STUDENTS' MINI LECTURES THROUGH POWERPOINT:A LEARNING STRATEGY TO IMPROVE THEIR SPEAKING AND LISTENING SKILLS

Teaching reading comprehension is the main focus and the main component of the syllabus in most general English and ESP courses of Iranian universities. In order to improve the students’speaking and listening abilities too, two years ago,my colleagues and I ,in School of Paramedicine in Tehran ,decided to require each student to give a 10-minute lecture in the English class.I have recently conducted a research to examine the effect of these lectures on improving the stdents’speaking and listening abilities.
To do this,two general English classes,whose students were majoring in physiotherapy and audiology, were selected. Both classes were taught by the same English teacher using the same syllabus and the same textbook.As usual, teaching reading comprehension was the main focus of the syllabus in both classes.However, in one class(case group), giving a 10-minute-lecture by each student through power point was included in their syllabus. In the other class(control group), no student was required to give any lecture. At the beginning of the semester ,when I started the research ,both classes were also given a set of vocabulary, reading and listening comprehension tests to determine their level of English at these skills. At the end of the semester (about four months later) ,both classes were given a similar test.Comparing the results of this test with those of the first one(using unpaired t-test) showed a greater improvement in the listening ability of the case group.