaking speed, they need to slow it down in order to make the audience understand.
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One of the participants also said that blank in the middle of presentation became one of her difficulties when speaks in front of public or do an oral presentation. She stated that she sometimes became blank when she did an oral presentation.
“for example when I’m doing a presentation I already think about what I’m going to say but once I stand in front and then I forget what I should say”
(Participant C)
Memorizing also becomes one of the students’ obstacles when they do an oral presentation. Rajoo (2010) who had done a research in investigating the students’
problem in speaking in front of public said that students often became blank in the middle or beginning of the presentation because they forgot what they would say.
To overcome the difficulty in dealing with memorizing problem, one of the participants said that the presenter ought to keep calm.
“I try to elaborate what I’ve said before and the key is that you have to keep calm so the audience wouldn’t know if you have problems in remembering your topic. So you have to keep going with it.”
(Participant C)
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itself. Auxiliary, it made the presenter more relaxed and automatically would help the presenter to remember what he would say.
Teacher expectation
One of the interviewees stated that he struggled enough on the feeling of being under pressure because of what the lecture expect about him. It is because the students was a debater and a story teller, which means that he was considered capable enough in presenting in front of a public and the lectures had already known about his skills in speaking.
“I feel that the lectures expect [sic] me to do better”
(Participant A)
Based on the finding above, the writer could conclude that Participant A agreed with a theory which was said by Gigante, Lewin, and Dell (2012) which said that most of the students were having problems in the expectation of the lecture..
A tip from Participant A to handle the problem is for the presenters to change their mindset.
“you need to change your mind set. You need to think that you are here to do the presentation for nothing to lose.”
(Participant A)
One’s mindset is very powerful. Based on the statement which was said by
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presentation. Allan (2015) argued that changing your mindset into the positive one was a good choice in dealing with the under pressure feeling. He also said that the way of presenter’s thinking affected their performance in giving an oral presentation later.
Content/ideas
Understanding the topic
Topic also plays an important role in the presentation. in regarding to this Participant E said that one of his problems in doing an oral presentation is about the topic itself whether he understands about the topic or not.
“when I have to prepare some speech usually the materials are; 1 I didn’t know the topic and then I should start from zero…”
(Participant E)
Rivers (1968) in Tuan and Mai (2015) also argued that it is difficult for the learners if the teacher gave a topic which is not familiar to the students and as a result it would make the students confused because they didn’t have enough knowledge about the topic.
When asked how to handle that problem, Participant E shared that she would look for the information about the topic from the internet
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(Participant E)
Further, she also said that this strategy was very useful. Her ideas echoes Blake’s (2013) idea, who stated that “by using Google, yahoo, MSN search, Bing or
other search engine, students can retrieve primary source information” (p. 36). Searching the information in the internet could help the students find the desired information.
Organizing the ideas
Having difficulties in organizing the ideas of the presentation also became one of the students’ problems when doing an oral presentation. It is difficult for them to
present the ideas in a good order.
“I have difficulty in what I should say first and then I got blank because my organization of my presentation is not that good and then my presentation will become disoriented [sic].”
(Participant C)
The assertion which is said by the Participant C tells us that organizing the points was not easy at all. Gibson (2014) also believed that doing a presentation is not an easy task especially in organizing the contents because it requires good presentation skills.
Based on Participant C’s experiences, she told the researcher that the students
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“I try to plan my presentation more carefully and sometimes I read my material and master my topic so I will understand about my material.”
(Participant C)
According to participant C, before doing the presentation, a presenter needs to understand the topic first and organize it carefully. This idea equals to Gibson’s
(2014) idea who argued that in dealing with the problem of organizing the presentation, the presenter should read the material carefully. As a result the presenter would be able to master the topic or the material and organize it very well which means that the presenter should divide the main body of the presentation into some logical points.
Attracting the students’ interest was difficult
One of the participants that the researcher had interviewed said that how to attract the audience to “keep on track” or keep the audiences interest so they won’t
get bored is very difficult.
“The problem is on how I can make the creative one that the audience will not get bored when I deliver the material in front of them”
(Participant B)
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spokespersons’ presentation. As a result, maintaining the audiences’ interest when the
speaker performs an oral presentation is a difficult task.
The best way to cope with the problem above, according to Participant B, is to try to be entertaining.
“I always put some jokes when I do the presentation and then they will laugh together with me, as a result they will enjoy my presentation. The other example; don’t always greet the audience with good morning or good afternoon because it is too mainstream. Try another way to open your presentation with a story or poem to attract the audience interest.”
(Participant B)
Participant B pointed out that the presenter should make some jokes or start a presentation with a story or a poem grab the audiences’ interest. By doing so, the audiences would not get bored with the presenter’ presentation and consequently it would make the presenter became more relaxed
Putting some jokes, stories, etc inside the presentation was also a good option, because it could create a comfortable situation for the audiences (Kim, 2014).
Vocabulary/grammar/pronunciation problems
Grammatical problem
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that he had a problem in constructing a question with a good structure even though he had good skills in speaking.
“It is very hard for me to construct a question with a good grammar and structure”
(Participant A)
In this case, Participant A often asks questions in order to engage the audiences to be more active in the class.
Participant B had a similar opinion to Participant A aboutlinguistic problems, saying:
“Talking about grammar/vocabulary and pronunciation, my brain should work two times harder. I mean my brain should translate it into English because I also need to adjust my grammar and vocabulary in order to make the audience understand about what I’m talking about”
(Participant B)
This finding was in line with Rajoo’s finding (2010) that making a sentence in
a good structure had become one of the students’ problems when doing an oral
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To handle the linguistic problems, Participant A and B shared the strategy they normally did. They proposed that to face the grammatical problems students need to study more about the English grammar.
“there is no other way to overcome grammar mistakes than learning the grammar. I will [sic] rather than [sic] learn the structure again because there is no other way to face your grammar errors if you are not learning the grammar itself”
(Participant A)
Participant A’s strategy is in line with Lewis (2011) by saying that to face your difficulties in structure and grammar error, studying or reading more about it was the answer.
External Factor
Time problem
The last problem which the participants had experienced was about the length of time when they do a presentation. One of the participants suffered from the time problem when she had to present in front of public. She said that sometimes the time which was set by the lecturers were not enough.
“they will give us time right? Like an hour or just half an hour, sometimes it[sic] just not enough because I have so many things that I want to talk about”
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A study by Tuan and Mai (2015) also supported the idea that the students had limited time to talk during an oral presentation. The portion of the time that was given by the lecture was limited.
Participant E provided advice to overcome time problem by saying that calculating the time well is the best strategy to deal with the time problem.
“Usually I speak in front of [sic] mirror before presenting and I use stopwatch next to me to count the time, so that I know which part of my speech which is not important and I cut it. For me this strategy is very helpful in counting the time”
(Participant E)
Calculating the time before you do a presentation is very important. This strategy can overcome the difficulty in length of time. According to Marshall (2009) in dealing with the time problem the presenter should count the time really well. She pointed out that the presenter needed to estimate the time per sub point in order to analyze which part needed to be erased.
Data Interpretation
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Abdul-Kareem, & Taqi (2015) which said that anxiety became the most difficult problem that the participants had to struggle with.
Further, the researcher also found interesting facts that each of the problems had their own strategies. The first one was structure and grammatical problems. Based on the participants, the presenter should study more about it. It is because studying or learning grammar was the best way to deal with it (Lewis, 2011). Furthermore, since anxiety became the most difficult obstacle, the participants had a lot of tips to conquer it such as: practice more, take a deep breath, and never look at the audiences’ eyes. The strategies which were said by the participants also in line with Daniel and Hall (2014) findings’ by saying that those strategies were very
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speed. Another problem was blankness. The participants said that to deal with the blankness, keep talking or elaborating when your mind goes blank was the key. Mitchell (2009) pointed out that if the participants went blank, it was better to talk anything. Dealing with the other problem which was about the material, the students must be entertaining. It was because keeping the audiences’ interest was very
important (Kim, 2014). Last but not least were about teacher expectation and time problems. Experts believed that to overcome teacher expectation, the participants should have positive mindset (Allan, 2015). Dealing with time problem, Marshall (2009) believed that the presenter should estimate the time well. The participants agree with the experts by saying that the students need to change their mindset into the positive one and have to calculate the time in order to know the time.
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CONCLUSION
Conclusion
Based on the data analysis, the writer concluded that students did face problems during an oral presentation. Those problems were categorized into several groups, namely: personal traits (speaking speed, memorizing problem, anxiety problem, and teacher expectation), contents/ideas (understanding the topic, organizing the ideas, and attracting the student’s interest),
vocabulary/language/grammar (grammatical problem), and external factors (time problem). From the problems that the participants had experienced, most of them pointed out that anxiety problem become the most challenging when doing an oral presentation.
The participants also gave some useful guidelines in facing those problems, such as studying more about grammar in order to overcome grammatical problem, looking forthe information in the internet when the students could not understand about the topic, trying to read the topic more carefully to solve problem in organizing the ideas, be entertaining so as to get the student’s interest, adjust the speed to deal
with speaking speed problem, keep talking which was very useful for memorizing problem, practice, take a deep breath, and don’t look at the audiences’ eyes in dealing
32 Suggestion
Based on the findings, the students who will do an oral presentation should try those strategies if they face similar problems. It is because all of the strategies in the previous section have been applied in their presentation which means that those strategies work well when the participants did the presentation. From the findings, the researcher also wanted to inform the teacher to be more aware in dealing with the student’s difficulties when they are speaking in front of public. The researcher hopes
that the teacher helps the students as well in order to overcome the student’s problems in doing a presentation.
This study can’t be said as a perfect study. It is because the researcher only examined one study group member in English Language Education program without observing the students while doing a presentation. As a result, it cannot measure the participants’ strategies in dealing with oral presentation accurately. For further
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First I would like to thank to God, my Jesus Christ who art in Heaven. I believe that without His blessing I cannot finish my thesis in time.
Second, I would also express my deepest thanks to my supervisor, Mrs Gita Hastuti, S.Pd., M.A. and my examiner, Mr Dian Toar Y. G. Soemakul, M.A. for their patience in reading my thesis and helping me in making my thesis become better and better.
Third, I also want to thank my parents who always cheer me up when I’m frustrated with my thesis. Not only cheering me up but also forcing me to finish my thesis immediately.
Fourth, I would like to express my gratitude to my participants. Without their willingness to be my interviewees I cannot finish my thesis.
Fifth, I want to show my deepest gratitude to my friends, Natalia Devina, Fernando Christian, Billy, and Maria Intan Permata in helping me to finish my thesis by giving me a lot of feedback.
Sixth, thanks to my friends, Chan, Lee, Yubi, Nanik, Steffi, Happy, and Rahma for always support me while I was frustrated in dealing with thesis.
34 References
Allan, P. (2015). How to calm your nervous before making a terrifying speech. Retrieved April, 15, 2016, from http://lifehacker.com/how-to-calm-your-nerves-before-making-a-terrifying-spee-1677504967
Al-Nouh, A. N., Abdul-Kareem, M. M., & Taqi, A. H. (2015).EFL college students’ perceptions of the difficulties in oral presentation as a form of assessment. International Journal of Higher Education, 4 (1), 136-150. Retrieved October
16, 2015, from
http://www.sciedu.ca/journal/index.php/ijhe/article/viewFile/6252/3746
Alshare, K., & Hindi, M. (2004). The importance of presentation skills in the classroom: students and instructors perspectives. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 19 (4), 6-15. Retrieved October 13, 2015, from http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1050233
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36 APPENDIX
Me: halo A: halo
Me: so do you have any difficulties in doing an oral presentation?
A: yes of course, actually there are some difficulties that I faced during my oral presentation if I can describe it. It could be seen into 2 factors; internal and external factors. In my internal factors some believe that those who are fluent are not very accurate. Those who are very fluent in speaking, they rather to have a bad grammar/structure and my speed in speaking because I speak too fast and the audiences can’t understand what I am talking about. Actually that is one of the problem because I do believe that I kind of fluent but when it comes on grammar or structure I’m not that good. So from my internal factor is how to construct a good grammar when I’m speaking because I’m rather not to use a good structure of grammar because I rather tend to be more fluent and somehow I feel like being oppressed by my own self because somehow I don’t feel that it is okay to speak more because I don’t want to some of my friends being oppressed by my existence for example if they are being so passive when I’m speaking too much I don’t like that it is okay for me. The external factor; it could be seen from the materials or the topic. It is because when you do really well in speaking but you don’t know what you are talking about you will be shut.
Me: do you have any problems with nervousness or anxiety?
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Me: based on those problems, what is the biggest difficulty that you faced?
A: the biggest difficulty is the structure and about the grammar. It is very hard for me to construct a question with a good grammar and structure
Me: talking about external factors, do you think that the audience also affect your performance in speaking in front of public?
A: yes, it is very affect my performance. If the audience became active when I do the presentation it will make me comfortable when I’m speak but when the audience became really passive because I feel like that I’m the one who are dominated the class and it is not the good feeling. The weather also affects my performance during my presentation; for example if I catch flu I won’t be able to present well. The time when you are presenting also affect the presentation such as when it noon you will became sleepy.
Me: how about the AVA? Does AVA affect your performance?
A: yes, actually when I’m recall my memory during my public speaking class, I put more pictures and less words. It is because I do believe that using pictures is very helpful because I can describe it more rather than putting many words in the slide. Me: how about your personal appearance? Does it also affect your performance? A: yes of course it really affects my performance. It is because when I wear a formal outfit it will motivated me to perform well. It is because I do believe that your clothes are a statement or commitment to your class. It shows that you are eager to learn or to perform well.
Me: how do you cope with your difficulties?
38 Me: what kind of practice do you use?
A: I rather to make my own statement and I read it and remember it and I try to improve my argument so I speak more and more and more. The more I speak the more I comfortable with the vocabulary. The more I practice it is like to fossilize in your mind and it really help you for sure.
Me: how about the grammar structure?
A: there is no other way to overcome grammar mistakes than learning the grammar. I rather to learn the structure again because there is no other way to face your grammar errors if you are not learning the grammar itself
Me: do you think that listen to the songs and watching some movies also help you a lot?
A: yes, it is help me a lot. When I do the presentation somehow I use the phrases which are not I learn from the class but I learn from the movies. I do believe that what you learn from the movies is like you will unconsciously pop out.
Me: you say that you also face the nervousness right? How do you cope with that? A: practice help you a lot when you are feel nervous but when it comes to the day before you are presenting I tend to make it fun and not think about my presentation. I don’t like to burden me with those kind of negative feelings so I rather to clean it up from my mind.
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A: well, you need to prepare well. In this case you need to practice, practice and practice. It is because exercise makes perfect. Second, you need to change your mind set. You need to think that you are here to do the presentation for nothing to lose. Me: I also read from the theory which said that breathing exercise help you a lot with anxiety. Do you agree with that?
A: yes of course, it is because it can comfort your mind and it will ensure your psychological feeling that you are ready to perform and make me more relax when I do the presentation
Me: how about your speed in speaking?
A: the only way to overcome that problem is; I need to adjust my speaking speed when I’m speaking.
Me: do you use any kind of notes in helping you?
A: yes but it is not very often. The way I use the notes is like I highlight the point of the sentences and I improvise my speaking based on the point that I’ve highlighted
