An Explorative Research Into The Effectiveness Of College Students’ Presentation In The Flipped Classroom Model

Oral presentation has been widely used in college English classes as a communicative activity intended for facilitating language learning.In recent years,with the popularization of the flipped classroom model,oral presentation also has become part of its teaching design,together with other interactive activities.Both the presentation and the flipped classroom are characterized by student-centered learning environment,supported by constructivism theories.In this research,the teaching activity of presentation in the flipped classroom aims to get students involved in the student-student and teacher-student interactions in the classroom,and to strengthen their consolidation of knowledge in the process of completing presentation tasks,with the ultimate goal to promote students’ ability development.The questionnaire,the semi-structured interview and the controlled experiment are employed in this research.Questionnaire Ⅰ is used to inquire students’ attitudes to and feedback on previous presentations so as to have a better understanding of the target students’ characteristics and their learning behaviors.The controlled experiment is conducted in two classes in Zhejiang Shuren University(ZJSRU),lasting 16 weeks.The design of the teaching practice is built on the findings of Questionnaire Ⅰ and on the design principles of the flipped classroom.At the end of the semester,Questionnaire Ⅱ is designed to examine the effectiveness of the teaching practice in promoting students’ learning abilities and the development of performance-related personal traits.Responses from students’ semi-structured interview serve as auxiliary evidence for demonstrating real effects of teaching practice in the experimental class.In the meanwhile,as performance-related personal traits,including interest,motivation,confidence and autonomy,are also important indicators for good academic performance,hence final evaluations-of the effectiveness of this teaching practice depend not only on students’ academic scores,but also on the development of students’ learning abilities and performance-related personality traits.Findings of Questionnaire Ⅰ show that many students in ZJSRU have low learning motivation and self-efficacy towards presentation,which also provides useful information concerning learning environment characteristics for the teaching design of presentation.Although no significant difference is found in two classes’ final scores,findings of Questionnaire Ⅱ illustrate that the majority of students in the experimental class have experienced progress in ability self-perceptions and in performance-related personality traits.It is worth noticing that the effectiveness of the teaching practice in building up students’ confidence,strengthening their capability of knowledge application,improving students,learning motivation and activating students’ clas participation is evidenced by the comparative data of the control class and the experimental class.