No, an oral presentation is not just something you prepare at home! Elementary teachers’ practices supporting preparation of oral presentations

Abstract

In elementary school, oral presentations are among teachers’ favorite activities. From the pupil’s perspective, this activity can have a major impact, as the skills it calls for will prove useful later throughout his/her career and life. While instruction for the presentation generally happens in class, the same is not true for the preparatory work, which is mostly carried out at home with or without parental support, thus creating inequalities between students (Sénéchal, 2017). However, teacher support is essential to help elementary school students prepare their oral presentation.

Our research question is: what kinds of support do teachers offer to students to help them prepare oral presentations? To answer this question, we interviewed 16 teachers from the French-speaking part of Belgium who ask their students to make oral presentations and who say they offer support before the presentation. Their declared practices show a wide variety of types of accompanying support. The practical implications of our study relate to progressive teaching of a complex task, rebalance between time devoted to oral and to written preparation, attention to the speaker and the audience, collection of artifacts, introduction of training modules for teachers, and best practices to be highlighted.