Abstract:

In recent years, most Engineering postgraduates of Hong Kong universities originate from China. They graduated from top universities in Mainland China and are promising in their professional field. Moreover, their English language proficiency standard has been raised and they can generally express themselves clearly in writing. However, they cannot make academic presentations up to standard. This is because the mode of instruction in most Chinese universities is still not interactive enough., Students usually only listen to teachers lecturing, and lack the chance to make presentations themselves. After coming to Hong Kong to further their study, it is essential for them to learn presentation skills as soon as possible, to better prepare themselves for their future academic career. However, these students may be so absorbed in their own engineering realm that they are not too receptive to learning such academic skills. This This researcher has taught postgraduate students in the Hong Kong University of Science and Engineering for a long time, and have experimented different methods of teaching such students. It was found that the most efficient way was to give them a model for them to follow. Video clips of successful presentations made by the engineering giant Steve Jobs were shown and analyzed in depth. Studeents were then given chances to practice different aspects of what they have learnt from the video clips in presentations of different natures: first, in presentations of a more general type (not related to their specific field of study); then in a highly technical presentation, which is based on their own research. After such presentations, the teacher encouraged the other students to give honest comments and feedback to the presenter. In this way the students not only learn presentation skills by standing on the shoulder of world-famed giant, Steve Jobs, but also on the shoulders of each other, emerging fellow giants of the engineering community.

Keywords:

Engineering students, presentation skills.