Abstract:

Business English teachers and students often grapple with many practical constraints, such as lack of classroom time or inability of the students to attend classes consistently due to conflicts with their work schedules. Many technological solutions are available to give students direct feedback without having to use classroom time to make that feedback meaningful. This project utilizes available technology to help students improve their oral presentation skills. While designed for a Business English class, the project can easily be adapted for any class on presentations. Often when giving feedback on presentations, teachers include written or audio comments with videos of their students’ presentations uploaded on free video platforms like YouTube or Vimeo. However, by integrating video platforms with screen capture, instructors can create one master presentation for each student, which incorporates the teacher’s recorded audio feedback and annotations, along with the video of the student’s performance. Teachers also have the ability to rewind, pause, and replay as they discuss selected areas of the presentation. Screen capture allows teachers to provide relevant feedback in the moment, which ties directly to what the students are watching. Furthermore, students are better able to concentrate on the targeted behaviors in the presentation without needing to cross-reference the teacher’s comments with the original presentation. Several recommendations are made to give students the opportunity to reflect on their work and on the instructor’s input. This integrated approach to feedback can be utilized in the classroom as well as in online courses.

Keywords:

Presentations, teacher feedback, screen capture.