Using PowerPoint for Teaching English

This was the title of a presentation at this year's VUS-TESOL conference, given by Khau Huu Phuoc.  What follows is a summary of what he had to say.






Teaching with information communications technology (ICT)

ICT involves using:

• mobile phones
• computers
• audio-visual systems
• the internet
• software, such as PowerPoint or Hot Potatoes

Teaching with PowerPoint

When using books, it's difficult for us as teachers to refer to a specific point nin a text.  With PowerPoint, we can:

• Make something appear - for example, in gapfills where we can show the answer so that students are clear about what is correct (we can make words appear in any order or we can number the gaps and then fill them by clicking on the number making the exercise very easy to follow), or when teaching new vocabulary, we can click on a part of a picture to make the word appear.
• Move something - for example, in matching sentence halves or in inserting relative clauses.  You can put in sound effects for right and wrong answers - audio feedback is very engaging for students.
• Make something disappear - we can hide answers, which is particularly good when doing vocabulary tests.  For example, we can make words disappear as a clock ticks down to zero.
• Use custom animations (although we must have a purpose for using animation!) - there are four types of animation available with PowerPoint - entrance, emphasis, exit, and motion path.

All of these tools can focus students' attention on what we want them to learn.  As teachers, we can highlight places in a text very easily.  It saves a lot of time writing on the board and is very engaging for students.