Multimodality in academic oral presentations in the English language and discipline-based courses / Kuldip Kaur Maktiar Singh, Irene Yoke Chu Leong and Angeline Ranjethamoney Vijayarajoo

Academic Oral Presentation (AOP) is an important academic discourse for undergraduates in the English Language course as well as in their discipline-based courses to prepare themselves to be more successful at the academic and workplace situations. In AOP both the visual and verbal modes are important although most studies have focused mainly on the verbal mode. Visuals are part of a generic structure of AOPs, especially so in the digital era where rarely are their AOPs performed without the use of visuals. Therefore, the objective of the present study was to examine the juxtaposition of the visuals or powerpoint (PPT) slides and verbal mode of the AOPs. A total of 601 PowerPoint slides of forty group AOPs were analysed based on Rowley-Jolivet’s (2002) typology of visuals. Interviews were also conducted with undergraduates and lecturers to get feedback on the use of visuals. The findings showed that the visual and verbal modes do correspond well. The most common semiotic type of visual identified was the scriptural type. However, the density of information displayed on the PPT slides, the spelling and grammatical errors and reading a lot from the PPT slides indicate that undergraduates seem to lack good oral presentation skills despite being trained in the EL proficiency course. The findings of the study have implications for students, lecturers and curriculum developers. It is recommended that undergraduates are given training on AOPs by highlighting both the visual and verbal modes as they may end up speaking in writing style as well as, guide them to transfer their learning from English language to discipline-based AOPs.