EFL University Students' Presentation Skill: Their Challenges, Analysis of Performance, and Syllabus at Muhammadiyah University of Mataram in Academic Year 2018/2019

syafi'i maarif; hamzah puadi ilyas, ph.d; dr. santi chairani djonhar, matesol;

The objectives of this research are to find out the challenges faced by students’ in the presentation, how the students performance, and the syllabus was used by the lecturer in teaching public speaking to facilitate students’ presentation skill. This research applied a qualitative method with a case study design. Furthermore, the participants in this research were the fifth semester of the English department in the academic years 2018/2019. The writer took 25 students as the participants of this research who was the active students at the class. Then, there were four instruments used to get the data such as questionnaires, semistructured interview, test performance and document which included syllabus. Afterward, the data were analyzed based on the instruments which were used to get the result of the research.
Based on the data found, the writer found the challenges were faced by
students which impact to difficulties in the presentation such as the challenges related to presentation skill, audience, and structure (lecturer) and personal trait. Factors caused such as less practice, nervous, criticism, etc. Concurrently, this semester students had a moderate qualification. Data showed that students mean score were 2, 13. After further analyzing, the syllabus was used as a reference material for teaching public speaking had facilitated the development of student presentation skills to speak in front of the audiences. In other words, public speaking learning materials had been presented according to their needs but this reality was inversely proportional to the ability of students where they still had difficulty in practicing presentation activities. The cause of this problem was not in the sillabus but rather in the process of implementing the teaching carried out by lecturers who had not been effective. In addition, individual student problems
such as low learning motivation, personal traits, low practices, etc also caused of their low ability. Referring to the importance of presentations for students, the skills in this field need to be improved so that they can master presentation skills well with the aim that they can speak in seminars, teach, present products, and more. Therefore, the teaching material, methods, evaluation, assessment and feedback rubrics need to be improved in order to produce students who had the ability to speak in public, especially in the field of presentation.