ESL Lesson Plan

Lee,

Power points are definitely 'def when it comes to teaching business English. I mean is there anything more to a businessman's life than sitting around and doing power points to clients during sales presentations?

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Note from Lee:

Take it easy ESL Nerd. The last thing I wanted to do is start bashing all our business friends out there. PowerPoints are helpful I think, but what ways can we make them seem less "business-like" in class and more academic-oriented for your everday, run-of-the-mill, non-business English ESL class?

Lee,

The business community is starting to think critically about the utility of PowerPoint, and question how to improve it - everyone's recognizing that reading complete sentences off some bullet points is lousy communication, even if the bullets fly in from all sides.

I think the point is that, whether business or teaching, it's all about communication, and Powerpoint can be easily abused.

Here are some resources about some "new" approaches, in case you haven't seen them:

http://www.presentationzen.com/

http://www.beyondbullets.com/

Also, Cathy Sierra has a nice post on PowerPoint and presentation techniques. But since everything she writes is brilliant it's worth browsing as well:

http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/06/kill_your_prese.html

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Note from Lee:

Wow, thanks for those resources Cleve! Those PowerPoint-related links are awesome. Some very good advice. I will definitely have to spend a little more time learning from the PowerPoint experts out there.

i like it when its got music and cartoons and stuff.then its more funny.dont like everything all numbered everywhere.boring man.

Lee,

I would like to use powerpoint in my classroom occaisionally. But I will not ask Ss to use it as I want them to focus on their language skills not thier tech skills. If a student wanted to use it I wouldn't say no, but I also wouldn't encourage or require it.

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Note from Lee:

Fair enough EFL Geek. Another point to consider is that some schools overseas are faring so poorly (economically speaking) that getting chalk and erasable magic markers are a bigger concern than PowerPoint. I mean, how can we incorporate PowerPoint into the classroom when the facility isn't even set up for it, i.e. no computers, no lcd overhead projectors, etc.?

Lee,

At Assumption University in Bangkok nearly all Thai teachers use Power Point - and so do their students in presentations. It is a bore, an excuse to look at pics and sit back and let it happen. But Thai students can hardly speak their name in English.

Foreign teacher generally do not use PP. Their students can be seen to participate actively in the classroom save for teachers who talk too much.

Learning is rarely achieved by pretty presentations. It might make everyone feel good but that is generally all.

Peter

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Note from Lee:

Thanks Peter for that insight into your own university. I've noticed that more and more of the undergraduate classes being taught at my own university (not only the ESL ones) are following a similar model. On lecture days, the professor comes in and presents his/her material with a PowerPoint presentation. Much of the "group" activity of the class seems to revolve around assigning students different days in the semester (usually enough to fill every day outside of lecture day) to give a presentation to the class on course material read/learned. This usually results in the students sitting in the dark (sleeping half of the time) while the student presenter shows a PowerPoint outline of an assigned chapter or subject. On the surface, they do seem like a good idea...I still think they must have a purpose somewhere (perhaps for condensing particularly heavy theory that you don't want to spend too much class time on), but to replace traditional teaching methods...I'm still not convinced at this point. Anyone know of a PowerPoint Theory and the ESL Classroom Course out there?

Best,

Lee

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Note from Lee:

Deb,

I can appreciate your argument that PowerPoint presentations are especially appropriate and helpful in teaching very young ESL learners. Your blog sounds like a great resource, I will refer it to ESL-Lesson-Plan blog readers. Please come back and comment anytime!

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Note from Lee:

Readers, for reasons of space, the comments for this post have been relocated to the English-Blog space. To remark on this article, please click on the following link HERE!:

Thanks!