Presentation in English for integrative communicative competence in an EFL university reading class

This study aims to investigate the ways presentation in English impacts students’ expansion of reading comprehension in a university reading class and to illustrate how students’ presentations lead to students’ developing integrative communicative competence in a university reading class. While integrating reading and speaking have been encouraged in previous research, EFL English curriculum tend not to bring presentation in English into reading courses. Rather presentation courses are taught separately or it is often included in conversation-oriented classes. The researcher taught 45 university students a reading course as a part of students’ liberal arts requirement and they were asked to present in English about what they have read in this class. From 45 university students taking an EFL reading course at a university, 25 students’ presentation scripts were collected and analyzed to see how presentation in English facilitated students’ integrative communicative competence. Revisiting reading texts for presentation strengthened students’ reading comprehension. Reading provided source materials on issues for presentations and students made connections between the reading and their major or other local knowledge as a way to expand their own use of English. These are interpreted as the evidence of integrative communication competence when reading and presentation in English are combined. Educational implications have been suggested. (205 words)