Developing 11th grade students’ oral presentation skill through project-Based learning: A case at a mountainous high school

n 
skills as most of them reached levels 3 and four at content skills. Students present 
Number of sts 
49 
information in logical, interesting sequence which audience can follow. Presentation has 
fewer grammatical errors. As for nonverbal skills, students showed great development in 
using eye contact, body language and poise; many students reached level 3 and 4. They 
achieved this because of practice and training. They liked and enjoyed learning them very 
much. They felt more confident. They said that they are more able to covey their 
message. As for verbal skills, students improved their levels at showing enthusiasm for 
the subject they speak about. Students did not achieve the same average of development 
with elocution. The whole group did not show the same average of development. Twelve 
students did not change their levels. Six students were still at level 3 and 6 students were 
at level 2 without evident development. A student improved from level 1 to level 3. Three 
students improved from level 2 to level 3. Four students improved from level 3 to level 4. 
On the contrary, the presentation group showed quite change. A student improved from 
level 1 to level 3. Two students improved from level 2 to level 3. Four students improved 
from level 3 to level 4, but four students were still at level 3 without change. 
They experienced the necessity to integrate the English four skills. They now seek 
for the way to improve their language as one unit not only reading and writing. 
Based on the results and discussion, the following actions are suggested 
• Oral presentation should be considered in the final evaluation. Students can be tested by 
three or four teachers according to a rubric. Authentic or performance assessment is 
highly recommended for assessing deep and real learning. 
• Teachers should prepare their students for the exam by doing presentation projects 
throughout the school year. 
• Teachers should be trained to use PBL 
• Although there are specified periods for both listening and speaking, they are neglected. 
These periods should be taught in the light of the oral communication skills rubric the 
student will be tested according it later. 
• Both teachers and students should use modern technology (computer, smart board, 
tablets and mobile phones) to listen to native English speakers and to improve oral 
communication skills especially pronunciation skills. 
• Course books editors should afford some of the period's time for teachers to prepare 
some exercises related to his/her students' levels. By this, a teacher can correct their 
errors and improve their weakness. 
50 
Chapter 5 
CONCLUSION 
5.1. Summary of major findings 
The investigation carried out thought this study has attempted to confirm the 
hypothesis: if students do so much presentations in oral expression through Project based 
Learning within classroom then, their oral presentation skill will improve. Our research 
mainly examined the 11th grade students’ attitudes towards The PBL and the use of the 
PBL to develop students’ oral presentations. 
In the theoretical study, we had looked two different variables: oral presentations, 
and the PBL, we highlighted first the importance of students’ oral presentations in 
teaching English. In addition, we focused on the PBL as essential for mastering any 
language. 
To examine those theoretical beliefs, we have conducted three types of data 
gathering tools, questionnaires has been administrated to the 11th grade students at Do 
Luong 3 upper secondary school, students’ oral performance and classroom observation. 
Based on the data obtained from questionnaire, observation, we resulted the following: 
students and teachers were actually have a highly positive attitudes in their beliefs about 
benefits and usefulness of doing oral presentations. In particular, they did agree that 
doing oral presentations through the PBL helps to learn English better and practice 
speaking skill. Although, many students believed that making oral presentations was easy 
to them, some others found it difficult. In addition, we notice that the majority of the 11th 
grade students have many problems that prevented them to give an oral presentation and 
improved their proficiency level. First, students need to build a self-confidence and self-
esteem in their abilities, they need to improve their pronunciation by learn how to 
pronounce the phonetic symbols correctly. In addition, fear of making mistakes and fear 
of public speaking are observable. Secondly, students did not know how to prepare an 
effective oral presentation, what steps are included in presenting topics, and how to use 
visual aids. Thirdly, students need to improve the use of body language including facial 
expressions, gestures, and eye contact. Finally, yet importantly teachers need to give 
more feedback to some aspects of students’ oral presentations such as: grammatical 
mistakes, pronunciation mistakes and how to organize the content of presentation. 
Moreover, the observation checklists show that students did not be willing to ask 
51 
questions after presentations; they have just listened and avoiding asked questions or 
given comments. 
Research results show that doing an oral presentation through the PBL is an 
effective activity and students have positive attitudes towards using it as a learning 
activity. Therefore, based on the findings teachers’ and students’ responses, we hope that 
the suggestions and recommendations proposed in this work will be helpful and useful 
for raising teachers’ awareness about the importance of students’ oral presentation 
through the PBL as a speaking activity with their EFL classes 
- Students should make a clear outline of their presentation before delivering it. 
They should practice a lot at home before coming to class. 
- Students make a lot of grammatical mistakes and pronunciation ones; we suggest 
that teacher can give his/ her students activities to help them improve their linguistic skill. 
- Students should check words’ phonetic spelling before deliver their presentation. 
- Teacher should try to deal with students’ fear of making mistakes by encourage 
them to speak. This will lead them build a self-confidence in their speaking. In addition, 
when students have confidence in their abilities, they will not be afraid to speak in public. 
- Students’ actually do not know how to use body language (eyes contact, 
gestures, and facial expression) which is necessary for an effective talk. Therefore, the 
teacher can help his/ her students to improving these aspects of performance by giving 
them more practice. 
- It is important for teacher to teach his/ her students how to be a good audience 
member, how to respond to the speaker by encourage them to ask questions and give 
comments. 
- Assessment of oral presentation can be present a challenges in students’ 
production. 
- Teacher should leave space for questions and comments. 
- Teacher can encourage his/ her students to practice and motivate them to speak 
in order to avoid their fear of making mistakes. 
- Teacher can try to establish a supportive environment for his/ her students. 
To conclude, oral presentations through the PBL are very useful for students’ 
English learning; this approach can apply to the students of all levels to help them 
improve their presentation skills. Students’ oral presentation if well prepared, organized, 
52 
and delivered will give students’ confidence to speak in public and will be beneficial to 
them in their future work. 
5.2. Limitations of the study 
Although the research has offered some helpful findings, it has also shown some 
unavoidable mistakes due to the researcher’s limitation of experience and knowledge. 
 Firstly, the study aims to investigate the students’ attitudes toward PBL and the 
effectiveness of using PBL in teaching and learning oral presentation skill for 11th graders 
at Do Luong 3 high school, but the participants of the survey were limited. So the results 
may not reflect fully the whole situation of learning and teaching oral presentation skill. 
 Secondly, the questionnaires may not cover all used by teachers, which leads to 
less reliable results. 
 Then, the results of research only collected and analyzed from questionnaires, 
class observation and it is absent of discussion which might be incomplete. 
Finally, this study only focuses on the teaching of English oral presentation skill 
to the students at Do luong 3 high school, the author does not have more chance to deal 
with other three skills in language teaching: Listening, Reading and Writing. In spite of 
the unavoidable limitation, the author believes that this study will be beneficial to the 
teaching of English oral presentation skill to the students of the 11th grade in particular and 
all students at Do luong 3 high school in general. 
5.3. Suggestions for further studies 
This study only focuses on problems encountered in teaching of English oral 
presentation skill to the students of the 11th grade at Do luong 3 high School and suggests 
some communicative activities in order to motivate students to speak English. The study only 
mentions a small theme related to the teaching and learning of oral presentation skill. 
There are some suggestions for further researches at Do luong 3 high school in particular as 
well as at other high schools in general: 
Firstly, there should be more researches into designing communicative activities 
that help both teachers and students have more advantages in applying and practising 
them more effectively. 
Secondly, oral presentation is a technique of speaking. Both speaking and listening 
are crucial skills that the learners need to marster well to take part in communication. 
53 
There should be a study on problems encountered and solutions in teaching listening skill 
at upper secondary school. 
Finally, the researcher also hopes to have more chances to cooperate with other 
colleagues to combine and compile some more supplementary materials that are useful 
for students when dealing with projects in oral presentation. 
 In summary, the author hopes that the further studies will overcome all the 
existing limitations of this study and help to improve the quality of English teaching and 
learning at Do Luong high schools in particular and at other schools in Nghe An province 
in general. 
1 
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3 
APPENDICES 
Appendix A: Students’ Questionnaire 
The purpose of this questionaire is to provide information for my research entitled 
“ Developing 11th grade students’ oral presentation skill through project based learning: a 
case at a mountainous high school”. Your assistance in completing the items is greatly 
appreciated. I guarantee that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data. 
* Please tick (√) where appropriate or write briefly where necessary 
1- Are you satisfied with using PBL to teach English ? 
A. agree B. partly agree C. disagree 
2- Do you feel that you are able to use PBL strategy to make oral presentation inside 
classroom ? 
A. agree B. partly agree C. disagree 
3- Do you feel motivated after using PBL inside your classroom ? 
A. agree B. partly agree C. disagree 
4- Did using PBL strategy help you to collect information in new and different ways 
rather than usual and traditional ones ? 
A. agree B. partly agree C. disagree 
5- Did using PBL strategy help you to use information in new and different ways rather 
than usual and traditional ones ? 
A. agree B. partly agree C. disagree 
6- Do you feel that using PBL helps you overcome the fear of making mistakes ? 
A. agree B. partly agree C. disagree 
7- Do you want to include your project in your monthly evaluation ? 
A. agree B. partly agree C. disagree 
8- Do you want to use PBL strategy to learn other subjects ? 
A. agree B. partly agree C. disagree 
4 
 Appendix B: Oral Presentation Rubric 
 Oral Presentation Rubric 
 LEVEL 4 3 2 1 
NONVERBAL 
SKILLS 
EYE 
CONTACT 
Holds attention 
of entire 
audience with 
the use of direct 
eye contact, 
seldom looking 
at notes. 
Consistent use 
of direct eye 
contact with 
audience, but 
still returns to 
notes. 
Displayed 
minimal eye 
contact with 
audience, 
while reading 
mostly from 
the notes. 
No eye 
contact with 
audience, as 
entire report 
is read from 
notes. 
BODY 
LANGUAGE 
Movements 
seem fluid and 
help the 
audience 
visualize 
Made 
movements or 
gestures that 
enhances 
articulation. 
Very little 
movement or 
descriptive 
gestures. 
No 
movement 
or 
descriptive 
gestures. 
POISE 
Student 
displays 
relaxed, self-
confident nature 
about self, with 
no mistakes 
Makes minor 
mistakes, but 
quickly 
recovers from 
them; displays 
little or no 
tension. 
Displays mild 
tension; has 
trouble 
recovering 
from 
mistakes. 
Tension and 
nervousness 
is obvious; 
has trouble 
recovering 
from 
mistakes. 
VERBAL 
SKILLS 
ENTHUSIASM 
Demonstrates a 
strong, positive 
feeling about 
topic during 
entire 
presentation 
Occasionally 
shows positive 
feelings about 
topic. 
Shows some 
negativity 
toward topic 
presented. 
Shows 
absolutely 
no interest 
in topic 
presented. 
5 
ELOCUTION 
Student uses a 
clear voice and 
correct, precise 
pronunciation 
of terms so that 
all audience 
members can 
hear 
presentation. 
Student’s voice 
is clear. Student 
pronounces 
most words 
correctly. Most 
audience 
members can 
hear 
presentation. 
Student’s 
voice is low. 
Student 
incorrectly 
pronounces 
terms. 
Audience 
members 
have 
difficulty 
hearing 
presentation. 
Student 
mumbles, 
incorrectly 
pronounces 
terms, and 
speaks too 
quietly for a 
majority of 
students to 
hear. 
CONTENT 
SUBJECT 
KNOWLEDGE 
Student 
demonstrates 
full knowledge 
by answering 
all class 
questions with 
explanations 
and elaboration. 
Student is at 
ease with 
expected 
answers to all 
questions, 
without 
elaboration. 
Student is 
uncomfortabl
e with 
information 
and is able to 
answer only 
rudimentary 
questions. 
Student does 
not have 
grasp of 
information; 
student 
cannot 
answer 
questions 
about 
subject 
ORGANIZATI
ON 
Student 
presents 
information in 
logical, 
interesting 
sequence which 
audience can 
follow 
Student 
presents 
information in 
logical 
sequence which 
audience can 
follow 
Audience has 
difficulty 
following 
presentation 
because 
student jumps 
around. 
Audience 
cannot 
understand 
presentation 
because 
there is no 
sequence of 
information 
 Presentation has Presentation has Presentation Student’s 
6 
MECHANICS no misspellings 
or grammatical 
errors 
no more than 
two 
misspellings 
and/or 
grammatical 
errors 
has three 
misspellings 
and/or 
grammatical 
errors. 
presentation 
has four or 
more 
spelling 
and/or 
grammatical 
errors