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PBI 1102 ACADEMIC ENGLISH 1

About the course

This course aims to develop students' ability to use of English for academic purposes
in the university. The course enhances students' reading skills by teaching them how
to extract information from different parts of the text. Students are taught how to
paraphrase information from various academic texts to present their thoughts in
spoken and written forms. They are guided to produce types of writing frequently
required in university assignments using accurate citation and referencing
conventions as well as appropriate structures and language features.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to demonstrate the
following skills:

CLO 1: Identify relevant information from factual academic texts.

CLO 2: Demonstrate ability to give reasons and explanations on familiar topics.
CLO 3: Produce written texts on familiar subjects.

Student’s Responsibilities:

By enrolling in this course, you are expected to:

1. be punctual for classroom learning sessions
2. enrol and participate actively in the online course site (eLEAP)
3. download this course module and materials, and have these resources ready
for every lesson.
4. complete all required pre- and post-class readings and tasks.
5. actively contribute to class discussions in an appropriate academic manner.
6. ask informed and focused questions in class to clarify understanding.
7. avoid plagiarism or any unethical or dishonest behaviour in relation to
classwork, assignments and examinations, and accept any penalties which
follow from such behaviour.
8. respect deadlines for submission of work and accept any penalties. For work
handed in late, 3% will be deducted for each day.

All resources, materials, and information for this course are accessible online via
https://eleap.unimas.my/ for your group. Locate the course name - PBI 1102
according to your group/instructor.

If you experience any issues with accessing to the online site, please contact eLEAP
Helpdesk at [email protected].

© 2021 Faculty of Language and Communication, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

No part of this module can be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without the prior
written permission of the writers. Images and materials used in this module are taken from open
domains unless stated otherwise.
 PBI 1102: Academic English 1

LEARNING UNIT 3: SPEAKING SKILLS IN ACADEMIC CONTEXT...................................................................

Learning Objectives

PART A: Oral Presentation

 Introduction to oral presentation

 Types and functions of oral presentation

PART B: Oral Presentation in Academic Context

 Qualities of effective oral presentation

 Planning oral presentation

PART C: Facillitating Oral Presentation

 Using digital tools to aid presentation

 Delivering an engaging presentation
 Enrichment Activity

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LEARNING UNIT 3: SPEAKING SKILLS IN ACADEMIC CONTEXT

Learning Objectives
By the end of this unit, you should be able to:
 understand the features of oral presentation
 plan their own oral presentation
 demonstrate ability to give reasons and explanations via oral presentation

PART C: FACILITATING ORAL PRESENTATION

Visuals are one of vital elements in an oral presentation as it can give the
professional image to ones presentation. A presenter can entice the audience with
particular template that is related to the theme covered in a presentation to help
the audience to be more relatable. For example, if a presenter is delivering a topic
related to technology, images such as computer or ipad might be used in the
powerpoint slides.

It is found that in an informative presentation, multimedia (Powerpoint slides with

graphics and animation) increased 5% more than overheads made from slides and
16% more learning than text alone (Locker & Kaczmarek, 2012). Especially after
pandemic, more digital tools that has the same functions as Powerpoint such as
Canva, Prezi, Piktochart and many others are explored and utilised to aid
presentation in academic and business domain.

Task 1: Warming-up activity

Answer these questions individually and instructor will lead the in-class discussion.

 Have you ever use any other presentation tools to present other than
powerpoint?
 What is/are the name of the presentation tools?
 Where did you know about the presentation tools?
 How does it differ than Powerpoint presentation?
 What are qualities of good visual presentation?
 In your opinion, what about visuals that could attract the audience?
 In your opinion, what are the drawbacks of using technology as presentation aid?

1. Using digital tools to aid presentation

There are many digital tools that can be downloaded and explored online:

1) Powerpoint and Google slides

These are two of the classic slide-building apps and most popular among students
for years. Both apps are easy to navigate and convenient to be edited anytime.
PowerPoint Presentations and Google Slides allow students to create slideshow
content with transitions, animations, multiple slide layouts, and more. Being universal,
these apps can also be used in conjunction with screencasting or screen sharing to
present in a more live or interactive manner.
2) Prezi Next
Prezi Next is the new generation of Prezi, built fresh in HTML5. Prezi Next enables the
students to create their slides with groove as it can move along with the cursor,
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hence, entice imagination of the audience. Other than that, the fun template can
grab the audiences attention and avoid them getting snooze off along the
presentation. Prezi also integrates with major video conferencing apps like Google
Meet and Zoom, allowing students to present their Prezi live.
3) Canva
Canva has lots of presentation templates to choose from that come ready with
numerous slides. It is ready to use anytime and are able to be edited by anyone who
has the link too, which make it best utilised for group work. The best part is the work
can be downloaded in multiple file formats including Powerpoint.

4) Visme
Visme can create not only compelling presentations but also infographics, data
visualizations, reports, product demos and resumes. It is also complete with ready-to-
use templates, HD backgrounds and professionally designed layouts, which give
users a breather from the all-too-familiar PowerPoint themes. Visme is also great for
group work as members can leave comments for improvement and collaborate in
real time.

5) Slidebeans

Slidebean has recreated pitch decks from few big-name startups and offers them as
ready-to-use templates. Students can reuse and modify few features according to
their content. An advantage using this apps is that students can use the chat
feature to communicate with others. Also, anyone can personalised or curate their
own colour palettes for the slides.

Using presentation aids

 Presentation decks contain relevant, contextualized and concise information
that are enhance by visually attractive graphics and images. Presentation
decks can be in the form of a slide-show presentation, infographic poster or
videos. Presentation decks enable the presenter to highlight significant
information and gauge the audience’s attention.

Check out this link for

more examples on
presentation
decks:https://venngage.c
om/blog/best-pitch-
decks/

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 Limit the amount of information on a visual. Use 35 word or less in seven lines or
less; use simple graphs, not complex ones.
 Incorporate gif, images, charts, numbers, colours to focus on important points
and to sustain your audience’s attention.
 Use different font for headers or sub-headers.
 Highlights on the keywords that you want your audience to pay attention to.
 Ensure the font used is clear and big enough to be seen by everyone in the
room.
 Use infographic, number or chart to emphasize facts.

2. Delivering an engaging presentation

Demonstrating a presentation is like performing. After days of preparing, planning,

researching and practicing, finally it is the time to perform. A good presentation will
resonates and enable the audience to have key takeaways that could benefit them
and others. There are few techniques that could help in delivering an engaging
presentation:

1) Attention grabber

i. Question technique To initiate an engagement with your audience, you

can start probing questions. Make sure you pause
before using a question to allow the audience a
chance to let it sink in. Excellent rhetorical questions
will help your audience to feel involve and interested
to the topic.
ii. Story technique Sharing stories with your audience may trigger the
feeling of empathy and can be use as a tool to
synchronised your emotion to your audience which
resulted in feeling more connected. You may share
stories about someone who inspire you, your
childhood or anything that is relatable to the
audience.
iii. Jokes technique This technique warms up the audience faster than the
others. However, not everyone is bless with good
sense of humour. This will help the audience feel more
relax and willing to share their ideas or responses
instantly.
iv. Quotation technique Quoting a famous person is an easy way to borrow
a little of their power, especially if it’s someone
respected and loved by audience. Quotation could
be use as a starter or a closure to a speech.
v. Visualization technique You may ask your audience to close their eyes and
stimulate their imagination by describing a scene in
vivid detail or ask them to remember a particular
memory and recall what they saw, smelled, heard
and felt. This technique can get the audience to feel
more involve to your speech and create a more
lasting impression.
vi. Intriguing facts Facts such as astonishing statistic, interesting
infographic, and fascinating fact will catch the
audience’s attention. You can include both local

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which is closer to the heart and global facts that

could add up to their knowledge when delivering
speech.
vii. Personal experience Building a bridge with the audience is important and
one of the way is to get your story personalised. This
technique will let the audience to get to know more
about the speaker and find connection. The
technique works reciprocal which the speaker will be
able to know more about his audience too when
relating the speech title or issue to them, that is then
relevant to both parties.
viii. Analogy This technique involves likening the topic of subject to
a more understandable frame of reference that the
audience can understand. For example taken from a
movie called Forest Gump, "life is like a box of
chocolates—you never know what you're gonna get."

2) Sustaining the audience’s attention

A signpost is a verbal statement or visual cue used by the speaker to guide or

engage the audience while bringing them through the various stages of a speech or
presentation. This is important to ensure that the speech flows coherent and
cohesively. These are types of signposting:

i. Single words signposting : Initially, firstly, however, moreover and etc.

ii. Short phrases signposting : In addition, in conclusion, in contrast and etc.
iii. Whole sentence/Long phrases signposting : having discussed the liability of the
research, I want to leave you with the following thoughts, this report will next
address its validity, etc.

How to use signpost effectively?

 Moving to a new point “Now, let’s move on to point number 3, where we will
be discussing…”

“Moving on to the next point”

“Now that we have discussed…, I would like to talk

about…”

 Going into more detail “To be more precise….”

“Expanding on that point…”

“If I were to explain in detail….”

 Introducing an “However, …”
alternative
“In contrast, …”

“Alternatively, …”

 Changing a topic “Now, let us turn to something entirely different…”

entirely
“Now, forget about it and let’s change our view…”

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 Give example “For example/for instance…”

“To prove this point…”

 Going back to “Remember when I said…”
previous point
“Let’s go back to the story where I…”

“Going back to the time when…”

 To conclude “As I conclude…”

“In conclusion…”

“To close this off…”

“From this, it could be concluded that…”

“In closing, let me say…”

3) Summarizing a presentation

A strong conclusion will leave a good impression to your audience. It is also the very
last chance for your to convince your audience. These are the steps that you can
do to close your speech.

 A restatement of the problem/main “I’d like to sum up/summarize…”

idea
“Before I end my presentation, these are
the points which I have highlighted”

 A summary of the main points “In conclusion, I’d like to emphasize

that…”

“So to recap, there are”

 A strong ending “I’d be happy to answer any question”

“Questions are welcome”

“Thank you so much for your attention;

the floor is now open for suggestions,
comments or questions…”

Last but not least, rehearse, rehearse and rehearse. Time yourself if necessary
especially with allocated time given. Also, proofread your slides for spelling errors,
grammar mistakes and good structure.

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 PBI 1102: Academic English 1

Task 1

Fill in the blanks with the correct technique of attention grabber according to
examples given.

i. “Finding the correct job ls like finding the correct pair

of shoes, you know when you have found a perfect
fit.”
ii. “Close your eyes. Imagine that you are alone in a
dessert. Focus on the sound of sand touches with the
wind…”
iii. Steve Jobs once mentioned ‘innovation distinguishes
between a follower and a leader”…..
iv. ‘Men check themselves out in a mirror more often
than women. A British study found that an average
man looks in the mirror 23 times per day, while women
do it only 16 times per day”
v. “Ladies and gentlemen, do you agree that
community service in school should be made
compulsory?’

Task 2

Put these phrases in the right places.

Basically, I have three things to say… That’s all I have to say about…

To put it more simply… Let’s consider this in more details…

Finally, let me remind you of some of the The significance of these is…
issue that we have covered…

Now, we’ll move on to… My topic for today is…

To illustrate this point,… So, I will conclude the presentation

briefly by saying that…

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Enrichment activities

1) Now that your have plan your presentation in previous task Module 3 (Part B,
page 7), use the title below and polish your draft with suitable attention grabber,
signpostings and summarising techniques.

 Being an influencer is a sustainable career.

 School uniform should be banned.
 Should smoking be banned in Malaysia?
 Social media is the main reason for depression.

You may use the blank space provided to write your draft.

2) Create a simple presentation slides (1-3 slides) by using any of the digital tools for
presentation aids (Prezi Next, Canva, Powerpoint presentation and others) to present
to your audience later. It could be in form of infographic as well. The task can be
done individually or in groups.

3) Now that you have your slides and content, create a short video of yourself or in
group presenting your points. All the best!