Vita Adista Pratiwi is a graduate from English Language Education Program

Faculty of Language and Arts, UKSW, Indonesia. She entered the study program in 2018, and graduated in October 2022. Now she is teaching at Daniel Creative School (DCS), in Semarang, Indonesia.

Listyani is a lecturer, researcher, and professor at Master’s Program in English Language Education, Faculty of Language and Arts, UKSW, Indonesia. She has been teaching at the university since 1999. Her main interests are in academic writing, teacher training, and Second Language Acquisition.

 

Abstract

Speaking in English might be one of the most difficult skills to master, especially for non-native English students. Academic Speaking is one of speaking courses in a private university in Central Java, Indonesia. At the university, the Academic Speaking course was conducted online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the students faced problems and difficulties in online Academic Speaking course, especially when doing online poster presentation. The purpose of this study was to analyze ELEP students’ perspectives on doing online poster presentation in Academic Speaking course during this online learning. This study was qualitative in nature. The instruments used were open-ended and closed-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. From the findings, it was found out that students experienced positive and negative feelings in doing the online poster presentation. Besides, they had different opinions on the benefits, disadvantages, effectiveness, atmosphere, and preference of poster presentation. In doing the poster presentation, students faced some difficulties. However, they found ways to solve the problems. Hopefully, this research will be useful for Academic Speaking teachers to create an effective and intensive poster presentation. Besides, the findings will also be helpful for students in gaining a better understanding of the other students’ perspectives on doing poster presentation in the Academic Speaking course.

 

Introduction

English has developed into a global lingua franca (ELF)where many countries use it as a second language or even a first language. Many people speak English to communicate with people around the world. However, in Indonesia, English is defined as a foreign language (EFL). Thus, most Indonesian use Bahasa as their mother tongue or first language to communicate with people in daily life. However, there are still many Indonesian who use their vernacular as colloquial. Therefore, it seems hard for Indonesians to learn English in this EFL country.

Speaking is one of the four language skills in English. The other three are listening, reading, and writing. For students who learn English, especially for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) or English as a Second Language (ESL) students, it is important to acquire these four skills. As stated by Irsyad and Narius (2013) in Damayanti and Listyani (2020),  in learning a foreign language, students have to master speaking skills besides listening and writing. Speaking in English might be one of the most difficult skills to master for non-native English students. They need extra practice to gain good pronunciation, fluency, and other aspects of speaking. Unlike the other skills which can be improved independently, speaking should be practiced with others. Students need to find someone to talk with to achieve their speaking skills. Then, speaking can be said to be a challenging task for the students because lots of interaction should be done.

In offline Academic Speaking course, students could directly learn to speak English with intensive guidance from the teacher. They could get direct feedback and could immediately fix their speaking mistakes in class. It was just like what I experienced when I was joining the Academic Speaking course in August to December 2019 at a private university in Central Java, Indonesia. Even though the learning was done intensively through face-to-face learning, I still felt that taking this offline speaking course was quite challenging for me. There were several difficulties I faced at that time, especially when doing poster presentation. For instance, I did not feel confident enough to speak English because I was afraid of making mistakes such as grammar, pronunciation, and so on. Another thing, other students were already good at speaking. They often showed his or her skills in front of the class which made me feel inferior.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic that was spreading out in the whole world, various aspects of life were affected. To keep the learning going, teachers and students had to be able to adapt to this kind of online learning. In Indonesia, especially in the field of education, most of the learning was carried out online. One of them was the Academic Speaking course. Previously, I had explained that doing a poster presentation in offline Academic Speaking course was quite challenging for me because there were some difficulties I faced. Then, how about students who took online Academic Speaking course in this pandemic era? I was very curious about what students felt when doing online poster presentation. The poster presentation was conducted online through an online platform. This was a new change from the way poster presentation was previously done face-to-face. They might face much more difficulties or even had different perspectives.

Based on a mini-survey I conducted to batch 2019 students, especially to two random students who took an online Academic Speaking course, the results showed that they had many difficulties and problems while joining Academic Speaking course, especially when doing online poster presentation. Therefore, I wanted to find out students' feelings and perspectives of doing poster presentation in online Academic Speaking course during this COVID-19 pandemic. One research question was addressed: What are ELEP students’ perspectives about online poster presentation in Academic Speaking course at the Faculty of Language and Arts (FLA), Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana (UKSW)?

In the English Language Education Program of Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana, the speaking course was divided into three groups. They were Pronunciation Practice, Speaking for Social Purposes, and Academic Speaking. This study is limited to the field of Academic Speaking. In Academic Speaking course, there are some presentations that students should do. In this study the presentation was limited to an informative poster presentation.

Hopefully, this research would help the students to gain a better understanding of the other students’ perspectives of doing poster presentation in online Academic Speaking course. Also, students would know how to deal with difficulties they faced. Besides, this research would also provide meaningful information for teachers and instructors to know what students felt when doing poster presentation in online Academic Speaking course. Then, they would be able to create effective and intensive online poster presentation for the Academic Speaking course.

 

Literature review

Long-Distance teaching and learning

Due to COVID-19 which has spread throughout all countries in the world, most countries decided to close schools, colleges, and universities as an action to prevent its spread. It is too risky if teaching and learning are carried out offline or face-to-face because there will be many students who could be infected by COVID-19.  As stated by UNESCO (as cited in Putri et al., 2020), there are 577 million students who are threatened by COVID-19. Besides, according to Nugroho (2020) in Abidah et al (2020), there are 577,305,660 students from pre-primary to high school who are potentially in danger of COVID-19. Contrarily, there are a total of 86,034,287 students from higher education who are potentially at risk of COVID-19. Sadly, many students have been infected by COVID-19. Based on data statistics from UNESCO on March 25, 2020 (as cited in Abidah et al., 2020), 1,524,648,768 students had been affected by COVID-19 from 87,1% of the total students enrolled. UNESCO (2020) also mentioned that as many as 68,265,787 students were affected by COVID-19 on Wednesday, March 25, 2020. Therefore, most education in the world is implementing policies to conduct teaching and learning activities from a distance or online.

Distance learning refers to at least one of the acceptable media which will be employed by most teachers or lecturers to keep students engaged while they are quarantined in their homes (Yulandari, 2020). She added that the distance learning process is aimed to offer significant results for the students. This is supported by a study conducted by Efriana (2021) who defined distance learning as learning that uses electronic technology and internet-based technology or Information and Communication Technology (ICT). She further explained that distance learning is a program where online learning classes are organized to succeed in a broad and large group of students. It means that distance learning refers to the utilization of internet-based technology features which are highly hooked into the supply of data technology. While Anderson (2008) defined distance education or online learning as a discipline that includes knowledge & practice of pedagogy, psychology & sociology, economics & business, and production & technology.

Speaking course

Language is a tool used by people to communicate with others. It can be done either spoken or written which involves the use of words in a structured and conventional way (Damayanti & Listyani, 2020). In everyday life, people speak to communicate their thoughts, feelings, and ideas to others. According to Huebner in 1960 (as cited in Iftakhar, 2013), speaking is a skill that someone uses to communicate in daily life which consists of competence in sending and receiving messages. In line with Barras in 2006 (as cited in Wahidah, 2016), speaking is a communication in which the speaker’s message can be delivered well to the listener. Then, the message can be understood by the listener. Similarly, Irsyad and Narius in 2013 (as cited in Damayanti & Listyani, 2020), mentioned that speaking is verbal communication in which every person utilizes to interact with other people in his or her social life. It means that people as social beings cannot live alone, they need other people to interact with.

Speaking is one of the four language skills in English. This speaking skill is the most important skill to be mastered by students since it will be used in daily communication (Wahidah, 2016).  Similarly, Januariza and Hendriani (2016) claimed that students should master speaking skills to help them communicate their ideas to others. It means that speaking is very important for students since they will often use it to communicate with others. In mastering speaking skills, students need a lot of practice. The practice can be done through speaking activities given by the teachers in the class or they can just practice by themselves at home.

Speaking might be one of the most difficult skills to master rather than the other three English language skills which are reading, writing, and listening. This is supported by Wahidah (2016) who said that speaking is more complex than other language skills since it requires many skills, such as listening, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and structure. Moreover, some students feel restless when learning to speak in English. This is supported by a study conducted by Januariza and Hendriani (2016) who revealed the causes of students’ anxiety when learning speaking. The students’ anxiety is caused by the students themselves. They are afraid of making mistakes and afraid of being laughed at or mocked by the other students. Moreover, students have lack ability in speaking and have low vocabulary mastery. They have low self-esteem so they feel embarrassed to speak English.

Academic speaking course

Academic Speaking course has the main learning goal for the students to help them feel pleasurable in joining the class, especially in oral communication, such as leading and participating in discussions (Christianson, Hoskins, & Watanabe, 2009). They further perceived that the Academic Speaking course implements some teaching techniques like the use of video, recording groups of students rather than individuals, and peer review activity. Also, this class has some activities such as doing presentations, mini-lectures, group project work, and class discussions as mentioned by Singh (2013). According to English Language Education Department (2020), the Academic Speaking course provides speaking skills and linguistic knowledge which will be used in performing speaking in various contexts of formal academics. It means that this course requires a lot of interactions that should be done by the students to practice their speaking skills.

Poster presentation

A media poster is a simple medium that is made to attract people’s attention. Also, it is designed to help people understand the content easily. Chopra and Kakar (2014) stated that poster presentation is one of the ways that can be used for effective scientific communication by incorporating arts and knowledge. Another research conducted by Papanas, Georgiadis, Demetriou, Lazarides, and Maltezos (2019) revealed that poster presentation is a way of dissimilating scientific research which delivered visually by paying attention to the colors, fonts, words choice, artwork and graphics, adequate presentation of methods and results, as well as the key messages.

Poster presentation is one of the interesting ways that can be used in speaking courses. By utilizing poster presentation, teachers can assess students’ ability in speaking. Besides, based on a study conducted by Koshy (2011), poster presentation can be used as an innovative assessment to overcome problems faced by group oral presentations. Koshy (2011) further explained that poster presentation has some advantages. First, poster presentation can increase the quantity and quality of speaking time. Second, poster presentation can improve class participation. Third, poster presentation can permit individual assessment in a large class. Fourth, poster presentation can encourage deep learning and it attempts immediate feedback to students.

In summary, due to the COVID-19 which has spread out in this world, most teaching and learning activities are carried out online. All courses are conducted online to prevent the transmission of this virus. One of the courses is Academic Speaking. Academic Speaking course is designed to strengthen all aspects of English-speaking ability, especially in the academic context. In this course, students can practice their English-speaking ability through activities such as presentations, group discussions, project work, and others. However, this study only focuses on the poster presentation. In online Academic Speaking course, students practice their ability in presenting poster in the context of distance learning. 

 

Research methodology

Context of the study

This study was conducted in the English Language Education Program (ELEP) at the Faculty of Language and Arts (FLA), Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana which focused on online poster presentation in Academic Speaking course. This research was conducted in Semester I of 2021/2022 Academic Year.

Participants

The participants were English Language Education Program (ELEP) students at the Faculty of Language and Arts (FLA) of Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana. They were taking an Academic Speaking course in March to July 2021. There were 35 students who took part as participants in this study. They were from batch 2020.  Those 35 students were chosen as the participants due to two considerations. First, the students took the Academic Speaking course for 1 semester. Second, the students took the Academic Speaking course online for the first time.

Data Collection Methods & Instruments

In collecting data,  a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were used. The questionnaire was made by mixing open-ended and closed-ended questions. The questionnaire was shared through Google Form. Interviews were conducted through a face-to-face meeting and online through WhatsApp Voice Notes. Data were collected through an open-ended and close-ended questionnaire. Then, the questionnaire was distributed through Google Form to receive the participants’ experience in doing an online poster presentation in the Academic Speaking course. Semi-structured interviews were done through a face-to-face meeting and WhatsApp Voice Notes to dig into the participants’ perceptions of online poster presentation in Academic Speaking course.

 

Findings and discussion

This section provides the results of questionnaires distributed and interviews conducted starting from December 2021 to January 2022. The results showed students’ perspectives on online poster presentation in the Academic Speaking course. Based on the questionnaire results, the poster presentation was carried out differently than before. This time, the poster presentation was done online by using Pecha Kucha. Pecha Kucha is an online presentation platform invented by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham in 2003. This platform provides 20 slides with 20 seconds of commentary per slide which is calculated to become 6 minutes and 40 seconds. In Pecha Kucha, people only need to put pictures, photos, or graphics with no words (pehcakucha.com).

Before distributing the questionnaire, a pilot study was done on 11 students to make sure that the questions were understandable for the participants. Some students got confused with the questions. Therefore, some questions were changed to make them understandable for the participants in the real study. The target participants were all students from batch 2020 who took an online Academic Speaking course in which there were 39 students. However, only 35 students filled out the questionnaire. The other four students did not respond to any WhatsApp messages after being contacted for the second time. Interviewing three chosen participants was then afterwards. From the interviews conducted, four emerging themes arose. They were students’ feelings on online poster presentation, students’ opinions on online poster presentation, students’ difficulties, and students’ solutions to solve the problems.

 

Students’ feelings on online poster presentation 

After the results of the data were obtained from the questionnaires and interviews, it was found that students experienced different feelings when doing online poster presentation. The feelings were categorized into positive and negative feelings.

Students’ positive feelings on online poster presentation

Happiness

It was found that 21 of 35 (60%) students felt happy when doing an online poster presentation using Pecha Kucha. They felt happy because they could share new information or knowledge with others.  Besides, students were happy because they could get new insight and could be motivated by watching other students’ presentations. Hence, students had a desire to do the presentation well and interestingly. Below are the statements from the participants.

Excerpt 1:

“My feeling when presenting an informative poster presentation in the Academic Speaking class was that I was very enthusiastic about the presentation because I thought that the informative poster presentation is very useful to give information for the audience.” (Participant 25/Questionnaire on January 6, 2022).

Excerpt 2:

“I feel happy because I can find out various information about other cultures that I did not know before.” (Participant 12/Questionnaire on December 12, 2021).

Feeling challenged

Besides, 5 (14,28%) students felt challenged by the online informative poster presentation. The main factor was the difficulty in using the Pecha Kucha application where they had to prepare several slides with 20 seconds of commentary per slide. However, by the challenge, students were motivated to give the best presentation by repeating the recording until it matched with what they wanted. Below is a statement of Participant 27.

Excerpt 3:

“I felt like I was full of challenges because at Pecha Kucha I was asked to speak 20 seconds per slide. It was quite difficult for me and also I had to repeat my voice over and over while recording.” (Participant 27/Questionnaire on January 7, 2022).

Comfort

The other feeling experienced by 9 of 35 (25,71%) students as they did the presentation was a feeling of comfort. The reasons were; the presentation was conducted online in the form of a video and it was easy to work on. These are two statements from the participants.

Excerpt 4:

            “I feel enjoy when doing the task. It's easier than other tasks because we just need to  

              find out pictures then we just need to explain what the picture is about.” (Participant

             6/Questionnaire on December 10, 2021).

Excerpt 5:

“I felt comfortable and more confident because the presentation was in the form of a video so that if there was an error, it could be fixed again.” (Participant 15/Questionnaire on December 16, 2021).

Being fascinated

There were also other students’ feelings when their friends were doing the online informative poster presentation in the Academic Speaking course. According to the data analysis, 15 (42,85%) felt fascinated with their friends’ presentations. It was because their friends could deliver their materials. Below is a statement of Participant 11.

Excerpt 6:

“...My feeling when I saw the videos of my friends’ poster presentation, I was amazed because my friends did a good presentation.” (Participant 11/Questionnaire on December 11, 2021).

In conclusion, the informative poster presentation in Academic Speaking course could bring positive feelings for the students. By doing the presentation through Pecha Kucha, students were happy, challenged, and comfortable. Besides, by watching the informative poster presentation, students felt fascinated and motivated. Hence, the feelings experienced by the students could benefit themselves and their other friends. So, it could be said that poster presentation could help students to increase their knowledge. Also, it changed their attitude and behavior when the poster presentation was combined with educational interventions (Naseem, Rafi, Qazi, Mangrio, Bareach, & Naeem, 2021).

Students’ negative feelings on online poster presentation

Nervousness

Based on the data from the questionnaires and interviews, the feeling most often experienced by the students when presenting the informative poster presentation was nervousness. This feeling was experienced by 10 (28,57%) students. Below are the statements from the participants.

Excerpt 7:

“I felt nervous when presenting the poster online at that time because I was afraid that I would get a mistake when I pronounced a word. Besides, I’m also afraid that other people can’t understand what I’m talking about.” (Participant 10/Questionnaire on December 11, 2021).

Excerpt 8:

“The feeling that I usually felt when doing the presentation was nervousness because I always thought negatively about my presentation. For example, before I did a presentation I would think that I would make a mistake in my presentation. This made me a little insecure to do the presentation.” (Participant 26/Questionnaire on January 6, 2022).

Based on the statements above, it could be said that the major factor of their nervousness was the fear of making mistakes in the presentation. They were afraid if there was a mispronunciation or misunderstanding from the other friends toward the presentation they were doing.

Insecure feeling

There were also other students’ feelings when their friends were doing the online informative poster presentation in the Academic Speaking course. There were 4 (11,42%) students who felt insecure because of the other students’ better presentations. Below is a statement from Participant 1 and Participant 10.

Excerpt 9:

“I felt insecure when my friends did the presentation better than me, moreover when I saw that their posters are more intriguing.” (Participant 1/Questionnaire on December 9, 2021).

Not understanding others’ presentations

Besides the feeling of insecurity, 2 (5,71%) students also experienced a lack of understanding of the other students’ presentations. They felt that the way their friends delivered the material was not clear, such as too-fast speaking and unclear pronunciation. So, the students became confused with their friends’ explanations. This is the participant’s statement.

Excerpt 10:

“I felt that I did not understand what they were presenting about the informative posters. It was because they spoke fast, their pronunciation was also not quite clear. so, I just listened without giving responses; questions or comments.” (Participant 9/Questionnaire on December 11, 2021).

Boredom

Besides that,  Participant 26 experienced the feeling of boredom. The cause was the unattractive topic of the presentation. He tended to like the presentations that had topics according to his interests. Below is the participant’s statement.

Excerpt 11:

“I felt bored or impressed depending on my friends’ presentation. If I could follow the presentation well, I would be impressed. On the other hand, if my friends’ presentation was not what I liked to, such as the topic that she/he chose, then I felt bored to hear the presentation.” (Participant 26/Questionnaire on January 6, 2022).

Hence, it can be concluded that by doing and watching online informative poster presentation, students experienced negative feelings such as nervousness, insecurity, confusion, and boredom. The nervousness and insecurity are a kind of resistance for the students to create the best presentation. Besides, the feeling of confusion and boredom disturb the students in understanding the other students’ presentations. Because of these feelings, students may be afraid of being judged about their presentation performances which can bring stress for the students (Al-Nouh, Abdul-Kareem, & Taqi, 2015).

 

Students’ opinions on online poster presentation

This section revealed the students’ opinions about the online poster presentation conducted in the Academic Speaking course. The data were derived from questionnaires and interviews. This section consisted of benefits, disadvantages, effectiveness, the atmosphere of online poster presentation, and students’ preference for online or offline poster presentation.

Benefits of online poster presentation

From the questionnaires and interviews, it was found out that 31 of 35 (88,57%) students admitted that their speaking skills improved academically by doing online informative poster presentation in the Academic Speaking course. The presentation required them to speak formally using a language function that is appropriate to the academic context. Below is a statement from a student being interviewed.

Excerpt 12:

“Because of the materials and the activities given in the Academic Speaking course, so I often did practices and became more comfortable in speaking in English. Then, I also knew the language functions that would be used in the academic context.” (Participant 1/Interview on January 21, 2022).

Apart from improving speaking skills academically, online poster presentation also provided other benefits. One student was further interviewed to share his personal perspectives about the benefit of online poster presentation. He explained that by using the feature ‘transcript’ in Pecha Kucha, he could fix his pronunciation. Pecha Kucha has a feature that can transcribe the speech of the presenter. The feature shows the transcript of the student's speech. Here, the student will be able to know which words he or she pronounced wrong or right. Below is the statement from Participant 2 of the interview.

Excerpt 13:

“There is one feature that I like from Pecha Kucha, which is that when we have done published our video, we will receive a transcript of our video. Nah, from the transcript, we can see how good or bad our pronunciation is, so we can see the transcript and learn from it to improve our pronunciation in the future. And it is an advantage for me, where I still have to learn a lot to speak in English fluently and with proper pronunciation… .” (Participant 2/Interview on January 21, 2022).

In addition, one of three participants in the interview explained that the benefit she got from the online poster presentation was the improvement of her speaking and presentation skills. Below is the statement from Participant 3 of the interview.

Excerpt 14:

“For the general advantages, I gain more knowledge to practice my speaking, my pronunciation, and it trains me on how to deliver the presentation well.” (Participant 3/Interview on January 23, 2022).

From the data above, it can be concluded that online poster presentation can help students increase their speaking skills academically. As stated by Tarigan and Listyani (2021) in their study, academic speaking performances such as eye contact, gesture, fluency, pronunciation, vocabulary, and knowledge could be improved by doing poster presentation. The poster presentation encourages the students to learn the formal language used in the academic context properly with the correct pronunciation.

Disadvantages of online poster presentation

Three students were further interviewed about their perceptions of the disadvantages of online poster presentation in Academic Speaking course. From the interview, it was found that there were three disadvantages that the students experienced when doing online poster presentation. The disadvantages were delayed feedback, an untrained mentality for public speaking, and the unavailability of tutorials in using Pecha Kucha.

Participants 1 and 3 stated that feedback from lecturers or friends was not given directly in online poster presentation. Below is a statement from Participant 1.

Excerpt 15:

“Because this was different from offline presentation so that the feedback was not directly received. For example, if there was an offline presentation in class, there must be a response and so on. But, in Pecha Kucha, we only submit, only submit, then there was no direct feedback from friends or lecturers.” (Participant 1/Interview on January 21, 2022).

Participant 3 also said that there was no tutorial on using Pecha Kucha in the first trial. Hence, the participant did not really understand how to use the platform. The statement below was derived from Participant 3. 

Excerpt 16:

“Perhaps the disadvantage derived from the website itself because the website did not have a tutorial at the beginning, at the beginning of accessing the website. So, I did not really understand how to access Pecha Kucha.” (Participant 3/Interview on January 23, 2022).

The next disadvantage experienced by the students was the untrained mentality to speak in public. The student explained that in the Academic Speaking course he had taken, he did not experience speaking directly in front of many people for presentation purposes. Below is the statement from a participant.

Excerpt 17:

“The weakness that I felt the most was because the Pecha Kucha presentation was done asynchronously, not directly in front of many people so that our mentality as…, especially my mentality as a student was not being trained well to speak in front of many people or do public speaking directly.” (Participant 2/Interview on January 21, 2022).

Hence, it could be concluded that online poster presentation in Academic Speaking course still had shortcomings that needed to be regenerated for the convenience of students in carrying out their presentations. As stated by Tarigan and Listyani (2021),poster presentation did not help much in increasing students’ problem-solving ability. They further explained that to become fluent in speaking, students needed to be trained to speak more while presenting the point of their topic. 

The effectiveness of online poster presentation

Based on the data collected from questionnaires and interviews, there were 23 out of 35 (65,71%) students who said that doing online presentation in Pecha Kucha is effective. Below is a statement from a participant of the interview. 

Excerpt 18:

“Pecha Kucha is effective enough just like what I have explained before that there is a transcript feature where we as students can see the results of our speech, our pronunciation in the form of a text. And also the limit of 20 seconds per slide does help me to arrange my materials well and how the way I present the information.” (Participant 2/Interview on January 21, 2022).

Hence, it could be concluded that online poster presentation is effective to help students arrange their presentation well. Students could present their material simply by adding pictures and audio recordings. Besides, students became aware of the limited time in delivering the materials. Also, they were able to practice their speaking skills. This is in line with Solmaz’s (2019) research, that Pecha Kucha could help the presenter in focusing their speaking, visuals on the screen, and time management.

The atmosphere of online poster presentation

Based on the data from questionnaires, it was revealed that there were some atmospheres that students experienced when presenting their posters in Pecha Kucha. There were 15 (42,85%) out of 35 students who felt that the atmosphere was calm, exciting, and supportive. Besides, the rest of the students (57,114%) felt that the atmosphere of the presentation conducted in Pecha Kucha was challenging, unsupportive, tense, and boring. Below is a statement from Participant 14.

Excerpt 19:

“In my opinion, the atmosphere is less favorable if the presentation is done online, because we cannot see the audience in person (especially if using Pecha Kucha) and also we are definitely afraid if there are network problems.” (Participant 14/Questionnaire on December 15, 2021).

Thereby, it can be concluded that online poster presentation in Pecha Kucha created a different atmosphere depending on the students’ experiences during the presentation. The atmosphere created will affect students’ attitudes toward the presentation. According to Suyatno, Mardiati, Wantini, and Pambudi (2019), classroom atmosphere could have a significant impact on students’ attitudes.

Students’ preference for online and offline poster presentation

From the interviews, it was discovered that Participant 1 of the interview preferred to do an offline poster presentation because she could get direct feedback from the lecturers and friends. Also, she could create eye contact with the audience directly and interact with them. Besides, 2 of 3 students being interviewed preferred to do an online poster presentation because they could minimize errors and could create the slides beautifully using any application.

Therefore, it could be concluded that both online and offline poster presentation helped students to create the best presentation as they expected. Students who preferred to do offline presentation expected to be able to have live interaction with the audience and get immediate feedback after they finish presenting their posters. As for online presentation, students could make the presentation as best as they could create the slides beautifully and reduce errors. So, it was just the thing of choosing the best way to do presentation based on students’ preferences. Students had their own tastes towards things that were considered better and more profitable for them (Druckman & Lupia, 2000).

 

Students’ difficulties

Investigating students’ difficulties in online poster presentation, three students were further interviewed to share their experiences. The three participants had difficulties with their pronunciation when presenting their posters in Pecha Kucha. Not only pronunciation problems, but two of the participants also experienced difficulties with the time limit in Pecha Kucha which was only 20 seconds per slide. The other difficulties experienced by the participants were finding an appropriate topic, creating engaging slides, avoiding copyright, speaking intonation, noisy environment, bad internet connection, unsupported device, and uploading video in Pecha Kucha.

Hence, it could be concluded that students’ pronunciation was the main issue in this online poster presentation. In line with that, a study conducted by Al-Nouh, Abdul-Kareem, and Taqi (2015) found that fluency and pronunciation problems during the oral presentation were seen as medium difficulty experienced by students. They further reported that some of the students had difficulties in keeping within the time limit of the oral presentation. In this study, the participants had difficulty adjusting the material with the time limit in Pecha Kucha. The other difficulties experienced by the participants were also seen as crucial problems.

 

Students’ solutions to overcome the difficulties

Facing the difficulties, three of the participants being interviewed had some ways to deal with. To overcome the pronunciation problem, the participants practice pronouncing the words clearly and precisely. Then, solving the time limit in Pecha Kucha, Participant 2 and Participant 3 created customizable materials with 20 seconds per slide and tried to adjust their speaking speed in explaining the presentation materials. Below is a statement from a participant.

Excerpt 20:

“Because in Pecha Kucha we were required to speak according to a predetermined time, sometimes we had to present per slide quickly or sometimes to adjust the time, we had to speak very slowly.” (Participant 3/Interview on January 23, 2022).

Then, overcoming the difficulties in finding an appropriate topic for the poster presentation, Participant 1 of the interview said that she did a consultation with her lecturer and asked her parents' and friends’ opinions. In order to avoid copyrighted images, Participant 1 made an effort to take pictures from Google less frequently. Then, to create engaging presentation slides, Participant 1 used an online application named Canva to help her in designing the slides. To fix speaking intonation, Participant 2 watched some videos on YouTube about how to deliver presentations. Participant 2 then tried to imitate the way the people in the videos presented a topic.

In overcoming the noisy environment, Participant 3 turned off the microphone when there was noise in her voice recording process and then edited the voice recordings. For the bad internet connection problems, Participant 3 switched to her second sim card which had a good connection. However, if the connection was still bad, Participant 3 would look for a place that could pick up a strong signal. Participant 3 also had a problem with her laptop device which could not record sound. To overcome this problem, Participant 3 recorded via cellphone then transferred the recording to her laptop to be imputed into Pecha Kucha. Lastly, solving the problem in uploading the video presentation in Pecha Kucha, Participant 3 tried to figure it out by herself and also asked her friends how to upload the video.

Thereby, it could be concluded that the participants were able to develop themself in solving the problems. The participants could find solutions to overcome every single problem they experienced during the process of creating the video presentation in Pecha Kucha. They were able to solve the problems by practicing pronunciation, adjusting the speaking speed and materials with the time limit, consulting problems with the teachers and peer students. Besides that, they also used pictures from Google less frequently, used Canva for designing slides, and watched videos on YouTube. Turning off the microphone, using internet providers with a good connection, recording their own voices via cellphones, and finding out ways to upload videos independently were also done to solve the problems.

 

Conclusion

This study was aimed to find out ELEP students’ perspectives on online poster presentation in Academic Speaking course in a private university in Central Java. Open-ended and close-ended questionnaires were used as the instrument for gaining the data. There was one research question in this study: What are ELEP students’ perspectives about online poster presentation in Academic Speaking course at Faculty of Language and Arts, Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana? First, the finding showed that students did the poster presentation online through an online application called Pecha Kucha.

Then, the results showed that students experienced different feelings when doing and watching online poster presentation. Twenty-one of 34 (60%) students were happy, 15 (42,85%) of 34 students felt fascinated, 9 (25,71%) students felt comfortable, and 5 of 34 (14,28%) students felt challenged. Besides the positive feelings, students also experienced negative feelings during the online poster presentation.  The negative feelings were nervousness (28,57%), insecure feeling (11,42%), not understanding others’ presentations (5,71%), and boredom (2,85%).

Revealing the benefits of online poster presentation, 31 (88,57%) of 35 students said that they got an improvement on their speaking and presentation skills academically by doing online poster presentation. The ‘transcript’ features in Pecha Kucha also helped students in fixing their pronunciation. Apart from the benefits that the students got, online poster presentation also had disadvantages. They were delayed feedback, an untrained mentality toward public speaking, and the unavailability of tutorials in using Pecha Kucha. Then, 23 (65,71%) out of 35 students agreed that online poster presentation was effective to help students arrange their presentations well.

The atmosphere of online presentation was experienced differently by students. Fifteen (42,85%) out of 35 students felt that the atmosphere was calm, exciting, and supportive. Meanwhile, the rest of the students (57,14%) experienced a challenging, tense, and boring atmosphere. Then, students who preferred to do online presentation believed that they could minimize errors and create the slides interestingly using any application. While having live interaction and getting immediate feedback from friends and lecturers were the expectation of students who preferred offline poster presentation.

In doing the online poster presentation, students faced some difficulties which were pronunciation, a time limit in Pecha Kucha, finding an appropriate topic, creating engaging slides, avoiding copyright. Students also experienced difficulties with speaking intonation, noisy environment, bad internet connection, unsupported devices, and uploading video in Pecha Kucha. Facing the difficulties, students did some ways to solve the problems. The solutions were practicing pronunciation, adjusting speaking speed and materials within the time limit, consulting problems with the teachers and friends. Using pictures from Google less frequently, using Canva for designing slides, and watching videos on YouTube were also done to deal with the problems. In addition, students also turned off the microphone, used internet providers with a good connection, recorded their own voices via cell phones, and found ways to upload the videos independently.   

This study will hopefully be beneficial for Academic Speaking teachers in developing teaching methods, approaches, and styles to create more enjoyable and interesting learning for the students. Besides, the teachers will consider the effective ways of conducting the poster presentation. There was a limitation in terms of the number of participants. There were only 35 participants who took part in this study. It is hoped that future researchers can conduct similar research to further investigate how to create online poster presentation more effective for the students’ convenience.

 

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Appendix

Appendix A

Questionnaire Questions

1. Do you take the Academic Speaking course online? (Yes/No)

 2. Does your lecturer ask you to do an informative poster presentation online in the Academic Speaking course? (Yes/No)

 3. Do you do the online informative poster presentation individually, in pairs, or in groups?

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. Individually
            2. In pairs
            3. In groups

4. How many times do you do the informative poster presentation online in the Academic Speaking course?

1. 1. 1. 1. 4. Once
            5. 2-5 times
            6. More than 5 times

5. What platform do you use to present your informative poster online?

1. 1. 1. 1. 7. Pecha Kucha
            8. Zoom Meeting
            1. Google Meeting
            10. Others: ………………………

6. How do you feel doing an online informative poster presentation in the Academic Speaking course? Why?

 7. What do you think about the atmosphere of online informative poster presentation in the Academic Speaking course?

 8. How do you feel when your friends are doing an informative poster presentation online in the Academic Speaking course?

 9. Do you have difficulties when doing informative poster presentation online in the Academic Speaking course? (Yes/No)

*Write (-) if you do not have any difficulties

10. If yes, what are the difficulties that you face in doing online informative poster presentation in the Academic Speaking course?

*Write (-) if you do not have any difficulties

11. Does doing an informative poster presentation online in the Academic Speaking course help you increase your speaking abilities academically?

1. Yes
2. No
3. Maybe

12. Do you think that doing online poster presentation in Pecha Kucha is effective?

1. Yes
2. No
3. Maybe

 

Appendix B

Interview Questions

1. How do you feel when doing online informative poster presentation in the Academic Speaking course?

2. Do you have difficulties when doing online informative poster presentation in the Academic Speaking course?

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. If yes, what are the difficulties that you face in doing online informative poster presentation in the Academic Speaking course? What solution(s) do you take to solve the problems?
                     2. If not, what make you confident in presenting informative poster in Academic Speaking course?

3. In your opinion, does online informative poster presentation in the Academic Speaking course help you improve your speaking skills academically? (Yes/No) 

1. If yes, please explain how does online informative poster presentation in the Academic Speaking course help you in improving your speaking skills academically?
2. If no, please explain how online informative poster presentation in the Academic Speaking course does not improve your speaking skills academically?

4. Do you enjoy doing online informative poster presentation in the Academic Speaking course? Why?

5. What do you think are the advantages of online poster presentation in Pecha Kucha?

 6. What do you think are the disadvantages of online poster presentation in Pecha Kucha?

 7. Do you think that doing online poster presentation in Pecha Kucha is effective?

1. If yes, why do you think it is effective?
2. If not, why do you think it is not effective? What do you think is the effective way to present your informative presentation online?

8. In the Academic Speaking course, do you prefer online or offline informative poster presentation? Why?

 

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