Powerful Impact of YouTube upon Presentation Skill Development of MBA Students

Ketkanda Jaturongkachoke¹, Supamit Chanseawrassamee² 
(1. The National Institute of Development Administration, Thailand; 2. TOT Academy, Thailand)

Abstract: The influence of English and digital technologies becomes growingly intense in the Internet era where English is used as the lingua franca. Specifically, in the today’s business world, giving presentations in English is turning to be a common feature of working life ever more. When giving a presentation in English, even those with high English proficiency tend to be agitated, apprehensive, reluctant, diffident, etc. Many presenters feel terrified that their presentations are not powerful and attention-grabbing enough due to a lack of suitable techniques and skills. More importantly, the only feedback from the instructor may be deemed inadequate. The present study examined the influence of YouTube on the presentation skill development of 195 MBA students in a 36-hour intensive English course in June 2012. With the course contents consisting of 30% lecture and 70% practices, the participants were trained to familiarize themselves with presentation skills as an essential requirement of the business world. After having been given in class, all presentations were then uploaded onto YouTube. Employing a simple 4-option questionnaire, the co-authors asked the participants to express themselves by describing and comparing their feelings evoked from the in-class votes compared to the views gained from the Internet network. The findings revealed that most participants (66.7%) believed that, combined, both approaches enhanced their English learning with greater effectiveness, while 28.2% preferred merely the in-class presentation activity ensuring higher reliability than YouTube. Despite being the generation of cutting-edge technology, only 5% preferred presentation uploaded onto YouTube only.

Key words: English learning, MBA students, presentation skills, Thailand