Here you can find the information necessary to prepare for a presentation.
Format of the event
Now Language festivals have accepted a certain format that of a presentation (short lessons 25-50 min. long). Each lesson should be both educational and entertaining. A presentation may be prepared by one participant or a group of participants. Usually presentations take place in parallel blocks for guests to choose any presentation according to the program. Apart from traditional linguistic presentations there may be an educational lecture on linguistics understandable even to a non-specialist. Various kinds of linguistic contests and quizzes, linguoconcerts, workshops, so-called linguistic salons where one can speak a particular language, watch movies, listen to music and get acquainted with original literature are also welcome. It is desirable for you to show the uniqueness and originality of your own language, its identity and specificity.
It is your choice what visual form your presentation will have. To illustrate your message you can use placards, informational stands or blackboards, PowerPoint presentations or other visual aids or handouts.
There are no strict requirements for the content and structure of presentations because the Language Festival is a creative, voluntary and humanistic project. However some recommendations and helpful tips might be of use to you (you can also read onlineinformation concerning guidelines for oral presentations on the website of the Language Festival in Cheboksary http://www.lingvafestivalo.org/ru/node/62):
Brief content of a linguistic presentation
-Geographical distribution of the language. You may tell about the people who speak the language, the most interesting peculiarities of their culture. It is advisable to make your report short (5-7 min.) because the main aim of the festival is the language itself.
- Some information about the history of the language and languages that are most closely related to it.
- A set of interesting facts about phonetics, world-building and grammar structures of the language. You might tell the audience about the alphabet, sounds, and pronunciation rules and teach your listeners how to read simple words. Speaking about the lexis you may also include some essential information concerning phraseology and basic thematic groups of words. As for grammar it is possible to present parts-of-speech and morphological systems adding some information about the basis of syntactic relations existing in the language.
- Give the audience an opportunity to listen to the sound of a particular language (it may be a monologue, an extract from a literary work, poem, song or adrama).
- Speech practice: give the most frequently used expressions (e.g., “Hello”, “What is your name?”, “I love you”, “How are you?”, “What time is it?”, “Thank you”, “Good bye”, etc.).
- Speak about the most important linguocultural features of communicationin the language and if possible other interesting aspects of social functions of the language.
- Give information about how to learn the language (links to websites dedicated to learning languages, addresses of linguistic schools in the host city or other sources).
- Leave time for answering questions (about 5 min.).
In order to illustrate the information you present you may use the following:
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map of the country where the language is spoken;
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placards or handouts with the alphabet;
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multimedia materials in the language;
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handouts with some text in the language(topical utterances, extracts from literary works, lyrics, etc.);
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photos of well-known places of interest;
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traditional costumes and other examples of native speakers’ material culture.
In order to make our Festival more comfortable and efficient, please, follow the rules which are stated below:
1. Submit the application in a timely and accurate manner (The information concerning the submission deadline will be given later on the lingfestrb.ru site).
2. Make sure that your registration form is complete and correct. Please fill in all required fields in the registration form (you can find the registration form below, and also on the side panel at the left).
3. Be responsible for the quality of the delivered information.
4. Keep lecture halls clean.
5. Ask beforehand if the Festival organizers have the necessary technical equipment for your presentation. In case the organizers do not have the equipment – it must be provided by the presenter.
6. Prospective presenters may request changes concerning the duration and number of presentations (one presentation or two; after the organizers carefully review the requests, the changes will be included into the programme which will be put on the site several days before the Festival starts).
7. Don’t arrive late for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Festival.
8. Presenters will be asked to prepare a specific list of targeted content for the opening ceremony so attendees know what to expect prior to attending presentations and are able to choose where to go.
Dear participants! We hope that our recommendations will be useful to you. We also hope that you will get valuable information and have positive and happy memories of the festival!
