Action Research Project III: ARP María del Pilar Fernández Pedraza Chía, Colombia November 11th, 2016 SUCCESSFUL STRATEGIES TO FOSTER SELF-DIRECTED LANGUAGE LEARNING IN COLOMBIA -DIAGNOSING THE CURRENT STATUS IN EDUCATIONAL SETTINGS-

AGENDA Guidelines for academic presentations. Academic conferences around the world. Interviews and focus groups. Design of post-implementation instruments.

Why is it important to communicate the results of your research? To promote professional development experience. To build a bridge between research and application. To gain insights regarding the topic and the research process.

What to keep in mind in a presentation? Keep your audience engaged. Include visual aids when necessary. Beginnings and endings are really important. Make sophisticated and clear points. Let your reader know where you are in the presentation.

How to structure your slides? Make sure you include an outline of your presentation. Include points, not complete sentences (4 to 5 aspects). Use key concepts only. Avoid verbosity. Include animation, but do not overuse it. Add graphs more than simple charts.

Bad slide structure The main point to remember when constructing presentation slides is to make use of plenty of white space. This means that there should almost be more space than words on each slide. The slide should provide enough information to make sense, but not so much that the text covers the whole slide. You do not want the audience to be reading your slides – you want them to listen to you. Your audience has not made the effort to attend your presentation in order to read information which could have been handed out to them instead. Gillett, Hammond, & Martala (2009, p. 245).

What about fonts? Be consistent with the text size. Use different fonts sizes only to distinguish principal and secondary points. Use standard fonts (Arial or Times News Roma). Do not include difficult fonts to read. Small fonts do not allow your audience to understand the content.

Colors and background Use simple, but attractive backgrounds (light colors). The background needs to be consistent throughout the whole presentation. Choose a text color that does not clash with the background. Change color only when you want to emphasize a key aspect.

What are the main aspects of a presentation? Background information: Key aspects of your review. Purpose of the study: Why was it worthy to investigate? Methodology: Data collected and techniques used. Results: What you discovered providing specific examples. Conclusions: what you think your results mean. Action plan: In terms of practice and research cycle.

International academic conferences Please, go to the link and find information regarding upcoming academic events. Please include: Organizer: Theme of the conference: Call for papers: General guidelines: https://goo.gl/Xao20h

References Dixon, T. (2004). How to get a first: The essential guide to academic success. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Gillett, A., Hammond, A., & Martala, M. (2009). Successful academic writing. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education. Mertler, C. (2006). Action Research: Teachers as Researchers in the Classroom. Thousand Oaks: Sage.