Why use presentations in the EFL classroom?

Using presentations in the EFL classroom is an appealing way of teaching new contents or recycling previous knowledge. You can use presentations at different moments in the lesson to serve a variety of purposes. The design of the presentation will vary according to the audience (secondary, primary students), the purpose you have in mind (promoting discussion, explaining grammatical constructions, playing a game) and how your audience is going to get in contact with it (with a projector as a class, each person in their netbooks, at school, at home).

I would like to show you two very interesting applications to bear in mind when it comes to designing material to work with in class using technology.

The first one is the so well-known PowerPoint presentation. It is a presentation program developed by Microsoft in 1990. PowerPoint presentations consist of a number of individual slides, which may contain text, graphics, and sound. The presentation can be printed or displayed live on a computer. PowerPoint provides numerous features that offer flexibility and the ability to create a professional presentation. For instance, we can create a presentation that includes music which plays throughout the entire presentation or sound effects for particular slides. The ease of use of PowerPoint presentations can save a lot of time for people who otherwise would have used other types of visual aid, as blackboards or overhead projections.

The second one is Prezi. It is a U.S. software company, producing a cloud-based presentation software and storytelling tool for presenting ideas on a virtual canvas. The product employs a Zooming User Interface, which allows users to zoom in and out of their presentation media. Prezi was officially established in 2009.  It can be used by teachers and students to collaborate on presentations with multiple users having access and the ability to edit the same presentation. What is more, it allows students to present their works according to different learning styles.

Now, I want to share with you two presentations I have designed using PowerPoint and Prezi. Concerning the first presentation, it was part of the subject ECO II in the English Teaching Program 2013. We were asked to create a presentation using the technology available and following a book’s unit. Our unit was called “Cappuccino and Chips”. We had to deal with the Simple Present, so we thought of presenting students with an interview carried out by an English boy. Students were asked to build the questions to the answers provided by the boy. Through this interview, they learnt how an English boy the same age they are live every day. 

This is my PowerPoint Presentation. Watch it here:

Eco's presentation ISPB Santa Fe from Sofi Gaite

The second presentation is part of the final exam of EDI I 2013. The topic I chose to talk about was “Ballet in the 20th century in Argentina and the USA”. Of course the level was much higher this time, as I had to inform my findings to teachers of English.

This is my prezi presentation. Watch it here: