It is important for you to feel comfortable with what you are saying; it is unlikely that your marks will improve if you use complex vocabulary or grammar – SO KEEP IT SIMPLE. Use the language that you feel comfortable with. Remember the audience is listening to your speech, not reading it, so it is actually better to keep your vocabulary and sentence structure as simple as possible. Oral presentations can actually advantage international students more than other assessment tasks as you don't actually need to use too many words. You might find it helpful to meet with a native English speaker and talk to them, preferably though not necessarily, about your presentation topic. Approach the oral task as though it were a conversation. It is also useful to take advantage of the potential to use pictures, graphs etc.
Some international students from non-English speaking backgrounds have found their accents an impediment to an effective presentation. There was one ACU international student who selected Islam as her topic of choice. She got herself so tongue tied attempting to pronounce all the new vocabulary that she became very nervous and her presentation was not as effective as she had hoped it would be. The trick here again is to keep it simple. As much as possible use only words that you are familiar with and feel comfortable pronouncing. You should also check the pronunciation of any unfamiliar vocabulary with a native speaker before your presentation.
Cultural Differences
Another obstacle many international students face is differences in culture. Though not as obvious as language issues, they still may be a significant barrier to delivering the perfect presentation. It is important that we make our points clearly understood when giving an oral presentation in Western culture. Some students from different backgrounds feel that it is necessary to “set the scene” and provide all the background information before actually making their point. In many cases they have already lost their audience and the audience is not actually going to hear the point when it is finally made. Hasling (1998: 39) cites an example of a Nigerian student who began to tell a lengthy story. After about fifteen minutes the other members of the class interrupted him and asked what his point was. He replied that he was providing all the details so that his point would be understood. He never intended to directly state his point as he explained that in his culture the point is only directly given when speaking to children. Adults should be able to figure it out for themselves.
In western culture it is expected that you will be direct. Therefore, in oral presentations, you should state your case immediately. Present your ideas as directly as possible and support them with your evidence – don't assume that the audience will be able to deduce what your point is - TELL THEM DIRECTLY. You of course will give reasons why you have reached the conclusions that you have but you must state what your conclusions actually are.
An oral presentation is rarely just about regurgitating a string of facts. Many international students have a lot of trouble putting forward their own opinions and conclusions. Your opinions need to be based on research and they should be supported by evidence and be directly relevant to the course material, but it is acceptable to form and present your own opinions.
It is very useful to think of an oral presentation more as a conversation rather than a “mini lecture”. A conversation requires you to engage the other party and interact with them. It can be very worthwhile in a presentation to ask questions of the audience. This is likely to encourage them to think about what you are saying and contribute to the success of your presentation. It also important to address the audience, don't turn your attention to your slides or notes. Remember you are speaking to somebody and so you need to look at you audience and direct your presentation to them.
One international student who took part in the focus group stated that “culture is vulture”. When asked to explain this statement she described the differences between the dominant culture in Australia and her own culture and how these impacted on her undertaking oral presentations. She has been culturally conditioned to believe, as a woman and as a student, that she really has nothing worthwhile to say. Her role was to passively absorb and accept information, not to question and not to present her own ideas. As she put it “if one of my teachers said there were three fish doing a hula on the table her response would be to ask what colour the fish were.” She would never consider expressing disbelief. It is obviously very difficult then for someone from any culture with similar values to confidently put themselves in front of a lecturer and peers to present their own work.
To be effective in oral presentations you need to allow yourself to believe that you do have something worthwhile to say that your audience and even your teacher may learn something from. Allow yourself to step outside your own culture at least inside the four walls of your classroom. The essence of an oral presentation is to make your own thoughts and ideas known to others and to do so with confidence and conviction. Accept that you have the right, in fact the duty, to share information with your classmates. Visualise yourself as the teacher for the duration of the presentation. For that moment in time, inside those walls, you are the one that has the right to claim that there are “fish doing a hula on the table”
If any of this appears just too difficult, talk to your lecturer, explain your situation in the context of your own culture and perhaps together you can come up with an alternative solution.