A soft skills development training course
About this project
Strong communication and presentation abilities are among the top 5 sought-after 21st-century skills in the modern workplace.
Over the last ten years or so, more and more companies have been adopting a global approach to in-company communication, and English has effectively become the corporate Lingua Franca in the majority of cases. Increasingly, this is true even in companies whose entire staff are non-native English speakers. Promotion is often tied to English proficiency, and many second-language speakers of English are either turned down or don’t even apply, as a result of their perceived linguistic weaknesses.
The Tall Stories course, run by fictitious communication consultancy group The Presentation People is designed for non-native English speakers working in project, product, and sales management roles. It combines English language training with public speaking and presentation skills training, covering the basics of discourse management and narration. The language component focuses on the linguistic elements most relevant to presenting and storytelling. It is geared towards an intermediate to upper-intermediate level of English, or a B2 on the Common European Framework Reference.
Though more likely to affect those people who are asked to give a speech in a language other than their mother tongue, close to 75% of the population suffers from Glossophobia, or the fear of speaking in public. The best way to overcome Glossophobia is through careful discourse composition and practicing delivery. As result, while designed for non-native speakers, Tall Stories is open to anyone who needs to brush up on their presentation skills.
A fictitious professional development consultancy company The Presentation People has decided to develop a presentation skills course for staff in the roles of project management, product management and sales management for whom English is not their first language.
Learning gap
Learners have little to no work experience giving presentations in English, and weak discourse management. They need to develop a knowledge of the narrative tenses and narration skills in English, so that they can select the correct language and register to compose their discourse. Furthermore, they need to develop an understanding of how to use paralinguistics in order to enhance their message and overcome any potential difficulties they may have when presenting in English.
Tall Stories: Turning Presentations into Conversations course aims to provide these learners with the skills they need to create and deliver engaging presentations in English using a range of linguistic and paralinguistic tools.
Instructional Strategy
This is a self-paced course. While primarily asynchronous, there is an optional weekly synchronous Q&A meeting. All course content is available on the LMS for the duration of the course, and students work through the asynchronous content independently. Course activities have deadlines.
The course materials on this page are examples of the resource and support material participants will use during their asynchronous work.
The course balances theory with practical learning-by-doing activities and culminates in a synchronous final assessment activity.
Accessing the Course
URL to CANVAS course: Tall Stories: Turning Presentations into Conversations
You can use this link to join the course: https://canvas.instructure.com/enroll/9DCN9A.
Or you can log in to an example student account, to just have a look around!
https://canvas.instructure.com/
Login Details
password: !M8c0R2€
Course presentation
A SWOT analysis of the course suggests that the Strengths of course outweigh the Weaknesses.
The strongest point of the course is the need which it addresses. I am an experienced ESL teacher, trainer and coach, and I used my knowledge of the needs of non-native speakers using English in the workplace as the basis for the modules in the course. This meant that my day-to-day professional experience formed the basis of the analyse step in the ADDIE model. I am essentially the SME for this course. The pain points the course addresses are the same pain points which I see coming up time and again in my sessions with clients, addressing the 3rd principle of andragogy; relevance and impact to learners’ lives.
The course design is simple and accessible and does not over stimulate or risk cognitive overload, using basic fonts and minimal images. Where there is audio, there are transcripts. Where information is contained in an images, the same information is available either in pdf form or in the body of the information on the page.
Rubrics are minimal, clear and easy to follow, allowing the learner to fully understand what is expected of them.
A range of content sources and media has been used throughout, to appeal to a variety of learning preferences, and activity types allow for plenty of engagement, interaction and social constructivism to enhance the learning experience.
Example Course Materials
Course videos
Each module contains an introduction video which explains the topic and content for that week, so that learners can have a clear idea of what is expected of them. Modules also contain video lessons and explainers.
The final assessment also includes a short explainer video, along with a full written explanation.
Visual resources
Much of the course content is accompanied by visual support resources.
The Aristotle’s Modes of Persuasion visual is from Module 1: Communication. This module looks at effective communication skills, including paralinguistics and rhetoric. The resource is a visual overview which accompanies an explanation of the art of persuasion a tool for engaging with the audience and communitcating ideas to enact change.
The Presenting with Visuals informational poster is part of the course content from Module 2: Content. Module 2 explores the content and structure of a well-composed presentation, and this resource is part of a lesson on the correct use of visual aids. The resource gives a brief explanation of a range of graphs and charts, along with the typical data sets which each graph might be used to illustrate.
The Story Wheel is from Module 3: Delivery. This module focuses on discourse management techniques and the resource accompanies an explanation about developing a story which can help the speaker create rapport with the audience.