Further Oral Activity tips?

[nudie]

Hello IBsurvival!

first post, yay

I am taking Swedish A L&L(I assume this goes under the A1 forums), and our first real IB assignment is to do a Further Oral Activity. This seemingly is a very creative assignment, which I think is making it difficult. Our teacher gave us 5 headlines which in some way had to do with Language history in Sweden, as that is the country we are from and Swedish is language we are studying. Since the syllabus is the same for every language it does not matter at all in which language you have done it.

Anyway, me and two of my classmates have decided to research and lecture about the relation between language and power for an indigenous people in Sweden called the Sami.

To my horror it appears to be 0 threads on this type of assignment, and searching google doesn't help a lot either.

It would be greatly appreciated if anyone with experience in Further Oral Activities could share their tips.

P.S. Bumping this thread by saying Welcome is OK too

[carpediem]

I'm about to finish my first FOA, so hopefully my pointers will be useful.

Criteria

The most important thing is to stick to the criteria. These are:

• Knowledge and understanding of the text(s) and the subject matter
  Does the presentation adequately convey knowledge and understanding of the topic and its larger meaning and cultural significance?
  
• Understanding of how language is used
  Does the FOA convey specific understanding of the way language, style and format are used to create meaning and/or effect?
  
• Organisation
  Is the structure and organization coherent and sustained?
  
• Language
  Is the use of language effective and appropriate to the task chosen?
  

Now, in order to do this you have to keep in mind what the Purpose, Audience and Style of the text is. Think of where your text will be read, and who specifically will read it! (e.g. women aged 21-35, white, upper-middle class)

Research

For you to be able to plan your piece, you need to be able to do research so you can refer to that in order to create your FOA. (Think of this as your rationale, similar to writing your Writing Task 1.) This is done by:

• Finding texts and analysing them thoroughly - find examples of the type of text you are planning to write (e.g. for my FOA, we're writing an advertorial and have ~5 advertorial examples) and analyse the syntax, language etc.
  One example from my FOA is that most advertorials aim to persuade, so many of our examples have persuasive techniques like the Rule of 3, and because some were aimed at women there are many empty adjectives used.
  
• Refer to theorists of language - in my FOA, we're focusing on language and gender, so we are referring to theorists like Robin Lakoff to see what female and male language is generally about. Referring to theorists help immensely, the majority of my presentation is based on theorists' ideas.
  

There needs to be an immense amount of research done. Personally, my group have looked at around 10 adverts, but I know of groups who have 18 or so in their presentation alone​. The research aids how you write your FOA piece.

Planning of FOA piece

Using all of the above, create your actual piece. Don't focus huge amounts of time on your creative writing, as it is what you say about your piece that is most important.

Presentation

Now, you need to create a presentation incorporating all of you preparation. It should be smooth and fluid, and include specific examples. Here is an example of my plan of my presentation on language and gender in product adverts:

1. Intro to topic: Interaction between language and gender
   
2. Beer advert examples
   
3. Analyse language
   
4. Refer to theorists - Robin Lakoff, Deborah Tannen, Jennifer Coates etc.
   
5. History of beer adverts
   
6. Survey (as part of my research)
   
7. Our advertorial
   
8. Purpose of our advertorial
   
9. Comparison of our advertorial and other real-life advertorials with reference to theorists
   
10. Analyse language of our advertorial
    
11. Conclusion: ideas explored through research and analysis
    

(Guidelines my school has given: Should be at least 10 mins, and 20 mins max)

Other pointers

• This is a collaborative effort - it is very difficult to do this on your own! Generally, each person gets the same individual mark, but if the teachers feel you have not contributed they will mark you down.
  Personally, I know people who on the edge of a nervous breakdown because one of their partners isn't working - the FOA goes towards to 15% of your IB grade (because I think it's part of the Lang&Lit IOP)
  
• Don't use cue cards! Obvious pointer, I know, but you are specifically marked down because of the criteria specifications, and according to my teachers, marked down harshly.
  
• You can do your FOA multiple times (like coursework). This may take a load of your chest, but in all honesty, I would highly recommend to not to the FOA again. It can be quite stressful.
  
• Rehearse your presentation at least twice before you present. Again, very obvious, but extremely crucial.
  
• Don't break down! It's not the end of the world. (Quoted from my teacher)
  

Anyways, hope I helped!

I may give some pointers when my actual FOA is over.

[carpediem]

I've finished my FOA! Here are some other pointers:

Conclusion

To avoid repeating yourself, write your conclusion based on:

• How successful you've been to the aim
  
• How you could improve and show your understanding of the language because of that
  eg in my case, I didn't include some theorists ideas about female language because my advertorial should be predominantly persuasive, and I have identified that and explained that through the lack of this theory it shows my understanding
  
• Have a concrete/obvious ending to your presentation - say something like "Thank you for watching"
  

Questioning of the teachers

Afterwards, the teacher(s) will ask you questions based on your presentation. This may be from "Why have you used the word ____ ?" or "Why have you contradicted so-and-so's theory?" This is an important part of the presentation too (it's not over yet!), as it shows how you justify what you've done and this part of the FOA could help you bring your mark up. (Don't forget, the teachers want you to get a good grade!)

• Justify everything they question you about - even if it's 'wrong', or it's 'silly' or 'stupid', don't be worried about it! It's whether you've justified anything the teachers throw at you, whatever the reason may be.
  
• In order to justify anything, you need to have adequate amount of preparation to be able to answer. Or just bs, that's worked for some of my classmates too.
  

Now that I'm looking back on it, I wished I could've known how important it was to think about why we put that certain word in (the teachers really nitpick your piece) instead of putting it in because it sounds good. I wished I also didn't panic about being questioned, but also know that there is a last piece before it's all done:

Reflections

You are given a sheet where you have to fill in 600-800 words about how everything went. This too can help bring up your marks, as you can answer whatever you didn't say or answer properly in the questioning (which is what I'm going to do), and further show your understanding. This, if your piece if chosen, gets sent off to the IB moderators.

Good luck!

[Cats]

Hey! Thanks so much for the tips I am presenting my first FOA on Jan 16, so this was really helpful!

I have a question though: Are we allowed to use visuals? I plan on using a PowerPoint presentation... but realized my teacher never specified whether we were allowed to use visuals or not. I have already sent my teachers a few emails, but still haven't gotten a reply...

Thanks again!

[carpediem]

Oh, I'm so sorry for the late reply! Forgot to check this after the holidays...

And visuals should be okay, I personally used images and a video clip in my presentation. I hope your FOA went well! Maybe you're writing your FOA Reflection right now, so here are some other pointers.

FOA Reflection

This is supposed to be an overview of how you think you did over the whole project. Reflect on what went well, and what didn't - make sure you identify what didn't go right, so you show understanding of what went wrong and <em>recognise</em> this fact. The reflection I think is supposed to be the FOA equivalent of the Writing Task Rationale, where the piece helps you bring up your mark but if it doesn't, your actual presentation mark won't be affected. Just a little bit of help to push your mark up.

Marks

• The presentation is out of 30 marks.
  
• I'm not sure what the marks are for the reflection
  
• Official grade boundaries have not been issued yet, so my school is using last year's Lit grade boundaries as an indication for what your grade is. My teacher thinks that the official Lang&Lit boundaries shouldn't be too different to previous English mark boundaries.
  

Edited January 26, 2012 by luz y sombra.

[sciHL]

I recently did a FOA on the representation of hipsters through tv shows and internet, it seemed to go well for me as i got 26, just make sure you have lots of examples and imbed your videos into the presentation so that you aren't muck'n around waiting for youtube to load. I ended by explaining what the representation of hipster showed about us and where the trend might go in the future, wider context stuff gets the marks. Hope this helps

[StormySky]

I want to do an FOA whereby I am trying to sell a product - basically, it's supposed to be some sort of an advertisement. But I want to do this by focusing on some kind of a gender stereotype. I am confused as to what I should try to sell.

[simply94]

Finished my first FOA before the Christmas holidays in Chinese L&L.

What I learnt from my FOA

• DONT procrastinate (obvious yet we always seem to forget... my group ended up staying after school and then skyping continuously for five hours to produce our script)
• DO seem confident and try to bring some humor/ entertainment to the presentation, after all the teacher and the class are going through a lot of FOAs and you mumbling just makes the suffering even worse
• DO work closely with your group mates as it really shows in the presentation if you're unprepared or uncoordinated you become so much more nervous

I did my FOA in the form of a talk show, there was three of us talking about how hosts in Chinese reality shows abuse language to establish their power over contestants. Got a 27, wasn't half bad :)

Hands down to carpediem, great post