13 replies to this topic

[dufka]

Hello

I have to make up Oral Presentation and the topic has to be connected with the culture or something in English-speaking country. It has to last 3 minutes.
Any ideas? please help me ! i am desperate at every subject

[yellowleo]

Food and festivals and fashion are always easy topics.
For example you could explain Thanksgiving in the either US and in Canada: When it's celebrated, why it is celebrated, what people eat, common traditions on that day, etc.
Culture is wide,there's so much you can do, just make sure it fits into the requirements.

[dufka]

yellowleo, on Jul 21, 2010 - 15:09, said:

Food and festivals and fashion are always easy topics.
For example you could explain Thanksgiving in the either US and in Canada: When it's celebrated, why it is celebrated, what people eat, common traditions on that day, etc.
Culture is wide,there's so much you can do, just make sure it fits into the requirements.

Thank you again I was particularly thinking about England because I am getting there in a week time and I'd be able to investigate some topic in this country, but I don't know what

[yellowleo]

Hmm well you could discuss an English sport? Or look up something about the royalty? Or just look up traditions, you'll find a wealth of stuff about traditions

[sweetnsimple786]

Where are you going, exactly? Maybe you could look up some of the history in that particular place. Historical significance can be really interesting and the vocab that goes along with it isn't too bad. I don't know if English for you is as hard as Spanish is for me, but I basically learned a few words describing a hand fan and some history of Cadiz and was able to incorporate it into the oral, which make me sound like I knew what I was talking about.

[Tilia]

A good idea is to take something slightly controversial. Remember that you and your teacher are supposed to discuss the topic for 3-4 minutes and if you've then talked about English breakfasts (for instance) it might be harder to get a reasonable discussion than if you've spoken about local politics.

But take something you know you can talk about. I talked about ice melting in Switzerland for my oral and I knew my teacher was going to ask me about what I thought the politicians should do and the Copenhagen meeting, so I was prepared for that. However, I ended up in a situation trying to explain my opinions about alternative fuel, realizing that I didn't know what rape nor circulation was called in German But I got a 7 anyway.

So, take something interesting, that you actually can discuss, but without to many hard words.

[Sandwich]

The way to make the oral as easy for yourself as possible is to select a topic for which you already know a lot of related vocabulary. You'll be asked questions related to that topic, so it makes sense to give yourself the best chance of knowing what the questions are. For instance, if you know lots of food/festival related vocab, you should choose something like that. It's not a good idea to pick something with specialised vocabulary -- like I wouldn't choose to discuss any of the sports (except perhaps football, as that's pretty simple) because the vocab is very specific. I'm sure your teacher wouldn't be evil to you and ask really obscure questions, but it's still not a good idea to put yourself in a position where you're probably not going to know most of the specific vocabulary for that topic.

[dufka]

Thank you guys so much !
I'm going to London and I am thinking of making up my oral topic somehow connected with that city. Maybe I'd say that London is a nationality jumble and there are many suburbs with different poeple from all over the world.. something like that? What do you think??

[pretty_sara]

I'm searching for topics as well, I liked the idea of thanksgiving
Good luck with your orals =D

[Th-3n]

sweetnsimple786, on Jul 22, 2010 - 04:45, said:

Where are you going, exactly? Maybe you could look up some of the history in that particular place. Historical significance can be really interesting and the vocab that goes along with it isn't too bad. I don't know if English for you is as hard as Spanish is for me, but I basically learned a few words describing a hand fan and some history of Cadiz and was able to incorporate it into the oral, which make me sound like I knew what I was talking about.

halo, could give me some suggestion about australian culture,,,thanks a lot

[Sunny_]

I'm working on English B oral too and thanks for the suggestions!!

[SophiaH]

Someone help! I wanted to discuss about homosexuality in US military and their changing policies towards that minority but I dont know how to narrow my topic down. It's really broad and controversial, so my teacher wanted me to narrow it down but I have no idea how am I going to do that..

[Sandwich]

SophiaH, on Feb 07, 2012 - 16:34, said:

Someone help! I wanted to discuss about homosexuality in US military and their changing policies towards that minority but I dont know how to narrow my topic down. It's really broad and controversial, so my teacher wanted me to narrow it down but I have no idea how am I going to do that..

What about looking at "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"? Pick a policy. There's been a lot of media coverage on DADT so it should be easy to find an article/stimulus of some kind

[timmotytimmoty]

yellowleo, on Jul 21, 2010 - 15:09, said:

Food and festivals and fashion are always easy topics.
For example you could explain Thanksgiving in the either US and in Canada: When it's celebrated, why it is celebrated, what people eat, common traditions on that day, etc.
Culture is wide,there's so much you can do, just make sure it fits into the requirements.

In my opinion, the thanksgiving is a terrible idea. The best presentation should be in form of advantages and disadvantages about an issue, there should be associated with your personal opinions, you should delve into a problem from different perspectives. Just to introduce sth is going to be a very poor presentation.