EFL Students’ Difficulties With Oral Presentations in Classroom Interaction.

Abstract

The current study aims to explore the difficulties EFL students at Mila university center encounter when they give oral presentations in classrooms. It also aims to highlight the strategies teachers as well as students employ to handle these problems. Both individual and group presentations are covered. Using a qualitative research approach, the necessary data was collected through in - depth interviews. The participants of the study included fourty-five master 1 students of English who had a sufficient experience in doing oral presentations. Five teachers of didactics, curriculum design and linguistics took part in the study. Findings show the main problems that EFL students face are anxiety, poor language skills, challenging content, missing points and audience. Findings further show that students cope with these problems by preparing their presentations well, discussing the content with their peers, maintaining eye contact with close friends and using presentation-aids. Teachers help their students handle these problems by enhancing their self-confidence, creating a friendly atmosphere and building emotional connections with students. EFL students need to develop their classroom oral presentations to succeed in both academic and professional settings.