oral presentation checklist for elementary students

Oral Presentation Rubric

About this printout

This rubric is designed to be used for any oral presentation. Students are scored in three categories—delivery, content, and audience awareness.

Teaching with this printout

More ideas to try, related resources.

Oral presentation and speaking are important skills for students to master, especially in the intermediate grades. This oral presentation rubric is designed to fit any topic or subject area. The rubric allows teachers to assess students in several key areas of oral presentation. Students are scored on a scale of 1–4 in three major areas. The first area is Delivery, which includes eye contact, and voice inflection. The second area, Content/Organization, scores students based on their knowledge and understanding of the topic being presented and the overall organization of their presentation. The third area, Enthusiasm/Audience Awareness, assesses students based on their enthusiasm toward the topic and how well they came across to their intended audience. Give students the oral presentation rubric ahead of time so that they know and understand what they will be scored on. Discuss each of the major areas and how they relate to oral presentation.

• After students have completed their oral presentations, ask them to do a self-assessment with the same rubric and hold a conference with them to compare their self-assessment with your own assessment.
• Provide students with several examples of oral presentations before they plan and execute their own presentation. Ask students to evaluate and assess the exemplar presentations using the same rubric.
• Students can do a peer evaluation of oral presentations using this rubric. Students meet in partners or small groups to give each other feedback and explain their scoring.
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• ELA G2:M3:U3:L8

High-Quality Oral Presentations: Speaking in Complete Sentences

In this lesson, daily learning targets, ongoing assessment.

• Technology and Multimedia

Supporting English Language Learners

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These are the CCS Standards addressed in this lesson:

• SL.2.3: Ask and answer questions about what a speaker says in order to clarify comprehension, gather additional information, or deepen understanding of a topic or issue.
• SL.2.4: Tell a story or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking audibly in coherent sentences.
• SL.2.6: Produce complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation in order to provide requested detail or clarification.
• I can speak in complete sentences when using my notecards to present to an audience. ( SL.2.4, SL.2.6 )
• I can show empathy when I give feedback to my peers. ( SL.2.3 )
• During Work Time B, circulate and observe as students practice presenting and giving empathic feedback to peers. Consider using the Speaking and Listening Checklist to document progress toward SL.2.3, SL.2.4 , and SL.2.6 (see Assessment Overview and Resources).
• Pre-distribute Materials for Work Time B at students? pre-determined workspaces.
• Post: Learning targets and applicable anchor charts (see Materials list)

Tech and Multimedia

Consider using an interactive white board or document camera to display lesson Materials.

• Continue to use the technology tools recommended throughout Modules 1 and 2 to create anchor charts to share with families; to record students as they participate in discussions and protocols to review with students later and to share with families; and for students to listen to and annotate text, record ideas on note-catchers, and word-process writing.

Supports guided in part by CA ELD Standard 2.I.C.9

Important points in the lesson itself  

• The basic design of this lesson supports ELLs with opportunities to hone their speaking skills with grammatically correct syntax by identifying complete and incomplete sentences.
• ELLs may find it challenging to extrapolate complete sentences from the words and phrases in their notes. During or after Work Time A, provide additional practice with this skill. If necessary, consider helping them transcribe complete sentences based on their notes for them to temporarily use during this lesson.

Levels of support

For lighter support:

• During Work Time A, challenge students to add on to the incomplete sentences to make them complete.
• During Work Time B, consider designating confident speakers as "coaches." Encourage them to circulate and support students who need additional support.

For heavier support:

• During Work Time B, consider allowing students to work in heterogenous triads. Students can observe two models of the presentation feedback before contributing themselves.
• Multiple Means of Representation (MMR): Continue to support comprehension by activating prior knowledge and scaffold connections for students. Continue to provide visual display of questions and student responses on a chart or a board during discussions.
• Multiple Means of Action & Expression (MMAE): Continue to support students in setting appropriate goals for their effort and the level of difficulty expected.
• Multiple Means of Engagement (MME): Continue to support sustained engagement and effort for students who benefit from consistent reminders of learning goals and their value or relevance.

Key: Lesson-Specific Vocabulary (L); Text-Specific Vocabulary (T); Vocabulary Used in Writing (W)

• empathy, feedback, audience (L)
• Complete or Incomplete sentence strips (one to display)
• Criteria for High-Quality Oral Presentations anchor chart (begun in Lesson 6)
• Oral Presentation Notecards: Bee Model (from Lesson 2; one to display)
• What Does Peer Feedback Look and Sound Like? anchor chart (begun in Lesson 4)
• Peer Feedback Protocol anchor chart (begun in Lesson 4)
• Oral presentation notecards (from Lesson 2; one set per student)
• Specific, Positive Feedback sentence starters (from Lesson 6; one per pair and one to display)
• Speaking and Listening Checklist (for teacher reference; see Assessment Overview and Resources)
• Sandwich bag (from Lesson 2; one per student)
• Pinky Partners Protocol anchor chart (begun in Module 1)

Each unit in the K-2 Language Arts Curriculum has one standards-based assessment built in. The module concludes with a performance task at the end of Unit 3 to synthesize their understanding of what they accomplished through supported, standards-based writing.

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21 Tips and Strategies Supporting Learners’ Oral Presentations

Design & assign.

There are many options to consider when assigning an oral presentation. As you answer the following questions, reflect on your own commitment to continue using traditional oral presentations for evaluation.

Determine Oral Presentation Type

If you answered “No” to at least half of the questions, you may want to consider the following alternative formats that mitigate some of the specific anxieties your ELLs experience with oral presentations. While the default may be the traditional individual or group presentation of concepts in front of the whole class, there are a number of alternatives that may serve the same purpose.

Consider the different types of presentations and the steps that you can do to help your learners succeed.

Types of Oral Presentations

Short oral talks in a group

Usually a short oral talk in a group is informal with little time to prepare for this type of speech. Learners  share their thoughts or opinions about a specific topic. This type of talk follows a structure with a brief introductory statement, 2-3 ideas and a concluding statement.  These brief oral talks can help students develop confidence because they are presenting to a small group rather than the whole class. They do not have to create and coordinate visuals with their talk and the talk is short. There still needs to be substance to the talk, so participants should be given advance warning that they will be asked to speak on a particular topic.  One advantage is that several students in the class can be presenting simultaneously; however, as a result, in-process marking is not possible.

Formal oral presentations in front of class

Formal oral presentations in front of the class usually require individual students to make a longer presentation, supported with effective visual aids. Adequate time has been given for the presenter to prepare the topic. This type of presentation can be used to present research, information in general, or to persuade. The presenter is often put in charge of the class during the presentation time, so in addition to presenting, the presenter has to keep the class engaged and in line. Formal oral presentations often involve a Q & A. Most of the grading can be done in-process because you are only observing one student at a time. It is very time consuming to get through a whole class of presentations and have the class engaged and learning and you are giving up control of many course hours and content coverage.

Group Presentations

• Tips for giving a group presentation

Sharing Presentations Online

Students can be made the presenter in online platforms to complete presentations.  Zoom, Blackboard, WebEx and other similar software allow the moderator (Professor) to make specific participants hosts which enables them to share their screens and control the participation options of other students in the class.  As each platform has variations on how to share documents and control the presentation, it is important that students are given specific instructions on how to “present” using the various platforms.  If possible, set up separate “rooms” for students to practice in before their presentation.

• Instructions for screen sharing in Zoom
• Instructions for screen sharing in WebEx
• Instructions for screen sharing in Blackboard Collaborate

Use Oral Recordings of Presentations Synchronously or Asynchronously

Consider allowing students to record their presentations and present the recording to the class.  While this would not be appropriate for a language class where the performance of the presentation is likely more important than the content, in other classes providing the opportunity for learners to record multiple times until they are satisfied with the output is an ideal way to optimize the quality of the presentation as well as reduce the performance related stress. The presentation can then be shared synchronously in class or online with the presenter hosting and fielding questions, or asynchronously posted on a discussion board or other app such as Flipgrid with the presenter responding to comments posted over a set period of time. A side benefit to the use of some of these tools such as Skye and Google Meet is that they are commonly used in the workforce so it good practice for post-graduation application of skills.

Possible Tools for Recording and Sharing

• Flipgrid – an easy to use app that lets students record short video clips and resubmit as many times as needed. The video stays in the Flipgrid app for other students to see (if shared) and allow for easy teacher responses whether via video or text. (Asynchronous)
• Skype   – Follow the instructions to record and share a video on the MS website (Either if posted on course platform)
• Google Meet – Follow the i nstructions to record and share a presentation on Google Meet . (Either if posted on course platform)
• Zoom – students can share their narrated PPT slides via Zoom (don’t forget to enable the sound)
• Powerpoint – Recording of narrations for slides
• Youtube – Recorded videos can be uploaded to Youtube to share by following instructions to upload Youtube video
• OneDrive – most institutions provide OneDrive accounts for faculty and students as part of Office 365. Students can save their video in OneDrive and choose who to share it with (faculty member, group, class)

Presenting in Another Language

If the goal of the presentation is to demonstrate in depth understanding of the course content and ability to communicate that information effectively, does the presentation have to be done in English?  Can the student’s mastery of the subject matter be demonstrated in another language with a translator? It would still be possible to evaluate the content of the presentation, the confidence, the performance, the visual aids etc.  On the global stage, translated speeches and presentations are the norm by political leaders and content experts – why not let students show the depth of their understanding in a language they are comfortable with?

If a more formal type of oral presentation is required, is it possible to give students some choice to help reduce their anxiety?  For example, could they choose to present to you alone, to a small group, or to the whole class?

Teach Making a Presentation Step by Step

Don’t assume that all the students in your class have been taught how to make a presentation for a college or university level class. Furthermore, there are many purposes for presentations (inform, educate, persuade, motivate, activate, entertain) which require different organizational structure, tone, content and visual aids.

• Ask the class to raise their hands if they feel ♦ very comfortable presenting in front of the class, ♦ somewhat comfortable presenting in front of the class or ♦ not comfortable presenting in front of the class.  This will help you gauge your learners’ prior experience / comfort and also let learners in the class see that others, both native speakers and ELLs are nervous about presenting orally in class.

Provide Clear Instructions

• Write clear, detailed instructions (following the suggestions in Module 3).
• Ask students to download a copy to bring to class and encourage them to record annotations as you discuss expectations.
• Example: How many slides should you use as your visual aid? Do you need to use outside sources? What tools can you use to create this presentation?
• Include the rubric that you will use to grade the presentations and explain each section, noting sections that have higher weighting.

Provide a Guide to Planning

• Have students write a description of the target audience for their presentation and explicitly state the purpose of the presentation.

• Encourage students to read widely on their topic. The more content knowledge the learner has about the topic, the more confident the learner will be when presenting.
• Teach students how to do an effective presentation that meets your course expectations (if class time does not permit, offer an optional  ‘office hours’ workshop). Remember – many of your students many never have presented a post-secondary presentation which may cause significant anxiety. Your ELL’s experiences with oral presentations may be limited or significantly different in terms of expectations based on their prior educational contexts.
• Have students view examples of good presentations and some bad ones – there are many examples available on YouTube such as  Good Presentation vs Bad Presentation .
• Provide specific guidelines for each section of the presentation. How should learners introduce their presentation? How much detail is required? Is audience interaction required? Is a call to action expected at the end?
• If audience interaction is required, teach your students specific elicitation techniques (See Module 3)
• Designing Visual Aids Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo
• Presentation Aids Video
• Paralinguistic features like eye contact are potentially culture – bound. If the subject that you are teaching values eye contact, then include this expectation in the presentation. On the other hand, if your field of study doesn’t require presentations typically, consider valuing the cultural diversity of your learners and not grading learners negatively for not making eye contact.
• Review the rubric. Let learners know what you are specifically grading  during the presentation. The rubric should be detailed enough that learners know what elements of the presentation are weighted the heaviest.

Model an Effective Presentation

A good speech is like a pencil; it has to have a point.

• Provide an exemplar of a presentation that you have presented yourself and recorded, or a presentation done by a previous student for which you have written permission to share.

Require Students to Practice

• Practice saying the presentation out loud
• Practice with a room mate/ classmate / family member / friend
• Go on a walk and talk – encourage students to get outside, and go for a walk – as they walk, they can say their presentation orally out loud. The fresh air and sunshine helps one to relax and reduce anxiety, so it is easier to focus on the talk.
• Record a practice presentation. Encourage students to find a quiet place to record and to use headphones with a mic to improve quality of the recording.
• If time allows, build formative practice presentations into the schedule. Have students practice their presentation in small groups and have other group mates give targeted feedback based on content, organization and presentation skills. Provide a checklist of expectations for the others in the group to use to provide specific, targeted feedback to the presenter. Students can watch their performance at home along with their peer’s feedback to identify areas for improvement.

• If you have assigned oral presentations in your class, review the course outcomes and the content covered in the assignment and determine if a formal oral presentation is necessary. 
• Think of one alternative you could offer to students who struggle with individual assignments.
• Annotate your assignment with notes indicating possible modifications you could make to improve the inclusivity and equity of the assignment.

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How to Use Oral Presentations to Help English Language Learners Succeed

Please try again

Excerpted from “ The ELL Teacher’s Toolbox: Hundreds of Practical Ideas to Support Your Students ,” by Larry Ferlazzo and Katie Hull Sypnieski, with permission from the authors.

Having the confidence to speak in front of others is challenging for most people. For English Language Learners, this anxiety can be heightened because they are also speaking in a new language. We’ve found several benefits to incorporating opportunities for students to present to their peers in a positive and safe classroom environment. It helps them focus on pronunciation and clarity and also boosts their confidence. This type of practice is useful since students will surely have to make presentations in other classes, in college, and/or in their future jobs. However, what may be even more valuable is giving students the chance to take these risks in a collaborative, supportive environment.

Presentations also offer students the opportunity to become the teacher—something we welcome and they enjoy! They can further provide valuable listening practice for the rest of the class, especially when students are given a task to focus their listening.

Research confirms that in order for ELLs to acquire English they must engage in oral language practice and be given the opportunity to use language in meaningful ways for social and academic purposes (Williams & Roberts, 2011). Teaching students to design effective oral presentations has also been found to support thinking development as “the quality of presentation actually improves the quality of thought, and vice versa” (Živković, 2014, p. 474). Additionally, t he Common Core Speaking and Listening Standards specifically focus on oral presentations. These standards call for students to make effective and well-organized presentations and to use technology to enhance understanding of them.

GUIDELINES AND APPLICATION

Oral presentations can take many different forms in the ELL classroom—ranging from students briefly presenting their learning in small groups to creating a multi-slide presentation for the whole class. In this section, we give some general guidelines for oral presentations with ELLs. We then share ideas for helping students develop their presentation skills and describe specific ways we scaffold both short and long oral presentations.

We keep the following guidelines in mind when incorporating oral presentations into ELL instruction:

Length —We have students develop and deliver short presentations (usually 2-4 minutes) on a regular basis so they can practice their presentation skills with smaller, less overwhelming tasks. These presentations are often to another student or a small group. Once or twice a semester, students do a longer presentation (usually 5-8 minutes), many times with a partner or in a small group.

Novelty —Mixing up how students present (in small groups, in pairs, individually) and what they use to present (a poster, a paper placed under the document camera, props, a slide presentation, etc.) can increase engagement for students and the teacher!

Whole Class Processing -- We want to avoid students “tuning out” during oral presentations. Not only can it be frustrating for the speakers, but students also miss out on valuable listening practice. During oral presentations, and in any activity, we want to maximize the probability that all students are thinking and learning all the time. Jim Peterson and Ted Appel, administrators with whom we’ve worked closely, call this “whole class processing” (Ferlazzo, 2011, August 16) and it is also known as active participation. All students can be encouraged to actively participate in oral presentations by being given a listening task-- taking notes on a graphic organizer, providing written feedback to the speaker, using a checklist to evaluate presenters, etc.

Language Support —It is critical to provide ELLs, especially at the lower levels of English proficiency, with language support for oral presentations. In other words, thinking about what vocabulary, language features and organizational structures they may need, and then providing students with scaffolding, like speaking frames and graphic organizers. Oral presentations can also provide an opportunity for students to practice their summarizing skills. When students are presenting information on a topic they have researched, we remind them to summarize using their own words and to give credit when using someone else’s words.

Technology Support —It can’t be assumed that students have experience using technology tools in presentations. We find it most helpful using simple tools that are easy for students to learn (like Powerpoint without all the “bells and whistles” or Google Slides). We also emphasize to students that digital media should be used to help the audience understand what they are saying and not just to make a presentation flashy or pretty. We also share with our students what is known as “The Picture Superiority Effect”-- a body of research showing that people are better able to learn and recall information presented as pictures as opposed to just being presented with words (Kagan, 2013).

Groups -- Giving ELLs the opportunity to work and present in small groups is helpful in several ways. Presenting as a group (as opposed to by yourself) can help students feel less anxious. It also offers language-building opportunities as students communicate to develop and practice their presentations. Creating new knowledge as a group promotes collaboration and language acquisition--an ideal equation for a successful ELL classroom!

Teacher feedback/student evaluation --The focus of oral presentations with ELL students should be on the practice and skills they are gaining, not on the grade or “score” they are earning. Teachers can give out a simple rubric before students create their presentations. Then students can keep these expectations in mind as they develop and practice their presentations. The teacher, or classmates, can then use the rubric to offer feedback to the speaker. We also often ask students to reflect on their own presentation and complete the rubric as a form of self-assessment. Figure 30.1 – “Presentation Peer Evaluation Rubric” , developed by talented student teacher Kevin Inlay (who is now a teacher in his own classroom), is a simple rubric we used to improve group presentations in our ELL World History class.

Teaching Presentation Skills

We use the following two lesson ideas to explicitly teach how to develop effective presentation skills:

LESSON ONE: Speaking and Listening Do’s and Don’ts

We help our students understand and practice general presentation skills through an activity we call Speaking and Listening “Do’s and Don’ts.” We usually spread this lesson out among two class periods.

We first ask students to create a simple T-chart by folding a piece of paper in half and labeling one side “Do” and the other side “Don’t.” We then post Figure 30.2 “Speaking Do’s and Don’ts” on the document camera and display the first statement (the rest we cover with a blank sheet of paper).

We read the first statement, “Make eye contact with the audience,” and ask students if this is something they want to do when they are giving a presentation or if it is something they don’t want to do. Students write the statement where they think it belongs--under the “Do” column or “Don’t” Column. Students then share their answer with a partner and discuss why they put it in that column. After calling on a few pairs to share with the class, we move down the list repeating the same process of categorizing each statement as a “Do” or a “Don’t.” Students write it on their chart and discuss why it should be placed there.

After categorizing the statements for speaking, we give students Figure 30.3 “Listening Do’s and Don’ts .” We tell students to work in pairs to categorize the statements as something they do or something they don’t want to do when listening to a student presentation. This time, we ask students to make a quick poster with the headings “Do’s” and “Don’ts” for Listening. Under each heading students must list the corresponding statements--the teacher can circulate to check for accuracy. Students are asked to talk about why each statement belongs in each category and should be prepared to share their reasoning with the class. Students must also choose one “do” statement and one “don’t” statement to illustrate on their poster. Students can present their posters in small groups or with the whole class. This serves as a great opportunity to apply the speaking and listening “do’s” they just reviewed and heightens their awareness of the “don’ts!”

A fun twist, that also serves as a good review on a subsequent day, is to ask groups of students to pick two or three “do’s” and “don’ts” from both Speaking and Listening to act out in front of the class.

LESSON TWO Slide Presentations Concept Attainment

We periodically ask students to make slide presentations using PowerPoint or Google Slides to give them practice with developing visual aids (see the Home Culture activity later in this section). We show students how to make better slides, along with giving students the language support they may need in the form of an outline or sentence starters. An easy and effective way to do this is through Concept Attainment.

Concept Attainment involves the teacher identifying both "good" and "bad" examples of the intended learning objective. In this case, we use a PowerPoint containing three “good” slides and three “bad” ones (see them at The Best Resources For Teaching Students The Difference Between A Good and a Bad Slide ).

We start by showing students the first example of a “good” or “yes” slide (containing very little text and two images) and saying, “This is a yes.” However, we don’t explain why it is a “yes.” Then we show a “bad” or “no” example of a slide (containing multiple images randomly placed with a very “busy background”), saying, “This is a no” without explaining why. Students are then asked to think about them, and share with a partner why they think one is a "yes" and one is a "no."

At this point, we make a quick chart on a large sheet of paper (students can make individual charts on a piece of paper) and ask students to list the good and bad qualities they have observed so far. For example, under the “Good/Yes” column it might say “Has less words and the background is simple” and under the “Bad/No” column “Has too many pictures and the background is distracting.”

We then show the second “yes” example (containing one image with a short amount of text in a clear font) and the “no” example (containing way too much text and using a less clear font style). Students repeat the “think-pair-share” process and then the class again discusses what students are noticing about the “yes” and “no” examples. Then they add these observations to their chart.

Students repeat the whole process a final time with the third examples. The third “yes” example slide contains one image, minimal text and one bullet point. The third “no” example, on the other hand, contains multiple bullet points.

To reinforce this lesson at a later date, the teacher could show students more examples, or students could look for more “yes” and “no” examples online. They could continue to add more qualities of good and bad slides to their chart. See the Technology Connections section for links to good and bad PowerPoint examples, including the PowerPoint we use for this Concept Attainment lesson.

You can learn more about other presentations that support public speaking, such as home culture presentations, speed dating, talking points, top 5 and PechaKucha Book talks in our book, “ The ELL Teacher’s Toolbox: Hundreds of Practical Ideas to Support Your Students .”

Larry Ferlazzo has taught English Language Learners, mainstream and International Baccalaureate students at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento for 15 years. He has authored eight books on education, hosts a popular blog for educators, and  writes a weekly teacher advice column for Education Week Teacher .  He was a community organizer for 19 years prior to becoming a high school teacher.

Katie Hull Sypnieski has worked with English Language Learners at the secondary level for over 20 years.  She currently teaches middle school ELA and ELD at Rosa Parks K-8 School in Sacramento, California. She is a teaching consultant with the Area 3 Writing Project at the University of California, Davis and has leads professional development for teachers of ELLs. She is co-author (with Larry Ferlazzo) of The ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide and Navigating the Common Core with English Language Learners .

Impromptu Speech Activities

Oral Presentation Topics for Elementary Students

• Assessments & Tests
• Becoming A Teacher
• Elementary Education
• Secondary Education
• Special Education
• Homeschooling
• M.S., Education, Buffalo State College
• B.S., Education, Buffalo State College

Learning how to deliver an impromptu speech is part of meeting the oral communications standards. Use the following activities to help students practice their presentation skills.

Activity 1: Speech Fluency

The purpose of this exercise is for students to practice speaking clearly and fluently. To begin the activity, pair students together and have them choose a topic from the list below. Next, give students about thirty to sixty seconds to think about what they are going to say in their speech. Once they have gathered their thoughts, have students take turns presenting their speech to one another.

Tip - To keep students on track, give each group a timer and have them set it for one minute for each presentation. Also, create a handout that students must fill out after their speech to give their partner feedback on the positives and negatives of their presentation.

Possible Questions to Include in the Handout

• Was the message clear?
• Were the ideas organized?
• Did they speak fluently?
• Was their audience engaged?
• What can they do better next time?

Topics to Choose From

• Favorite book
• Favorite food
• Favorite animal
• Favorite sport
• Favorite school subject
• Favorite vacation
• Favorite holiday

Activity 2: Impromptu Practice

The purpose of this activity is for students to gain experience delivering one to two-minute impromptu speech presentations. For this activity, you can put students into groups of two or three. Once the group is chosen, have each group select a topic from the list below. Then allow each group five minutes to prepare for their task. After the five minutes is up, each individual from the group takes turns delivering their speech to the group.

Tip - A fun way for students to get feedback is to have them record their presentation and watch (or hear) themselves on tape. The iPad is an excellent tool to use, or any video or audio recorder will work just fine.

• Any of the above
• Explain the rules of your favorite game
• Explain how to make your favorite meal
• Explain your daily routine

Activity 3: Persuasive Speech

The purpose of this activity is for students to gain knowledge on how to give a persuasive speech . First, use the list of persuasive language techniques to give students examples of what should be included in their speech. Then, group students into pairs and have them each choose a topic from the list below. Give students five minutes to brainstorm a sixty-second speech that will persuade their partner to their point of view. Have students take turns delivering their speeches and then fill out the feedback form from Activity 1.

Tip - Allow students to jot down notes or key words on an index card.

• Any current event
• Convince listeners why you should be the president
• Try to sell the listeners the clothes you are wearing
• Convince the teacher to not give homework for a week
• Try to convince the school board why they should have better food in the cafeteria

Persuasive Language Techniques

• Emotional appeal : The speaker plays on people's emotions, can manipulate the reader by triggering an emotional response.
• Descriptive language : The speaker uses words that are lively and vivid and engages the reader by inducing an emotion or producing a picture for them.
• Emotive language : The speaker uses language that plays on peoples feelings. There is a deliberate use of words to provoke an emotional response.
• Inclusive Language : The speaker uses language that engages the audience and sounds friendly.
• Alliteration : The speaker uses the same letter in two or more words to persuade by adding emphasis and reinforcing the meaning. (ex. cruel, calculating, and crooked)
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Supporting the Oral Presentation: A Checklist for Providing Feedback to Student Presentations in Your Classroom

by Model Teaching | May 19, 2022.

Students will be tasked with showcasing and presenting their work in various ways throughout their educational careers. This could be activities like reciting poetry or text , presenting at a science fair, participating in debate, or presenting a final project within their content-area class. Typically, you might design your presentation rubrics to focus on what matters most in your course- mastery of the course content. Because presentations can be used as one assessment method for students to showcase mastery, you might be looking for depth of content knowledge, accuracy or expertise in the content students are discussing, and how well the presentation itself communicates the students’ message. These components are critical for an effective student presentation. But the actual characteristics of an oral presentation should also not be overlooked. For students to truly be effective communicators and demonstrate their best work, they will also need to be effective public speakers. Monitoring a student’s public speaking ability and providing feedback and guidance for improvement can help develop them into effective communicators that will accel above and beyond your academic requirements for a presentation.

While not a comprehensive list, below are some main components of an oral presentation that students can work to improve as they gain experience presenting their work in front of a group of people. By requiring students to be mindful of some specific features of an oral presentation, they can work to gain confidence in conveying messages using the spoken word.

Accuracy: Does the student speak with few to no mistakes? Accuracy in recitation means that the student can repeat the text verbatim.

Pronunciation: Can the student correctly sound out the spoken words? Pronunciation means that the student pronounces all words correctly when speaking, focusing on how to emphasize parts of the word and how certain letters and phonemes sound when spoken aloud.

Enunciation: Can the students speak clearly? Enunciation means that the students can properly blend words, speak at an appropriate pace so that each word spoken can be distinctly heard, avoids mumbling the words, and fully forms the words being spoken.

Inflection: Does the student modulate his or her voice to match the text? Inflection is how the spoken word expresses the tone, mood, gender, or other attribute attempting to be conveyed in the text.

Projection: Does the student’s voice carry at an appropriate volume that anyone in the room can hear? Projection is the strength of a person’s speaking and should give power and clarity to an individual’s voice.

Tempo: Does the student maintain an appropriate rate of speech? The tempo of an oral recitation means that words are not spoken too fast or too slow, but at an appropriate pace for the content and environment.

Filler Avoidance: Does the student avoid words like “um” or “like”? Avoiding fillers means that the student can maintain accuracy in speech even if he needs to take a moment to collect his thoughts before continuing.

As you note these seven components of a student’s speech, consider how you can monitor their improvement over time and then provide specific feedback for improvement. Utilizing a rubric or checklist that helps you identify areas for improvement is the first step in monitoring these speech components. You can find a checklist of these seven components in a resource download below this article. As students practice an oral presentation, you can monitor areas of their speech that they exhibit well and identify areas for improvement. Tailoring your feedback to provide one positive acknowledgment of their performance and one area for improvement offers students the confidence to work to improve.

For example, a 3rd-grade class was tasked with choosing an organism, creating a diorama of its habitat, and then presenting it to the class. The teacher allowed students to practice their presentations in small groups before presenting to the whole class. As the teacher checked in on group progress, she noticed one student softly describing her presentation. The teacher said, “Emily, think about the projection of your voice. Do you think children in another group could hear you? Stand up a little straighter, fill your lungs with a deep breath, and try projecting your voice louder.” Another student in a different group hadn’t yet fully mastered his speech and utilized the words like “um” throughout his presentation to his group members: “My animal is the hawksbill turtle, and it lives in um.. warm waters… um basically like in beachy areas.” The teacher stopped him and said, “try writing down what you want to say, and memorize a few lines. This might help you avoid using “like” and “um” when you present to the class because you will be able to recall the information more easily.” She continued providing presentation feedback to her students and then utilized a checklist on the day of their presentations, providing further feedback they can consider for future presentations.

Providing guidance on the oral presentation in addition to the content of the student’s work will develop your students into excellent communicators of ideas. Consider implementing a method for supporting the oral presentation in your future classroom activities.

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Oral Presentation Observation Checklist

You can use the Oral Presentation Checklist to help improve students’ oral speaking skills during recitation.

Consider a presentation you are planning for students in the future. How can you help them practice their public speaking skills, and then provide feedback to them during their oral presentations?

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A guide to Professional Communications Projects , with examples and grading rubrics Resources about Speaking Effectively from the State Your Case project.

Assessment By Oral Presentation

What is assessment by oral presentation.

Oral presentations are often used to assess student learning from student individual and group research projects.

Oral Presentation Assessment Tips for Instructors:

• Oral Presentation Tips and Peer Evaluation Questions Laura Goering, Carleton College, developed these tips and student evaluation template for the Carleton College Perlman Center for Learning and Teaching .
• Oral Report Evaluation Rubric (Microsoft Word 56kB Jul6 07) from Mark France, Gallery Walk page.
• Information on developing scoring rubric .
• Information on developing instructional rubrics .
• If students are giving group presentations, the following Student Peer Assessment Rubric for Group Work (Microsoft Word 37kB May20 05) can be useful for having student assess the individuals in their groups.
• The Assessing Project Based Learning Starting Point website page uses rubrics to assess oral presentations.
• For an example of how to incorporate rubric in to a class, see Environmental Assessment course.
• Oral Presentation Assessment Examples - See how other courses have incorporated oral presentations. This link will take you to a browse listing example courses that have incorporated oral presentations.
• Effective Speaking Resources from the State Your Case project - A handful of useful resources about speaking effectively and giving successful oral presentations.  
• Professional Communications Projects - Learn more about this teaching method, which asks students to effectively communicate scientific information in a genre that professional scientists are expected to master, such as with scientific posters, conference proposals or oral presentations.

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ORAL PRESENTATION CHECKLIST

Introduction.

• Speaker engages audience attention and interest (relevance, importance, timeliness, etc.).
• Speaker clearly identifies thesis, purpose or central question (focus).
• Speaker clearly previews presentation's structure or content (scope and sequence).  (If thesis or preview is withheld, is this appropriate and effective?)

Development

• Points are clear and arranged in logical order.
• Speaker provides appropriate transitions between points.
• Speaker adequately clarifies terms and concepts.
• Speaker adequately explains points and supports arguments.
• Speaker restates or summarizes points as needed.
• Speaker cites sources appropriately (orally or on visuals).

Audiovisual Media

• Media make sense and enhance the presentation.
• Speaker effectively integrates media with what is being said.
• Speaker provides appropriate transitions between media clips or PowerPoint slides.
• Slides are effectively designed (clear, uncluttered, adequate size, good contrast, consistent).
• Slides are correct in terms of spelling, grammar, citations, etc.
• Speaker summarizes as needed.
• Speaker reinforces or re-establishes the thesis, purpose or central question.
• Speaker closes appropriately.

Overall Delivery

• Speaker uses clear, appropriate language.
• Speaker uses appropriate rate and volume.
• Speaker uses few “uhs” and “ums.”
• Speaker uses voice expressively.
• Speaker makes sufficient eye contact.
• Speaker uses nonverbal behavior that supports the message.

Office / Department Name

Oral Communication Center

Contact Name

Amy Gaffney

Oral Communication Center Director

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