PowerPoint presentations: shifting from teacher-centeredness to student-centeredness

ABSTRACT

This session displays ways of using PowerPoint presentations effectively in order to activate the four skills in language learning. Presenters show interesting and meaningful ways of introducing, reviewing and evaluating content. This applicable tool can also be used to enhance students’ different learning skills and intrinsic motivation.

DESCRIPTION

One of the greatest challenges for teachers is to create language learning opportunities for improving students’ speaking skills and enhancing their communication using English. In this respect, the availability of technological tools in the classroom has turned PowerPoint presentations into a must-have. Although PowerPoint (PPT) presentations have long been considered a teacher-centered tool, the presenters demonstrate ways of designing student-centered PPT activities that will make learners more engaged and motivated. PPT activities also support collaborative construction of knowledge, enhancing the possibility of learning and leading to better long-term retention.

This presentation aims at providing teachers with ideas to help students not only gain knowledge, but also apply and use what they have learned in meaningful ways, by developing PowerPoint activities in which Instructional Design is a premise. The presenters offer examples of PPT activities that foster student-centeredness and personalization, and novel ways of focusing on technology as a tool to benefit students, rather than teachers.

With Instructional Design in mind, this session addresses the effectiveness of PPT presentations in relation to student production, and how this technological tool can be used to introduce, review, and evaluate students. At the end, attendees receive a link to a website with all the resources and templates presented.

The intended outcome of this session is the empowerment of teachers by way of ideas to meaningfully use PPT presentations in the classroom to motivate students and to create opportunities for genuine production in the target language.