| Task’s description | |
| A spontaneous nonsense presentation based on a PPT that fellow students designed for each other to train useful phrases. Context: In preparation for the conference at the end of the language course trajectory where the students present their research papers, the students tend to focus mostly on the content of their research and forget about useful phrases (up’s) to structure a presentation and express causalities that are being practiced in class. In this exercise, students are asked to actively apply those up’s to a spontaneous nonsense presentation. Thereby, the importance and the usefulness of the up’s when structuring a cohesive presentation is stressed once again. And at the same time, this is a great exercise for practicing general presentation skills and spontaneous speech whilst having a good time. This exercise is inspired by the ideas of improvisation theatre techniques adjusted for Language Learning. | |
| Specific LOs (Learning Outcomes) and/or goals of the task. | |
| Sequencing the task | |
| Before the task | |
| Pre-task: Small groups create random nonsense-PPTs with a fixed number of slides. Those slides can vary in content (information, quotes, pictures, graphs …), but the content should not be coherent. The students can be as creative as they want. The more the teachers encourage the students to be creative, the more fun the whole exercise will be for everyone. All PPT’s are uploaded to a folder where the participants and the instructor can choose one. All students are handed a printed sheet of the up’s that have already been discussed during the course of the module as a little help. They have to repeat them and to choose concrete phrases to start, to structure and to finish their spontaneous presentation. | |
| During the task | |
| Task: Students practice in groups of two to give a spontaneous nonsense presentation chosen by the group partner. They do not get to look at the PPT in advance, but have to present it on the spot. Therefore, it is necessary that the student has to present a PPT that has not been created by their own group. They have to use the up´s from the list and give feedback to each other about the use of up´s and general language aspects during spontaneous speech. 2-3 rounds. At the end some students are asked to present another presentation in front of the class. Other students give feedback after the presentations. | |
| After the task | |
| Post-Task: Reflection and discussion in the class about the use and usefulness of the phrases for presentations and about the learning outcomes of this activity. | |
| Additional comments | |
| Needed: A list of phrases for presentations (different for different languages therefore not included here). It is a very funny way to practice phrases for presentations. My students loved it! | |
| *Note: If you want to add the original document with the task, please paste the link here: | |
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Spontaneous nonsense presentation – German department
- Mostly in class, Face-to-face, To remember (define, identify, label, recall, list...), Oral - presentational, Pair work, Online, Synchronous, Linguistic competence, 30-45 min, Hybrid face-to-face and online, To apply (solve, discover, demonstrate, report, relate...), Written, B2, Discourse competence, C1, Presentation
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