Purposes of student presentations
There are many reasons why students are asked to give presentations and these will be influenced by your academic course and situational and organizational factors.
Student presentations may be given for the purposes of:
• Advocacy/persuasion
• Training
• Teaching and learning
• Informing
• Assessment
第一个目的：
倡议或说服 Advocacy/persuasion
说服听众采取行动
This presentation usually involves persuading members of the audience to take some action or make a decision. Examples could include:
• support a cause
• join a student society
• vote for an individual to take up a role on a committee
• buy a product or service
• choose the best candidate for the job
提供相关事实的内容
This type of presentation will need a combination of relevant factual content delivered ina convincing and confident style.
语言简洁明了
You will need to communicate clearly and succinctly.
调动和处理情绪反应
Some emotions such as enthusiasm or passion may be used in your delivery if you think this is appropriate, but you need to make sure that you do not embarrass yourself or the audience. You may also have to deal with some emotional reactions from the audience such as anger or ridicule. You will need to give a confident performance and deal effectively with their comments, manage the crowd and limit any negative reactions.
控场
As with all types of presentations it is crucial to keep control, especially when there are contributions and responses from the audience.
第二个目的：
培训 Training
为观众展示使用某种设备的技术
This type of presentation includes examples where students may demonstrate their skills in the use of equipment and also their skills as a trainer or teacher. These types of presentations may be used to practise, demonstrate and eventually assess the level of these skills and techniques. Examples include:
• Demonstrating the use of a piece of equipment
• Demonstrating a medical procedure
• Training someone in the use of a software package
• Training a novice to use a piece of first aid equipment
• Demonstrating your communication skills as a trainer
• Demonstrating professional practice such as an interview technique, counselling skills
or classroom management techniques.
在演讲中熟悉各种操作流程，为实际运用打下基础
In many vocational and professional courses, students have to learn the skills to use a range of equipment to demonstrate their communication skills.
Presentations can also be used on these courses as opportunities for practice and rehearsal before the student is formally assessed and expected to perform in real life situations such as during their placements or probationary periods in employment.
If you can think of presentations as opportunities for your own development, they may seem less daunting to you and indeed, this approach may help you to gain more benefit from preparing and delivering your presentations.
即时反馈促进进步
Immediate feedback can be an integral part of this type of presentation especially on the occasions when no formal assessment is given.
The tutor may interrupt the session toask for clarification or suggest an improvement that could be rehearsed several times until the student becomes more confident.
Members of the audience may suggest ideasand changes for improvement. Role playing may be used so that students explore the skill or issue
from a range of perspectives, then share ideas in a plenary session.
第三个目的：
教育和学习 Teaching and learning
对特定领域更深的理解
Almost all presentations should have some elements of teaching and learning as part of their purpose. However for the purposes of this book it is useful to explore this as a specific purpose and to do this we have chosen a few examples where presentations are used for:
• Developing a deeper understanding of a topic or text
• Covering specific areas of the curriculum in more detail
• Explaining an experiment or cooking process
• Inviting a visiting expert to speak on a given topic
演讲内容要集中于所涉及的领域
The content of this presentation is usually focused on a topic area relevant to a course or module being studied. This may involve new research and knowledge that extends how the topic has previously been taught by the tutors. It may also involve ‘repackaging’ knowledge already covered or further exploration of the topic by looking at different perspectives.
以全球化为例
An example of this could be where a group of students are asked to
present on the topic ‘Globalization’ from the different perspectives of a farmer in a
developing country, a small manufacturing organization in England and a multinational
organization that has offices on four continents. Sometimes, these types of student presentations
are used to explore areas of a curriculum in greater detail than has been covered
in lectures. This helps the presenters to develop deeper knowledge and the
audience to broaden their understanding of the topic and may be the reason why the
academic has included presentations in the module.
第四个目的：
通知 Informing
描述新政策，设定规章制度，呈现研究报告。
In some circumstances this could be seen as similar to teaching but the aim of this type
of presentation could be to communicate as much information as possible in the time
available. The purpose of the presentation may be to:
• Describe a new policy
• Outline a set of instructions
• Give a progress report on some research or development
This type of presentation is used in many organizations where students or employees are
expected to report progress at key stages of a project. It provides evidence of ongoing work
and can be used as a subtle measure of control where individuals work to meet deadlines
set for the submission dates for these progress reports. Many employers expect academic
courses to have provided opportunities for students to develop their presentation skills so
that they could communicate effectively in the organizational environment.
For a student situation, a Viva could have this purpose where the function is to present
your research aims and results then answer questions from the audience.
第五个目的：
评估 Assessment
演讲当做评估学生的手段
Student presentations are frequently assessed and may be awarded a percentage of the
marks that contribute to the overall module mark and credits. However, some presentations
may not be assessed but used as an opportunity for students to practise and further develop
their presentation skills, without the anxiety of earning marks for the quality of their
performance.
演讲当做评估学生的手段的缺陷
There is a tension here for students, as most presentations need quite a lot of
preparation time. This time may only be seen as worthwhile if it earns marks towards the
completion of a unit or module of study. Equally, it can influence students to withdraw from
non-assessed presentations or use a minimum of effort for such events, seeing them as less
important for their learning and achievement. This focus on marks earned, rather than experiencegained, may influence some tutors to only use assessed presentations.
演讲当做评估学生的手段的优点
Use of assessment can have a positive advantage. For some students, presentations
offer opportunities to earn a higher proportion of marks than they might achieve for the
written part of their assessment. They may be better communicators and presenters in
their use of speech, visuals or technology than in a written mode. These students may
feel they need this book less for the general ideas about presentation skills but can use
it more for the suggestions about content development.
