Vocational oral presentations on 'home turf'

As part of the curriculum for the NQ Sports and Exercise students we are working on the 'Oral Presentation Skills' Unit. One of the assessments is to plan for and deliver a talk which provides information and/or instruction. When I discussed this brief we looked at possible topics related to their vocational area that the students could talk about.

Some students wished to deliver their talks in the classroom using PowerPoint and those topics were on the following broad subjects: nutrition, how to take a corner at football, first aid focusing primarily on the recovery position, tumbleturns, the rules of dodgeball, trampolining techniques, the rules of flag football, the kayak roll, how to putt successfully, touch rugby rules, kung fu techniques and free kick taking.

Five of the students wanted to present their talks in an environment where they felt very comfortable and this was identified as the Games Hall. The final five talks covered the following subjects: cover drive techniques in cricket, volleyball smashes, taking free kicks, badminton smashes and penalty kick techniques. In these presentations the students were not reliant on PowerPoint but rather, they were able to physically demonstrate their techniques, involving everybody in attendance whilst still adhering to clear structure.

Student feedback was delivered to all students verbally and the feedback from the learners themselves was very positive. Learners identified that both methods could be equally successful and the final scoreline was 17-17. That's 17 students sat and 17 students passed! Below is an example of one of the PowerPoint presentations and also some photos that were taken in the Games Hall.

Kayak Roll - instructional talk

View more PowerPoint from Mark Hetherington

Sixty second pitches and how learners evaluate their skills

Sports and Exercise students were given a chance to speak for 60 seconds on what makes them a good student as part of an exercise in their Oral Presentation Skills classes and what follows are the words and phrases that they came up with. Pretty impressive I'd say:

appetite for learning, enjoyable classes, cope well, passed all assessments so far, competitive, developing my communication skills, bring so much to the class, ideal student, hard working, achiever, represent at a high level, first person to..., aspire, confident, coaching experience, helping young people to progress, passed everything and keen to learn more, up for a challenge, well behaved, ever present, pay attention in class, show respect at all times, offer new ways to do things, ask questions, good communicator, effective presentation skills that can be improved further, voluntary work, captain of the college football team, adaptable, keen on theory as well as practical elements of the course, need to work on prioritisation, eager to seek new goals, got 100% in the mystery shop at my work twice, excellent timekeeping skills, reliable at all times, have a desire to progress to the HN level and realise my potential, smart, industrious, enjoy the classes and SCE in general, passionate, achieved my level 3 SFA coaching badges, maturity, leadership skills, dignified, never missed a Communication class, charitable work.

Wonderful words and music to our ears by the way!