Applying Genre-Based And L2 Pragmatic Instruction To Teaching Oral Presentation On The Web.

66 International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching, 5(4), 66-82, October-December 2015
Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Keywords: Genre-based Instruction, L2 Pragmatics, Online Instruction, Public Speaking, Rhetorical
Moves
ABSTRACT
This article describes the development of an Internet-based instructional platform, which aims to guide EFL
college students in learning and practicing oral presentation skills. Genre-based instruction and insights
from L2 pragmatic instructional research inspired the platform’s design. The instructional units in the online
platformengagelearnersinacomparativeanalysisofrhetoricalandlanguagefeaturesatbothexpertspeaker
and learner speech levels and scaffold the learners in utilizing these features to deliver practice presentations.
Documenting the four EFL students’experiences using the platform, the user reports show how the guided
tasks expanded the students’understanding of ‘good presentations.’For learners whose language-learning
goals are directed towards participating in a global community, it is suggested that key factors in develop-
ing web-based oral presentations materials are corpus selection and pedagogical tasks, which consider the
learners’subjectivity in determining rhetorical and pragmatic norms.
Applying Genre-based
and L2 Pragmatic
Instruction to Teaching Oral
Presentations on the Web
Hung-Tzu Huang, Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, National Tsing Hua
University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
Yu-Jung Chang, Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, National Tsing Hua
University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
INTRODUCTION
In today’s globalized world, oral presentation is a spoken genre that learners of English as a
foreign language (EFL) commonly encounter in their work and study. However, in EFL settings,
learners generally do not receive as many opportunities to become familiarized with the nuances
of rhetoric and pragmatic rules in authentic communicative situations. Even though nurturing
presentation skills in English is regarded as an important component of many English for specific
or general purposes (ESP/EGP) curriculums in universities, classroom instruction often relies
heavily on the teachers’intuitive understanding of ‘good presentations’or invented dialogues in
DOI: 10.4018/IJCALLT.2015100105

International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching, 5(4), 66-82, October-December 2015 67
textbook materials (Cohen & Ishihara, 2013). A review of ESP/EGP research further shows that
scholarlyworkonspokendiscoursesoftenfocusonhigh-stakesacademicgenres,suchasacademic
lectures (e.g. Thompson, 1994; Weissberg, 2003) and research talks/conference presentations
(e.g. Rowley-Jolivet & Carter-Thomas, 2005; Swales, 2004); research on understanding and
searching for more effective methods of teaching how to engage in oral presentations for more
general audiences—including the necessary linguistic and pragmatic skills—is largely absent.
In looking for ways to better equip learners and teachers in learning and teaching oral pre-
sentation skills, this study reports the development of an online instructional platform for oral
presentations to supplement classroom instruction. Drawing on genre-based instruction and
insights from L2 pragmatic research, the platform aims to raise EFL learners’ awareness of the
linguistic, rhetorical, and interactional features in oral presentations, as well as develop their
autonomous learning as users of the oral presentation genre.
GENRE AND GENRE-BASED INSTRUCTION
In the last two decades, conceptions of genre have expanded from a system of classification
used to define literary works to ‘complex oral or written responses by speakers or writers to the
demandofasocialcontext’(Johns,2002,p.3).ScholarsinESPandnewrhetoricstudiesgenerally
believe in the power of teaching genre knowledge and discourse regularities explicitly to help
language learners grasp the context and purpose of communication (Freedman & Medway, 1994;
Flowerdew, 2002; Hyland, 2004; Johns, 2002). By providing learners with rich, authentic sample
texts(spokenorwritten)andguidingthemthroughanalysesoftextualregularities,communicative
functions, and contexts of use, genre-based language instruction aims to provide learners with
not only ‘the knowledge and skills they need to communicate successfully in particular discourse
communities’, but also to ‘access to socially powerful forms of language’(Paltridge, 2001, p. 3).
Theupsurgeofinterestingenreanalysis(e.g.moves/schematicstructure,lexico-grammatical
patterns) for ESL/EAP pedagogical purposes has mainly centered on written genres. Research
efforts have been dedicated to familiarizing students with both non-academic genres (i.e. emails
andletters)(e.g.Sachiko,2011)andacademicgenres(i.e.doctoraldissertations,researcharticles,
academic essays, examination/quiz responses, summaries, and reports) (e.g. Dudley-Evans,
2002; Flowerdew, 2002; Paltridge & Starfield, 2007; Swales, 2004; Swales & Lindemann, 2002).
Analyses of spoken discourses, though relatively rare compared to written, focus mainly
on two academic genres: academic lectures and research talks/conference presentations. Stud-
ies on academic lectures and seminars have discussed the problems encountered by lecturers
and audiences in organizing and delivering academic lectures and providing strategic support
in EAP classrooms to help them either understand or deliver academic lectures and seminars
(e.g. Flowerdew, Li, & Miller, 1996; Flowerdew & Miller, 1998; Thompson, 1994; Weissberg,
2003). Similarly, studies on research talks/conference presentations also seek to demystify target
genres. Rowley-Jolivet and Carter-Thomas (2005) identify three main moves: setting up a frame-
work, contextualizing the topic, and stating the research rationale. These moves are embedded
in conference introductions and pinpoint the strategic use of “contextually adapted rhetoric”
(p. 64), such as using shorter clauses, pronouns, and active verb structures to contextualize the
talks, introducing arguments, and interacting with audiences. Seeing genre acquisition as a form
of disciplinary socialization, Morton (2009) compares the rhetorical strategies employed by
novice and near-expert presenters to interact with their audience in the field of architecture and
underlines genre analysis as an “effective heuristic device” (Morton, 2009, p. 228) for students
to socialize into and critically examine their disciplines. An advocate of genre-based instruc-

tion, Swales (2004) also proposes the explicit teaching of genre in classrooms. Based on his
examination of the use of humor, rhetorical structure, and turn taking in Ph.D. defenses, Swales
(2004) urges the establishment of workshops or courses—or even the development of online
materials—that help students prepare for and succeed in high-stakes genres. Nevertheless, the
effort of promoting the use of genre-based instruction in spoken discourses has not gone far
beyond high-stakes academic genres.
DemonstratingtheexplicitgenreinstructioninEFL/ESLsettings,Henry’s(2007)application
of an instructional website provides college students in Brunei with information on the lexico-
grammatical features, moves, and strategies involved in writing cover letters. The combination
ofweb-based,genre-based,andtask-basedinstructionaimstoraisestudents’languageawareness
by having students (1) produce a sample cover letter, (2) compare their output with the native-
speaker models, (3) revise their texts based on the comparison, (4) submit their revision to the
instructor, who then directs students’ attention to the lexical, discursive, and structural features,
and (5) study the information on the website based on the instructor’s feedback (Henry, 2007).
Though Henry’s (2007) study is yet another that focuses on a written genre, the positive results
he has received from the learners’experiences with the website validates the value of genre-based
instruction as well as the effectiveness of applying web-based technology to teaching genres to
EFL learners, who often lack access to authentic language input.
The present study advances past research efforts that utilize technology to exploit the
pedagogical value of genre analysis. In acknowledging the lack of analysis of spoken genres,
specifically the widely used oral presentations for more general audiences, the development of
Internet-basedinstructionalplatformsfollowstheconceptofgenre-basedinstructionandgrounds
oral presentation instruction in a careful, systematic, and comprehensive analysis of sample
presentations from expert models (Cheng, 2006; Flowerdew, 2002; Hyland, 2004; Paltridge,
2001; Sachiko, 2011).
INTERLANGUAGE PRAGMATICS AND WEB-
BASED L2 PRAGMATIC INSTRUCTION
Genre-basedinstructiondirectsthelearners’awarenesstotextualregularitiesandcommunicative
functions, so conventionalized linguistic indexes can be available for different communicative
purposes. The use of rich, authentic sample texts and guided analysis of rhetorical structures
and lexico-grammatical features in genre-based instruction is ideal for further development of
L2 pragmatic competence. Competence in pragmatics involves the ability to communicate and
interpret meaning in social interactions, more specifically the ability to interpret complex in-
ferred effects such as humor, contempt, or irony in the use of linguistic forms and interaction. A
genre-based instructional framework with the additional focus on pragmatic development helps
to bring learners from the analysis of rhetorical moves and linguistic forms to discerning social
contexts and implicit interpersonal relationships embedded within interactions.
Earlier studies examining the effects of interlanguage pragmatic instruction have viewed
pragmatics learning as a cognitive process. Grounded on Schmidt’s (1993, 2001) noticing
hypothesis and Long’s interaction hypothesis (1985), cognitive-based instructional studies
often design interventions that aim to raise the learners’ awareness of linguistic patterns and of
their functional possibilities and contextual requirements that determine form-function-context
mappings (e.g. Alcón-Soler, 2007; Halenko & Jones, 2011; Reinhardt & Ryu, 2013; Takimoto,
2009; Martínez-Flor & Alcón-Soler, 2007; Martínez-Flor & Usó-Juan, 2006). Findings from

experimental or quasi-experimental studies have mostly confirmed the benefits of pragmatic
instruction (see Jeon & Kaya, 2006, and Takahashi, 2010 for reviews).
Within the realm of computer-assisted language learning (CALL), interactive websites
dedicated to the instruction of particular pragmatics features or speech acts have also been de-
veloped. For example, Ward, Escalante, Al Bayyari, and Solorio (2007) reported how an Arabic
back-channel trainer on the web helped beginning Arabic learners’ timing and frequency of
back-channeling approximate the Arabic behavior. This three-step interactive design guided the
learners to detect the general rhythms, pitch, pauses, and prosodic cues of Arabic by incorporat-
ing back-channeling examples with animations, multimedia explanations, interactive exercises,
and an evaluation of the learners’elicited production. Similarly, Yang and Zapata-Rivera (2010)
developed an agent-based interactive environment called the request game to assist students in
learning to make appropriate requests to professors in academic settings. In addition to game
elements such as visual effects and progress indicators of points and feedback, immediate con-
versational feedback by the agent and the metalinguistic explanation of the request strategies
provided individualized feedback. Emphasizing teaching analytical skills and language-learning
strategies, Cohen (2008) reported on the development of self-access websites for learning Japa-
nese and Spanish pragmatics focusing on six speech acts. In these online instructional platforms,
elicited (rather than naturalistic) dialogues between native speakers were recorded and shown as
exemplarsoftargetspeechacts.Explicitinstructionfornoticingsocioculturalfactorsandenhanc-
ing sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic strategies were built into the instructional modules to
facilitate independent learning (Cohen & Sykes, 2006, 2007; Ishihara, 2007).
More recently, calls for multicultural and multicompetence instructions (Cook, 1992) have
brought challenges to creating pedagogical materials based on native-speaker interactions (Ta-
guchi, 2011). In an increasingly globalized world where interactions commonly involve multiple
ethnic groups and languages, relying solely on native-speaker interactions as models neglects
the dynamic nature of intercultural communication and may impose upon learners a limited
scope of pragmatic possibilities. In their ‘strategy-based approach’, Cohen and Sykes (2013)
proposed that pragmatic instruction should “enable learners to deal with both common patterns
and variety simultaneously through observation, explicit inquiry, and experimentation” (p. 94).
Web-based pragmatic platforms designed along this line encourage individual volition by raising
the learners’ awareness of native-speaker norms, but also empowering them to make pragmatic
choices based on their goals for social interactions (Ishihara & Tarone, 2009).
Researchers working in the line of corpus-based teaching have also commented on the issue
of authenticity in regards to using invented dialogues or elicited native speaker interactions and
urged for the use of corpus-based discourse samples for pragmatic instruction. Bardovi-Harlig,
Mossman, andVellenga (2014) discussed how, in the context of academic discussions, pragmatic
samples and tasks can be developed for teaching agreements, disagreements, and clarification
routines using the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE, Simpson, Briggs,
Oven, & Swales, 2002). Through identifying target expressions with textbooks, extracting ex-
cerpts from corpus, and developing focused noticing and contextualized production activities,
the authors showed how online corpora can supplement classroom pragmatic teaching. Working
from the perspective of learner corpora and contrastive interlanguage analysis, Belz andVyatkina
(2005; 2008) engaged English and German learners to interact with native-speaking peers via
emails and online chats. Their interactions were compiled into a developmental corpus and used
asinstructionalmaterialsforawareness-raisingactivities.Becausethecorpus-basedsampleswere
comprised of native and non-native speaker interactions in which the learners themselves have
participated, the process of observing, analyzing and participating in the interactions allowed the

learners to “authenticate the corpus excerpts with which they worked during the form-focused
pedagogical interventions” (p. 46, Belz & Vyatkina, 2008).
An alternative approach to overcoming the inherent concerns of relying on native-speaker
norms in L2 pragmatic instruction is the use of model samples compiled from data produced by
proficient language users around the world.As the learners’goals may be to interact with speak-
ers from a variety of cultural backgrounds using a shared language, target pragmalinguistic and
sociopragmatic skills should be derived from pragmatic appropriateness established by expert
users of the language, both native and nonnative. Dewaele (2008) pointed out that “L2 learners
need to be made aware of the full range of sociolinguistic and sociopragmatic variants” (De-
waele, 2008, p. 247). Similarly, Barron (2005) promoted a ‘variational perspective’to pragmatic
teaching, which helps learners to develop an awareness of different conventions of language use.
For learners in a global community, learning goals may extend to not only adapting pragmatic
resources to conventional pragmatic patterns but also to participating in the creation of commu-
nicative norms in a variety of situations involving interlocutors of different cultural backgrounds
(Taguchi, 2011). L2 pragmatic instruction should therefore utilize instructional materials that
are not only corpus-based, but also compiled from both culturally and linguistically authentic
interaction contributed by proficient L2 users from multicultural backgrounds.
THE STUDY
Integrating perspectives from two research traditions, genre-based and L2 pragmatic instruction,
ourweb-basedinstructionplatformaimstoraiseEFLcollegestudents’awarenessofconventional
rhetorical moves and L2 pragmatic uses found in oral presentations. As a self-directed learning
tool, the platform provides learners with sample presentations and encourages them to notice and
identifyrhetoricalmoves,pragmaticuses,andcorrespondingconventionalexpressionsembedded
in the samples. The platform’s exercise aims to scaffold students in utilizing these features to
deliver generically and pragmatically appropriate practice presentations. Moreover, to bring the
epistemology of multicompetence and multiculturalism into this web-based learning environ-
ment, we used a corpus compiled from sample presentations delivered by proficient L2 users
from multicultural backgrounds. Both expert and learner speeches were used to highlight the
generic and pragmatic features. We aimed to examine whether the platform’s guided analytical
tasks encourage EFL college students to reflect upon both genre and pragmatic features of oral
presentations and whether the learners’ understanding toward ‘good presentations’ differ after
doing the analytical tasks on the platform.
Our target learners were 43 English majors from two intact classes in a university in Taiwan.
These students have received at least six years of formal English instruction in an EFL envi-
ronment and can be considered high-intermediate English learners. The students were enrolled
in year-long required English Oral Training courses, which aimed at enhancing their English
academic discussion and public-speaking abilities. The instructional platform was designed as
supplementary materials to complement the formal instruction in class. The students were intro-
duced to the platform in Fall, 2014. In addition to oral presentations done in classes with their
classmates and instructors as audiences, the students were instructed to independently complete
the tasks on the platform at their own time throughout the academic semester. Completion of
platform tasks was 20 percent of their semester course grade. For this study, four students from
the target learner group were selected to participate in the focus group interview (more details
of selected students will be provided in the user report section).

The Development of the Online Instructional Platform
Using Expert Learner Talks for Genre-based and L2 Pragmatic Instruction
TheexpertsamplesinthisInternet-basedplatformwerecomprisedofpresentationsextractedfrom
theTED.com website (http://www.ted.com/). Outstanding achievers from a variety of disciplines
and cultures who spoke English as a lingua franca delivered these presentations. Invited by the
TED conference organization, the speakers shared their achievements and innovative ideas,
including cutting-edge science, inspiring experiences, and calls for reforms and actions, within
tightly timed sessions. These highly polished talks were often presented with PowerPoint slides
or video clips with topics ranging from technology, science, entertainment, design, business,
and the humanities, to non-governmental organizations and global issues (http://www.ted.com/).
As the general rhetorical aim of TED talks was to present and argue for inspiring or innovative
ideas in front of a global audience, the talks share rhetorical and linguistic features adapted from
existing formal presentation genres such as academic lectures, conference presentations, and
commencement speeches (Chang & Huang, 2015). With the unique communicative setting and
culture of TED conferences, TED talks are also characterized by fluid structures and creative
delivering practices which distinguish the talks from other types of oral presentations (Chang
& Huang, 2015). With their diverse L1 and cultural backgrounds, TED speakers served as au-
thentic models: they could structure complex knowledge and deliver such information by using
pragmatic strategies that connect and resonate with a global audience’s experience.
Nine hundred and fifty presentations were extracted from the TED platform in 2009. To
select presentations that suited the instructional goals, we followed the following criteria: (a)
the talks were delivered in English, (b) the talks were monologues of expository purposes, (c)
the talks were relatively substantial in length to include sufficient and diverse rhetorical move
types1
, (d) the talks were rated as most popular and most viewed on the TED website, and (e)
the number of talks from different themes and disciplines were balanced. As a result, 58 TED
talks containing a total of 167,885 words (or 1,065 minutes) were selected as expert models.
The average length of the 58 presentations was 2,895 words.
To construct the online instructional platform, transcripts of the 58 oral presentations from
TED were first manually tagged to identify lexico-grammatical, rhetorico-structural, and prag-
matic regularities (see Chang & Huang, 2015 for the analysis). High frequent lexico-grammatical
patterns used for particular rhetorical moves were then extracted for the instructional units. In
the platform tasks, presentations tagged with rhetorical moves, lexico-grammatical patterns,
and pragmatic uses exemplified how generic and pragmatic analysis of presentations could be
done. Untagged presentations with similar themes and rhetorical patterns were then presented so
that learners could independently analyze the linguistic, generic, and pragmatic levels. Through
explicit modeling and practice in analyzing authentic presentations, the learners’ attention was
drawn to how proficient public speakers mapped lexico-grammatical patterns, conventional
rhetorical moves, and pragmatic strategies to deliver stimulating talks.
In addition to the TED models, our online instructional platform incorporated tasks that
asked learners to analyze the language they used in oral presentations and the pragmatic func-
tions of their production. The web-based instructional platform allowed for online practice and
the recording of presentations. Learners were instructed to prepare oral presentations that ad-
dressed a global audience as that of the expert data and to record their presentations online. They
could then replay their recordings to transcribe and analyze their own presentations with regard
to linguistic uses, rhetorical moves, pragmatic functions, and delivery styles. By encouraging
learners to do contrastive analyses of expert data as well as of their own, we aimed to guide

learners towards noticing the complexity of pragmalinguistic forms and sociopragmatic factors
in formal oral presentations and to analyze those principles they deemed important and relevant
for their own original communicative purposes.
Learning Tasks in the Online Instructional Platform
To complete the platform tasks, the learners log into the platform with their assigned personal
passwords. Each practice unit of the online instructional platform began by asking learners to
analyze expert data. Figure 1 shows an example interface of the presentation. The expert presen-
tations from TED were played in the upper left-hand part of the interface. Students could stop
and replay the video stream any time they wished. Transcripts from the TED presentation were
shown in the center. To analyze the sample talk, students assigned rhetorical moves and prag-
matic functions to sentences or sections of the text by using a drop-down menu. The drop-down
menu consisted of a three-layered tagging framework developed to guide students to practice
genre analysis and to raise their awareness of pragmatic functions. The first layer of tagging
asked students to assign larger structural moves such as the introduction, body, or conclusion to
expert texts (see Figure 1). For the second layer, the students then identified rhetorical functions
within the larger structural moves. Within the introduction section, for example, students could
assign functions such as the greeting, indicating the speech’s purpose, establishing credibility
by introducing themselves, or using anecdotes to highlight sentences in the texts. Through tag-
ging broader structural moves and finer functional analysis, students gained experience with
the target genre and learned the rhetorical options available for delivering formal presentations.
In the third layer, the students engaged in the pragmatic functions analysis. Reflecting upon a
speaker’s social roles and power status, they identified pragmatic strategies such as hedging,
boasting, humor, irony, or logical reasoning from the sentences in the sample texts (see Figure 1).
Following the analysis of the expert samples, learners created online recordings on the
platform. The platform automatically generated several topics closely related to the analyzed
expert presentation and prompted the learners to do their own twenty-minute presentation. For
Figure 1. Example interface of the expert sample analysis

example, if the title of the analyzed expert talk was ‘How architecture helped music evolve’, one
of the generated topics might be ‘How technology influences our lives’. A three-layer analytical
framework with larger structural moves, rhetorical functions, and pragmatic uses was employed
in the prompts provided to the learners. Figure 2 shows how the prompts of rhetorical moves
and lexico-grammatical patterns aid learners to construct their presentation. By selecting each
rhetorical move, conventional expressions appropriate to the move appeared on the screen.
Although commonly used for specific rhetorical moves, these various expressions were in fact
used by speakers in different social roles and in different individual styles. For example, ‘I want
to share with you my personal view of ___’, ‘ I’d like to share with you the story of ___’, ‘ I’m
here to tell you ___’, and ‘I’m actually here today to ___’ were used by different speakers to
introduce the purpose of their presentations. From the pool of conventional expressions, learners
could choose the language patterns that best fit their role and intended meaning or use their own
linguistic sources. There are record, delete, and stop buttons which allow learners to pause at any
time to plan and reorganize their thoughts or choose to record the presentations as many times
as they wish. This task helped learners see how the meaning and uses of particular linguistic
features were embedded in broader functional and social contexts and encouraged them to apply
genre and social considerations when doing presentations.
Tofurtherencouragestudentstonoticeconventionalandappropriateusagesinpresentations,
the online platform asked them to transcribe their own completed presentations and to assign
rhetorical moves and pragmatic strategies to their transcripts with the same three-layer drop-
down menu used in their expert presentation analysis (see Figure 3). Following the transcrip-
tion and annotation of self-production, the students could then reflect upon their performance
by comparing their and the experts’ talks. Figure 4 shows how the transcripts of the annotated
TED presentations and learner data can be compared on-screen. The reflective tasks scaffolded
learners in independent metapragmatic considerations and allowed them to compare their per-
formances to the expert presenters’ in terms of how they coordinated linguistic, rhetorical, and
pragmatic resources.
Figure 2. Interface of online recording with prompts

USER REPORTS
The target participants were assigned to individually complete five full practice units on the
platform in one academic semester. The end-of-semester online course evaluation from students
showed that about 90 percent (39 out of 43) of the students believed the genre and pragmatic
analytical tasks helped in improving their oral presentation skills. Ninety-five percent of the
students indicated that they enjoyed the TED talks, particularly because of their diverse content
Figure 3. Interface of self-transcription
Figure 4. Interface of reflection

and speakers. The students also indicated that it took them on average three to four hours to fin-
ish just one unit (about 15 to 20 hours to complete all five units). Though most of the students
commented positively about the platform, we noticed that only 70 percent of the students (30 out
of 43) completed all assigned tasks. We suspected that this completion rate might be due to the
time-consuming nature of analyzing expert and learner talks. To understand more in-depth about
the students’ experiences of doing the analytical tasks, including their perceptions, difficulties,
and understandings of oral presentations, we conducted a focus group interview.
Four students—three undergraduate students majoring in English (Audrey, Hui, andYu) and
a graduate student (Min)—participated in the interview2
. None of the four students had stayed
in an English-speaking environment for longer than a month throughout their English-learning
history. The three undergraduate students have passed the high-intermediate level of the General
English Proficiency Test (GEPT) (corresponds to TOFEL ibt 92 or CEFR B2), and the gradu-
ate student scored 100 on TOFEL ibt. Although all four students had received either implicit or
explicit instruction on doing presentation and/or impromptu speeches in different language-skills
courses, they were selected because they had different levels of familiarity towards the genre
of oral presentations.
Thefocusgroupinterviewwasemployedforitsdynamicandexplorativenatureandcapacity
to generate rich data efficiently (Berg, 2004; Stewart, Shamdasani, & Rook, 2007). Specifically,
the group setting allowed respondents to react to and build on one another’s ideas and thereby
created a “synergistic effect” (Stewart et al., 2007, p. 43), which could render data otherwise
unavailable to researchers. The interview aimed to have participants brainstorm collectively to
reconstruct their experiences in using the platform and share their attitudes, perceptions, and
opinions of the platform’s pedagogical function. To minimize the possibility of data being biased
by dominant and opinionated participants (Berg, 2004; Stewart et al., 2007), the researchers
facilitated the turn-taking among participants to encourage equal participation. For participants
who might have felt uncomfortable critiquing the platform, we explained at the beginning of the
interview that user experiences and feedback, whether negative or positive, would not be taken
personallyandratherwouldserveasvaluableinformationtofurtherimprovetheinstructionalunits.
Interviewprotocolswerepreparedinadvance,andthequestionscenteredon(1)thestudents’
background knowledge of delivering oral presentations, (2) their experiences with working with
sample presentations from TED, and (3) their opinions of the platform design. The two research-
ers took turns in asking questions. Following Berg’s (2004) advice, when one asked questions,
the other took field notes and observed the group. The interviews were conducted in Mandarin
Chinese, the students’ mother tongue, with occasional code-switching between Mandarin Chi-
nese and English. The researchers audio-recorded and transcribed the interviews for analysis.
Datacollectedwasreadandanalyzedinductively.Eachresearcherfirstlistedthemajorthemes
thatemergedfromthedata.Then,thetwolistswerecompared,andinconsistencieswerediscussed
to reach an agreement. Through repeated readings and examination of the interview questions,
notes, and the rationale of the platform development, a coding scheme with four categories and
their respective subcategories was developed and used to interpret the interview (see Table 1).
Oral Presentations: The Taught Way versus the TED Way
As the participants in the interview were all from English-related programs, they were not
novices in delivering in-class oral presentations in English. When asked to list key elements
in an oral presentation, they quickly identified the required structure (rhetorical moves) and
language patterns (lexico-grammatical patterns) and were familiar with the many pragmatic

and paralinguistic strategies commonly taught in class and used by themselves and their peers.
For instance, they all agreed on the basic three-part structure of a presentation (introduction,
body, and conclusion) and the different functions and distinctive language conventions each part
encompasses. As Audrey described:
The introduction is the place where we introduce the topic by saying something like ‘Today I want
to talk about’this . . . and provide an outline of the talk. . . . Teachers always say that there should
be three points in the body, and each point should have a topic sentence and supporting examples.
Then, we need to summarize the talk, well, by referring back to the points, in the conclusion.
Hui also added ‘Hello everyone, today my topic is’and ‘I want to share with you’as required
phrases in the introduction.All four students agreed that although different transitional words and
phrases (e.g. therefore, to sum up) were taught as useful signposts, the adverbs ‘first’, ‘second’,
and ‘third’remained the most popular signposts among their peers. In addition to linguistic con-
ventions, the students also mentioned that interactive strategies such as asking questions, taking
votes from audiences, and even starting the talk with a skit might engage the audience more.
On the one hand, the students described the rules and conventions of presentations learned
in class as practical but at times rigid, outdated, and boring. On the other hand, their experiences
with TED talks had further complicated their ideas of ‘good presentations’. After viewing and
analyzing the expert talks, the students claimed that the presentations had inspired them to use
humor, creativity, pauses, intonation, body language, and even visual aids to make a presentation
engaging. As Audrey pointed out:
What we have learned in class is so rigid. TED speakers have added humor, creative ideas, and
rich body language in their talks. They do not use [textual] bullet points in their PowerPoint
slides but use images to attract their audience . . . all this can help presenters think outside ‘the
rigid box’.
Table 1. Coding scheme
Categories Subcategories
Presentation experience 1. Course-taking
2. In-class presentations (L1 and English)
3. Out-of-class presentations (L1 and English)
Similarities between existing knowledge about
presentations and TED presentations
1. Rhetorical structures
2. Language patterns
3. Others (e.g. use of visual aids)
Differences between existing knowledge
about presentations and TED presentations
1. Rhetorical structures
2. Language patterns
3. Others (e.g. use of visual aids)
Using TED to learn presentations 1. Merits
2. Shortcomings and difficulties
The platform 1. General comments (positive and negative)
2. The flow (analysis of an expert sample, creating an online
recording, transcription, reflection)
3. The pragmatic tagging framework

The students also noticed that a successful presentation did not require complex transitional
phrases/words but instead used simple ones including ‘and’and ‘so’. ‘The contents of their talks
are all very professional and the ideas can be complex, but their transitional words are all very
colloquial. “And” is the most popular, in fact,’ commented Hui.
At the same time, however, the students’ greatest complaint while working with the talks
from TED was that their loose structure did not always include clear introduction, body, and
conclusion moves. The blurred structure not only made it hard to assign tags instantly, but also
made the talks sound ‘whimsical’, as if the speakers ‘can start from anywhere and talk about
whatever comes into their minds’(Yu, interview). ‘I wonder if anyone would easily get the whole
picture [of the talk] if he/she only watch the video once,’ added Hui.
Genre and Pragmatic Analyses beyond TED Talks
The interview data also suggests that the students were not only becoming conscious of the
unique nature of TED talks but were also critically evaluating the tagging framework in their
analyses. Specifically, they commented that the tagging system should be more flexible. Because
the current design of the platform did not allow users to assign more than one rhetorical function
or pragmatic strategy to individual sentences, the students pointed out that the analyses could
become difficult when speakers used certain linguistics resources to achieve multiple genre and
pragmatic effects. For example, a question posed to the audience at the beginning of a talk could
introduce the background, as well as indicate the purpose of the talk on the rhetorical function
level. At an interactional level, this question might use irony and include humor to establish a
rapport with the audience. Yu commented:
I think I need more tags for strategy. It’s difficult to tag bigger and smaller layers . . . I mean,
one strategy can be a few sentences and within the sentences, another strategy. You know what
I mean? Like, within comparison and contrast, there’s humor and there’s irony. I want to tag
the sentences repeatedly.
The students’reflection on how language patterns can be multi-functional may demonstrate
their enhanced understanding of genre and pragmatic effects, as the students were not merely
following the tagging framework, but were exercising a critical assessment of the purposes and
effects of language choices. Their independent and critical assessment was also evident in the
observation of the interactional routines not included in the tagging framework. Audrey’s fol-
lowing analysis examines how the TED presenters often used ‘I don’t think so’ to engage the
audience, and this analysis exemplifies how their linguistic repertoire of certain rhetoric and
pragmatic functions may have expanded beyond those listed in the framework.
I can use different strategies to interact with the audience in the future. Just asking questions
or using ‘right?’ creates interactions in presentations. TED speakers also often used ‘I don’t
think so’patterns. They said something opposite and then use ‘I don’t think so’and this actually
invites the audience to think with them. Not only to challenge.
The interview responses indicates that the students had benefited from the guided genre
and pragmatic analyses in aspects other than enhanced genre and pragmatic understanding.
Specifically, the students reported that their English listening abilities improved from repeat-
edly listening to and analyzing the expert talks. They indicated that the experience of assigning

recurring conventional expressions to rhetorical functions and pragmatic strategies had helped
them to quickly recognize the speakers’ intended meaning and use of strategies.
In addition to a perceived improvement in listening skills, the students commented that the
genre and pragmatic analysis approach could be applied to not only understanding audio-visual
materials and preparing for oral presentations but also to reading and writing assignments, as
illustrated in the following conversation.
Audrey: This is helpful for writing out reflections when reading. Although the platform is for
speaking, we can still analyze...
Hui: Yes, if we do an analysis of the reading texts, then we’ll know what the writer wants to say.
Yu: We assigned each sentence to a certain structure and then to a strategy on the platform.
We can use this in both reading and writing too. For example, we can see for a certain strategy,
which sentence patterns to use, and also why the writer used it.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Grounded on genre-based and L2 pragmatic instruction, the platform described in this paper
aims to raise EFL college students’ awareness of the lexico-grammatical, structural, and rhe-
torical features commonly employed in oral presentations and to facilitate their acquisition of
linguistic as well as pragmatic knowledge of the target genre. Prior to discussing the results, it
must be noted that although an interview was conducted, the study did not examine the learners’
awareness development or measure their genre, pragmatic sensitivity, or learning. As instruc-
tional attempts at incorporating genre-based approach and L2 pragmatic instruction are scarce,
the user report provides data exploring the potential of such a synergized approach. Despite the
limitations, the user report from four experienced English learners showed that they reflected
upon both genre and pragmatic features of oral presentations with the guided analytical tasks on
the platform. Genre and pragmatic features specific to TED talks were noticed by the learners
on the linguistic level (‘and’ or ‘so’ as frequent and effective transitions), the rhetorical level
(the ‘blurred’ and loose structure in TED talks), or in pragmatic strategy uses (the observations
of diverse interactive strategies for creating engaging presentations). Furthermore, these results
suggest that the learners’perceptions of successful formal oral presentations had expanded. The
learners also demonstrated critical genre and pragmatic analytical skills with their observations
of language choices being multi-functional rhetorically and pragmatically.
Whether or not genre, encompassing fluidity despite regularity, is too complex to be taken
out of its rhetorical situation to be taught effectively in a classroom, such instruction has invited
debates from different camps of genre study (e.g. Johns, 2002; Swales, 2004). Nevertheless, in
an EFL environment where language-learning materials may be the only contact that learners
will have with the target language, students need rich and systematic exposure to target genres
(Flowerdew, 2002). The instructional platform introduced in this study offers such exposure by
utilizing TED talks as the expert models. Though many of the TED talks may seem too innova-
tive to fit into the three-part oral presentation convention (introduction, body, and conclusion),
they reflect the dynamic nature of oral presentations and can serve as supplementary materials
that sensitize learners to possible generic variations. This learner-centered inductive approach
is well-suited for students who have experience in giving oral presentations. Together with the
generic framework offered in textbook materials, the practice analysis of TED talks offers a
schema that allows learners to develop sensitivity to a range of generic features for oral presenta-
tions and prevent overt prescription that genre scholars have cautioned about (Flowerdew, 2002).

In the present study, the four students who had received prior instruction on oral presenta-
tions demonstrated independent analysis of the diverse pragmatic patterns beyond the tagging
framework. Specifically, their analyses of successful presentations and presentation conventions
were not limited to isolated one-to-one linguistic and function mapping. Though TED talks are
much more dynamic and varied in structures and pragmatic uses, the guided genre and prag-
matic investigation in the platform can enhance the learners’ receptive pragmatic competence,
at least for the higher-intermediate learners who have some understanding of oral presentation
conventions. Thus far, we see some evidence that the practice analysis on TED talks encouraged
experienced learners to see a greater variety of linguistic possibilities created because of the
speakers’ intention and status. This evidence, of course, does not mean that the students would
actually apply linguistic and pragmatic patterns in TED talks to their future oral presentations.
How expended understanding of oral presentation conventions and experience in analyzing
extended discourses translate to actual production awaits further research.
In designing this genre and pragmatic platform, we align our position to that of many other
researchers who warned about imposing native-speaker norms onto learners. As shown in the
focused interview, the students, though EFL learners, were not blank slates. They were experi-
enced English learners and college English majors who were bilingual if not multilingual.At this
point, it is unknown whether employing formal presentations given by lingua franca speakers
as course materials can empower learners to assert their own identity in future language use.
Yet, with very little existing research turning to non-native expert L2 users as potential models
(e.g. House, 2010; Jenkins, 2009), we hope that by showing learners native as well as nonna-
tive multicompetent (Cook, 1992)—both linguistically and professionally—models, they may
be more likely to see themselves legitimate and confident users of the world’s lingua franca.
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ENDNOTES
1.
Only fifteen-to-twenty minute presentations were included as expert models.
2.
All the names of participants are pseudonyms.
Hung-Tzu Huang is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Foreign Languages and Lit-
erature of National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. Her main research interests include second
language vocabulary acquisition, corpus linguistics and language teaching, and motivation to
learn a second language.
Yu-jung Chang is currently an Assistant professor in the Department of Foreign Languages
and Literature at National Tsing Hua University. Her research interests include language and
identity and genre analysis (particularly with regard to its application to the fields of discourse
analysis and English for Academic/Specific Purposes).

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