Academic Discussion and Presentation: Part 2 K.

England
1
Academic Discussion and Presentation Lesson: Part 2
This lesson plan is the second hour of three total sequential course hours for Osaka
University Biomedical English Program's Academic Discussion and Presentation (Discussion)
class. Please refer to A. Montin's Academic and Presentation Lesson, Part 1 for the first hour of
instruction. The Discussion class occurs twice a week for three hours and this particular set of
lessons occurs on Tuesday of the program's second week. One of the focuses for this week of
instruction is to have students narrow their topic of presentation while learning about the
components of a high quality academic presentation. The three hour lesson's objective is to have
students discuss and identify the traits/characteristics/habits that comprise and facilitate effective
public speaking in their field of study. Some of these traits include pausing, pacing, and
emphasis techniques.
This hour of instruction builds on the previous hour's content. Here, learners will use the
list they generate of traits/characteristics/habits that facilitate effective public speaking, called the
"master list" in the lesson outline below, to brainstorm and discuss how to expand the list of
traits to be applicable for presentations in their field. Then students will decide which traits are
most important to them and vote for the class' top favorites. Once tallied, the most popular traits
(votes of 3 or more, depending on instructor's judgment) will be discussed in groups, and
practiced during the following hour of instruction.
Materials for this lesson are limited to a whiteboard, dry erase markers, and the Public
Speaking handout from the previous lesson of instruction (adapted from Toastmasters
International, 2014).

Academic Discussion and Presentation: Part 2 K. England
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Lesson Outline

Lesson Length: 55-60 minutes
Students: 6
Objectives:
Students will be able to
Understand and identify the traits/characteristics/habits that comprise and facilitate
effective public speaking, including pausing, pacing, and emphasis techniques.
Adapt applicable traits/characteristics/habits that comprise effective public speaking to
their field of study.
Prepare for their final presentation project through discussing various
traits/characteristics/habits that comprise effective public speaking and planning their
presentation terminology/vocabulary.
Materials:
Whiteboard and markers
Handouts adapted from Handouts adapted from Toastmasters International articles and
website information.
Time, Tasks,
& Materials
Procedures
20-25min
Pair
discussion
Pair Ss off by discipline: {general medicine: Toru & Naoki Morita;
Biology: Yusuke & Hitomi; Chemistry/Pharmacy: Naoki Inoue &
Hiroyuki}
Have Ss discuss the master list of presentation skills on the board from
the previous hour's discussion. The Ss will answer the following
questions:

1. What kind of content or area should be in a presentation related
to your field of study?
2. If you give your presentation to other researchers in your field,
what words and ideas will be familiar to your audience?
3. What vocabulary will you need to define at the beginning of your
presentation in order for everyone to understand you?
Have the group come together as a class and share what their answers.
5-7 min
Discussion
recap
Adding to the master list of traits of public speaking on the board, ask
students if they want to add any more qualities to this list. Be sure to
specify which the field of study the quality is applicable to if it is not
universally applicable. Jot down their ideas on the board or ask for a
student volunteer scribe.
10-15 min
Pair
discussion
Returning to their discussion pairs, have students answer the two
questions below about their own presentations. Ask them to take notes
of the answers on their traits of good presentation skills handout.
Academic Discussion and Presentation: Part 2 K. England
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Discussion
notes & public
speaking
handouts
Share your presentation topic ideas with your partner. Using the
3 questions above, discuss what you will need to include in your
presentation for an audience of experts in your area.
Then decide what you will need to discuss in your presentation
for an audience that is unfamiliar with your field of study.
As Ss discuss together, walk the room and listen in on the conversations,
making sure Ss are writing down notes for future reference.
3-5 min Interrupt discussions and ask each S to pick their top two characteristics
from the master list on the board. After two minutes go through each
quality and have Ss raise their hand if that is one of their 2 favorites.
Tally off each hand raised.
10-15 min After all Ss pick their favorites, select the qualities with 3 or more votes
and explain that these will be the criteria they will practice in the next
presentation class. Go over the first quality and brainstorm how one
might exhibit this quality in a presentation by reviewing how one
presenter (or both presenters) exhibited this quality in the TED talk just
watched in class. Then assign one quality per pair to discuss.
3-5 min Have the pairs discuss how to exhibit their assigned quality.
5-7 min Come together as a class and have pairs report out how they decided one
would exhibit their assigned good presenter quality.
Following
hour
Split the class in half and have each half-read 1 of 2 newspaper articles
about medicine. Go over, as a class, any vocabulary they encounter
without reading both articles as a group. Have them discuss the article
contents with their shared article team (3 Ss per team). Then have Ss
work in pairs to present their article to another S who read the other
article. Using the presentation qualities as assessment guides, have Ss
give one another feedback on how well exhibited the traits.