«Помогаем учащимся представить письменную работу с элементами исследования в устной форме»

“Assisting Your Students: Adapt Research Paper into a Speech”

If a teacher wants to assist students in adapting research paper into a speech, he/she should remember about student’s interests in choosing the topic, the audience, and the ways of preparation for effective speech presentation.

«Помогаем учащимся представить письменную работу с элементами исследования в устной форме»

Как помочь учащемуся представить письменную работу с элементами исследования в устной форме? Нужно взять во внимание интересы ученика в выборе темы, аудиторию и способы подготовки для успешной устной презентации.

Key words: research paper, speech, project,

Ключевые слова: исследовательская работа, устная речь, проект

Sources of information:

http://www.cpalms.org/Public/PreviewResourceLesson/Preview/35636

Nguyen Thao My, “Bilingualism in Children: Facts and Fiction”, International School of Tomorrow, 2016

Assisting Your Students: Adapt Research Paper into a Speech

As a teacher of English, I have been working with bilingual high school students for 14 years. In this article, I would like to share with my colleagues how to help students to adapt research paper into a speech.

At the beginning, teachers have to come up with Project Regulations that will include main requirements. These requirements should be approved at the methodological council meeting by staff and introduced to the students. Let me provide a quote from this document developed in our school:

“The goal of the project is to give a student the opportunity to demonstrate his/her abilities in argumentation his point of view and analyzing the data base.

During project preparation, the teacher functions as an independent consultant realizing methodical and didactic goals.

The didactic goal is to mold the competency in the cognitive activity sphere, critical thinking, and to acquire the skills of self-independent research activity of the students.

The methodical goal is to acquire pronunciation skills on the topic, stimulate the student interest toward the social life in Russia and other countries, raise the respectful attitude toward the world culture, teach to use the PowerPoint program, and to convey the thoughts effectively.

During the methodological council meeting, the administration appoints each student a teacher for assisting in preparation of the project. During the academic year, the students choose the necessary information from different sources, systemize and interpret it following the language rules. Once during two weeks, the students give an account on the accomplished work to the teacher in charge. Once a quarter the students make oral reports in the Learning Centers.

It is allotted 7-10 minutes to defend the project. During this time, a student has to introduce briefly the goals of the project, its idea, main problems given in the topic, project results. He also has to make conclusions with giving his arguments, and answer questions on the topic.

The following scheme of performance is recommended for the students:

1. Greet the audience

2. Inform about the project tasks and the plan of the performance

3. Inform about the main content of the project and the most interesting results.

4. Make the main conclusions on the chosen topic.

5. Give thanks to the audience and invite to discuss the project.

The results of the project are evaluated …”

Teachers may add any regulations to this document for its effective functioning.

It is vital to help students choose the topic for the project, which would be appropriate for both a student and the audience. Brainstorming is a helpful tool:

Who is my audience? What is the purpose for my speech? What might my audience already know about my topic? What information from my research would probably be new, fresh information for my audience? When adapting my research paper into a speech, what information might I have to add to my speech because of my audience? When adapting my research paper into a speech, what information might I want to leave out? What strategies could I use to open and close my speech in an interesting or attention getting way?

As a project assistant, I worked with Nguyen Thao My from Vietnam who graduated in 2016. She chose the topic that seemed rather interesting for both her as a bilingual student and our audience - teachers and high school students - as bilinguals. The topic is “Bilingualism in Children: Facts and Fiction”. This is the introduction that My used for her project:

“All those reports we made in the past gave us an excellent background in researching facts, but now we understand that a research paper is much more than a collection of facts. Unlike a report, a research paper does not just describe something. It compares, persuades, or analyzes. Therefore, my research paper includes not only factual research from a wide variety of sources, but also our interpretation of that research. This interpretation is a key element of the true research paper.

The purposes of my work are:

1. Scrutinize closely a given topic.

2. Analyze the ways of acquiring bilingualism both by teachers and by students of our school.

3. Acquaint the audience with the myths about bilingualism and present the evidence of their failure.

4. Find out the benefits of bilingualism.

Since our school teaches all subjects in English and in Russian to students from all over the world, the word “bilingual” or “bilingualism” should sound familiar to many of us. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word “bilingualism” means using two languages in some proportion in order to facilitate learning by students who have a native proficiency in one language and are acquiring proficiency in the other. Because bilingualism is a broad subject, I am going to focus on bilingualism in children. The main topics I am planning to touch in my work are presented in the outline.

OUTLINE

I. The facts: what we know about bilingualism

II. Benefits of bilingualism

III. How children learn more than one language

IV. Fiction: some myths about bilingualism

V. How to support a bilingual child …”

After defining the topic and main purposes in a written form, a student presents his/her introduction in a PowerPoint form in the class. Thus, the audience is established, which gives a chance to practice student’s speaking skills. Most modern students are very proficient in utilizing Microsoft PowerPoint software to create a digital media presentation. Furthermore, we teachers can acquire any new IT techniques from them, which makes our mutual work beneficial. During presentation, a teacher provides a specific time allotment for each speech, to adjust their pacing or even their content in order to fit their speech into the time provided and encourages students to continue practicing their speeches at home for family or friends. They can also practice in front of a mirror or record themselves delivering their speech in order to check their volume, pronunciation, pacing, and inflection.

This practice helps produce a clear and well-organized speech based on the teacher's assigned task, purpose, and audience. Moreover, it adapts their research paper into a speech helping to use appropriate language, word choice, and details with the purpose and audience in mind.

The preparation has a cyclic structure: after the introduction part both in written and in oral form, the cycle repeats itself. Next steps will include main part and conclusion part.

Since such a project is called research, we teachers should be cautious in suggesting students choose their topics. Any survey produced by a student on a suggested topic as an integral part of a research paper would be effective and interesting if conducted among his/her peers, family members, and teachers.

In her topic “Bilingualism in Children: Facts and Fiction”, Nguyen Thao My prepared the following questions for making a survey among bilingual students, parents, and teachers. The results of these surveys Nguyen Thao My presented in graphs that served as visual aids in introducing her speech:

“In my school, students take two programs, which means that they are bilinguals. I made a survey including the following questions:

1) How did you start learning English?

a. Simultaneous Acquisition (learning two languages simultaneously)

b. Sequential Acquisition (a second language is introduced after the first language is well established; generally after the age of three)

2) Did you start studying English..?

a. In your country

b. Abroad

3) Where did you start learning English?

a. At school

b. At kindergarten

c. At home with a tutor

d. With your parents

e. Others

4) Do you have any trouble speaking both languages (talking both languages at once)?

a. Yes, especially when I switch languages

b. No, I speak both languages well

Nguyen Thao My also describes academic benefits speaking about the exams that students of her school take:

“Some studies have found that students who learn foreign languages score statistically higher on standardized college entrance exams than those who do not. For example, the College Board reported that students who had averaged four or more years of foreign language study scored higher on the verbal section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) than those who had studied four or more years of any other subject. These findings suggest that studying a second language for a number of years may contribute to higher SAT scores. If you want a high score in SAT, you had better start learning a new language.

My school International School of Tomorrow is also involved in administering SAT to the students.

The chart below shows our school results for the years 2009-2012.

International School of Tomorrow (bilinguals)

Average SAT Scores in USA (native speakers)

The chart below provides national average SAT scores for the years 2008-2012

Comparative chart: native speakers vs. bilinguals

To conclude, the scores do not show a tremendous difference taking into consideration the number of students in International School of Tomorrow and in USA who participated in the exam.

To say a word of encouragement to our school, let me show the results of our school Honors Diploma students and average national scores in USA this academic year.

The chart above proved bilinguals (honors) outperformed and achieved better than monolinguals...”

As you can see, making a comparative analysis is an effective way to attract your audience attention.

Any written research paper as well as its oral presentation should have a conclusion. Before making a conclusion, a student should carefully read an introduction. Those two always relate to each other. This is the conclusion, which Nguyen Thao My used in her work “Bilingualism in Children: Facts and Fiction”:

“After scrutinizing the topic, I analyzed the ways of acquiring bilingualism both by teachers and by students of our school. Although they acquire the second language differently, they receive the same benefits.

My research indicates that bilingualism is important in our lives and society because of the following benefits:

- Express yourself in alternative ways for a deeper understanding of different cultures

- Promote an understanding variety of cultures within your country

- Distinguish facts and fictions about bilingualism to help the future generation

Therefore, I encourage you to learn as many languages as you can…”

To conclude, if a teacher wants to assist students in adapting research paper into a speech, he/she should remember about student’s interests in choosing the topic, the audience, and the ways of preparation for effective speech presentation.

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