In this course, students will develop the oral presentation skills needed to present scientific and technical research findings in their specialist field. The course will be divided into two parts. In Part One of the course, students will develop the basic strategies they need for preparing and giving an effective presentation in science and engineering. First, they will learn about the importance of presentations and the problems associated with them. Next, they will learn how to design a presentation by considering issues of audience, purpose, organization, flow, and style. Then, students will learn about popular delivery strategies and slide design techniques. They will conclude the section by studying ways to improve their delivery speed, stress, intonation, and pronunciation. At the end of Part One, students are expected to design and give a short five to ten minute oral presentation related to their research interests. In Part Two of the course, students will focus on the language needed during each part of the presentation (opening, outline, background, materials/methods, results, discussion, summary, and Q&A). By analyzing the language used in a model presentation given at a real-world engineering conference, students will learn many of the common features of presentation language and develop confidence to deliver their own presentations in English. Students will also practice the target language through a series of short pair and group activities, and work toward a final presentation related to their research interests. At the end of Part Two, students are expected to design and give a five to fifteen minute presentation related to their research interests. Unlike the first presentation, this will be more detailed and will accurately reflect the type of presentation students will need to give at an academic conference.
Download a generic course syllabus here.
Specific details related to each teacher are available on the Waseda Moodle course page.
