1. Essentials of Oral Defense
(English Language Teaching)
August, 2009

2. This lecture will address the academic issues you need to be aware of in your oral defense.
It will NOT cover the administrative issues concerning the event.

3. What makes an oral defense?
5~ 10
minutes
5~ 10
minutes
Thesis Presentation Session +
Question & Answer Session
You present a summary of your thesis.
You answer questions raised by the examiners.
Two Phases

4. Part I: Thesis Presentation
Q1: What should I include in my presentation?
Q2: What should I stay alert to when preparing for my thesis presentation?
Q3: What should I stay alert to when presenting my thesis?

5. Part I: Thesis Presentation
Q1: What should I include in my presentation?
Q2: What should I stay alert to when preparing for my thesis presentation?
Q3: What should I stay alert to when presenting my thesis?

6. 1/7. Context against what the thesis is set
You need to specify the following information:
Who you are and where you work
eg. a teacher at a language training school; responsible for delivering training classes; on reading skill improvement to middle school students of years old.
2) What the teaching situation is:
eg. PETS training programmes to students who plan to take part in PETS exam (Band 2); reading section; reading speed and good comprehension is crucial to test takers.

7. 2. Problem and its analysis
You need to specify the following information:
The problem:
eg. students need to enhance their reading speed and comprehension.
2) The analysis of the problem:
inappropriate reading habits from their regular in-school English classes
their vocabulary size and vocabulary skills
inappropriate teaching methods

8. 3 . Project objective and hypothesis
You need to specify the following information:
Project objective:
eg. to enhance my students’ reading speed and comprehension through skimming.
2) Project hypothesis:
eg. If my students became aware and began to apply skimming to their reading tasks in PETS, they could read faster with good comprehension.

9. 4. Project design
You need to specify the following information:
Activity design:
eg. 16 passages; grew in length yet were given less and less time to read; designed to guide students from the awareness to the application of skimming in their reading tasks.
2) Reading materials:
eg. 16 passages from the reading section of simulation PETS exam papers; divided into four groups based on their level of difficulties and word length in ascending order.
3) Teaching arrangement:
eg. a time span of four weeks; two sessions of reading classes a week; each session one hour long; one group of passages for each stage.

10. 5. Subject and research methods
You need to specify the following information:
Who took part in the project: 60 students. 46 out of 60 regularly attended their training classes and completed their questionnaires.
What research methods you used, what they were designed to find out and when you used them:
A pre-project questionnaire aimed to check their reading habits and their awareness of skimming skill.
A post-project questionnaire to report their understanding and application of skimming skill.
16 quizzes (with three multiple-choice questions each) attached to the 16 reading passages; filled out after they finished reading an assigned passage within 10 minutes
teaching notes/diary to record the impression after class

11. 6. Findings and conclusions
You need to specify the following information:
Findings:
eg. Analysis of the pre- and post-questionnaire, together with the 16 passage-based quizzes: students became fully aware of skimming skill as a reading strategy; students applied such a skill to their reading tasks; students made significant progress in their reading speed and comprehension; use of skimming skill  reading speed and comprehension was enhanced
2) Conclusion:
eg. findings supported my hypothesis

12. 7. Significance
You need to specify the following information:
Who benefited from your project and what the benefits are:
Eg. made a good attempt to experiment with introducing skimming to my reading class; experimented a practical and easy-to-follow model to teachers trying to solve their problems; a model useful at a language training school; a model not only brings benefits to the students, but also helps teachers in their career development.

13. Part I: Thesis Presentation
Q1: What should I include in my presentation?
Q2: What should I stay alert to when preparing for my thesis presentation?
Q3: What should I stay alert to when presenting my thesis?

14. Content: all for one.
Problem description, problem analysis, project objective and hypothesis, activities design, subject, research methods, findings and conclusions should address the SAME issue.
Organization: all in one.
Make sure that you include all the 7 components and follow the suggested sequence. Use markers whenever possible (so, therefore, first, second, etc.)
Language: No excuse for any mistakes.
Use short sentences. Use markers to indicate the sequence and change of topics. Use correct tenses.

15. Part I: Thesis Presentation
Q1: What should I include in my presentation?
Q2: What should I stay alert to when preparing for my thesis presentation?
Q3: What should I stay alert to when presenting my thesis?

16. 1) Manner:
Start your presentation upon the examiners’ permission.
State your name and student ID before presentation
Indicate when your presentation is over.
Don’t read from your paper or notes.
2) Pronunciation:
Accuracy, speed, intonation.
3) Timing:
5-10 minutes

17. Q1: What might be the questions?
Part II: Q & A Session
Q1: What might be the questions?
Q2: What is considered to be a good answer?

18. Q1: What might be the questions?
Part II: Q & A Session
Q1: What might be the questions?
Q2: What is considered to be a good answer?

19. Q1: What might be the questions?
Your examiners will focus their questions on key issues or issues that need further clarification or specification concerning your thesis and your presentation.
You need to have a “mind-map” of the organization and content of your thesis. In addition, you should be able to interpret the information conveyed in your thesis using simple and communicative language.

20. Q1: What might be the questions?
Concerning your topic:
Why were you interested in this topic?
How closely related was your topic to your work?
Concerning your problem:
What was the problem you planned to solve in your project?
Why do you think this could be justified as a problem?
What do you think caused the problem?
What were the methods you used to analyze your problem?

21. Concerning your project design:
What were your project objective and hypothesis?
Can you briefly describe your project design?
In what way did your project design meet the demand of your project objective?
What were the features of your project design that made it different from your everyday practice?
What were the difficulties or problems you came across when you designed or implemented your project? And how did you deal with them?
Can you explain why you believed that your project design could solve your problem?
What was your role in the project?

22. Concerning your research methods :
What were the research methods you used to collect data?
What were the data you collected to test the project hypothesis?
How did you analyze the data?
What did the data indicate?
Why do you think that the data could verify your project hypothesis?

23. Concerning your findings:
What were your major findings of the project?
Concerning your project in general:
What did you learn from this project?
In what way did this project benefit your work?
In what way do you think that your project can be improved?

24. Q1: What might be the questions?
Part II: Q & A Session
Q1: What might be the questions?
Q2: What is considered to be a good answer?

25. Q2: What is considered to be a good answer?
Content-wise:
Relevant
Cohesive
Language-wise:
Accurate
Concise

26. Part III: Housekeeping
Rehearse before hand
Communicate, don’t recite!

27. Part III: Housekeeping
Be ready to admit flaws
5-min presentation on VOB

28. Part III: Housekeeping
Be confident.

29. Part III: Housekeeping
What is said is what has been written.
Give brief answers to the point. You can name the chapter where an answer is addressed as a further reference for the examiners.
Use short sentences!
Use correct tenses!
Speak good English!

30. Thank you!