3. How do you prepare students to give oral presentations?
Usually I ask someone else who has done one before to present one or ask one of the other teachers if they will come in and present something so that they have a model to follow. Together in class we discuss possible topics for them to choose. That discussion usually continues over two or three days [and] they finally come out choosing a topic that they are going to do. After they have chosen their topics and they have seen the examples, I have several activities where they meet to prepare the topics and prepare to talk about it. They'll give a one-minute presentation on it to another student. They'll do a three-minute presentation on it to another student or two and get some feedback, so that by the time they are actually standing up there doing it, they've had some support and they have a couple of coaches in the crowd that remember, presumably, a little bit about the topic and can prompt them if they freeze. We also have a discussion, at one point or another, of what makes a good listener and what makes a good presenter. So we have some sort of ground rules set for ourselves before we start.
