The Effect of Pecha Kucha Presentations on Students’ English Public Speaking Anxiety

Abstract

El objetivo de este estudio es investigar el efecto del formato de presentación de Pecha Kucha en la ansiedad al hablar en público de estudiantes de inglés como lengua extranjera. Los participantes fueron 49 estudiantes del Departamento de Traducción e Interpretación en Inglés de una universidad estatal en Turquía. Se utilizó un diseño de investigación experimental previo y posterior al ensayo. Los estudiantes recibieron un cuestionario antes de la preparación de sus presentaciones e inmediatamente después de la presentación en el aula. De acuerdo con los resultados, la ansiedad de hablar en inglés de los estudiantes se redujo significativamente como resultado de su experiencia usando el formato de presentación de Pecha Kucha. Se concluye que este formato de presentación puede ser incorporado en el salón de clases de inglés.Palabras clave: ansiedad del habla, inglés como lengua extranjera, Pecha Kucha.

Developing EFL Learners’ Speaking and Oral Presentation Skills through Pecha Kucha Presentation Technique

“…Despite the fact that learners criticized the stress PK caused before and during the presentation, many of them indicated a perceived development in their selfconfidence following the PK experience. These results find support from the literature, in which students reported an increase in their level of self-confidence and nervousness being overtaken by the experience (Thomsett & Shaw, 2014), contribution to their confidence to speak English in public (Lucas & Rawlins, 2015), a perceived development in their autonomy (Baskara, 2015), and a significant reduction in their English public speaking anxiety (Coşkun, 2017). Considering students are expected to be well-prepared for their presentations, it is noted that the anxiety they experience before and during the presentation "is regarded as a good motivator that can keep the presenter alert and prevent the speaker from relaxing entirely" (Coşkun, 2017, p. 19).…”

“…It is crucial for teacher to provide students support by bringing sample PK presentations to the class, assisting learners with the organization of the content they are going to present, providing support particularly to the students who might experience a higher level of public speaking anxiety, and familiarizing themselves with PK presentation style. Finally, considering the potential of PK for language teacher education, the technique could be integrated into pre-service EFL teacher education programs as an alternative to traditional presentation techniques which are used for delivering content (Coşkun, 2017;Widyaningrum, 2016).…”

“…The results of previous research examining the use of Pecha Kucha (PK) in higher education settings suggest that learners have positive attitudes towards PK use (Mabuan, 2017), while some of them have preferred the technique over traditional PPT presentations (Beyer, Gaze, & Lazicki, 2012). The investigation of PK use in EFL classes illustrated that the technique had positive contributions to learners in several ways including a perceived development in speaking (Colombi, 2017) and fluency (Zharkynbekova, Zhussupova, & Suleimenova, 2017), opportunities for additional language practice (Hayashi & Holland, 2016), improvement in presentation skills (Nguyen, 2015), and a reduction in public speaking anxiety (Coşkun, 2017). In addition to the identified advantages, PK was criticized due to its fast-paced rigorous nature of format, which sometimes created pressure on learners (Ruiz, 2016).…”

“…It was also reported that PK can be more effective compared to a typical PPT presentation when students are well-prepared. Another study, which was conducted in the context of Turkish higher education, particularly examined the effect of PK on the public speaking anxiety of the EFL learners through a pre-and post-test experiment (Coşkun, 2017). According to the results of the study, English public speaking anxiety of the students were found to be significantly reduced, which suggested that the format could be adopted in EFL classes for specific purposes such as lowering speaking anxiety.…”

Reducing speaking anxiety in EFL classrooms: An explanatory mixed-methods study

“…The results indicate that the experimental group that gave oral presentations performed better in a speaking achievement test and had a lower level of anxiety compared to the control group, which did no oral presentation. Moreover, Coşkun (2017) integrated oral presentations into his classes and concludes that this activity reduced learners' anxiety.…”