Power Point: the real deal

Ok, so clearly the post I made with the Britney presentation was kind of a joke, although I do have to admit that I have this bizarre fascination with her as a pop icon. Anyway, since that post was not serious, I wanted to make another post just to extrapolate a bit on my real feelings concerning Power Point.

First of all, I have to come out and say that I have this inexplicable aversion to Power Point presentations. I find that people tend to rely FAR too heavily on them when teaching. I honestly can't think of anything more boring and uneducating than sitting through an hour long class where all the professor does is project Power Point slides and then reproduce orally what is already written on the presentation. I ABHOR that kind of teaching. In fact, this aversion has really influenced my use of Power Point in the classroom: I nearly never use it to teach, and when I do, my slides are very few and are limited to only the most essential information. I almost never include lecture notes on the slides, and I tend to use Power Point as more of a supplement than anything else.

One area that I do feel can benefit from the use of Power Point is Culture, and that is probably the only time that I really show Power Point presentations, mainly because they give me the freedom to present images and multimedia content in a succint and attractive manner. Here are few samples of the Power Points that I have used in the past to present cultural information to the students:
Last names in Spanish (this also spotlights my fascination with Brit)
Spain: a cultural smorgasbord
¡Viajamos!: traveling in Spain

I have also used Power Points on a few occasions to present grammar topics, but only as a trigger for oral exercises that I do with my students. As a result of this, the Power Points that I have do not include much "grammar information"; I use them instead as a sort of side show (get it?? slide show, side show, hehe). Here are just a few examples of what I've done:
-AR verbs
The future tense
Direct objects and formal commands

I think Power Point can be really useful in teaching vocabulary as well, since it is effective at matching pictures with words, something that can be really useful for the students. Again, I prefer to use the presentation as a supplement, or as a starting point/reference point for oral activities with the students. Here are a couple of my vocabulary Power Points:
Clothing
Body Parts
Jobs

One other thing that might be worth mentioning is the use of Power Point for effective review sessions, especially with things such as interactive games, like Jeopardy for example. I have used Jeopardy in particular to help my students review, and you can see a sample of the skeleton Jeopardy game I've created (that I modify whenever I use it to match the review material) here:
Jeopardy Template
Oh, and try it with your sound on!

As you can see in pretty much all of the Power Points, but especially in the vocabulary ones, I like to use the Power Point presentations to give me quick access to other cultural information, which I think helps the students make connections with the wider community of language speakers (what about that shout-out to the FL standards, huh?!?). I do this by including links to videos or other virtual resources such as online museums (as in the travel presentation) or even day-to-day realia such as grocery or clothing stores (as in the clothing presentation).


It's not really that I hate Power Point, because clearly I feel that it can be a useful tool. I just believe that it needs to be limited, and like we've been discussing during the last few chapters, grounded in solid theory and methodology.