Tractor Buying Facts: Reading Activity and Oral Presentation Skills Practice

In this lesson, students will practice their reading and oral presentation skills for the final exam, as well as learn about tractor features.

The BTS end of program exam is a presentation of 2 or 3 documents (texts or pictures). They have 30 minutes to prepare a 5 minute presentation that is followed by questions for about 10 minutes.

Thus this activity is intended to prepare students for this exam and for future oral presentations.

1. Reading and writing

For this step, I would ask them to work in groups of three or in pairs. There are 3 different texts (see bottom page numbers). They are asked to read the article and prepare a presentation. 

I give them a document with useful expressions to speak about a text that also provide them with a plan to follow:

  1. General presentation of the text(type, topic and source      of document, where, when and intended audience)

  2. Summary / Main idea of the text

  3. Present the different parts of the text and explain what      ideas or elements are developed in each part

  4. Give your personal opinion on the text

That way they should be able to cover the whole text and present it in a clear and structured way. 

2. Note writing and Presenting

I ask them to speak for at least a minute and a half. They can read their notes if they want to but I always stress that it is a good idea to give a glance at the audience from time to time. So it is important that they structure their notes in a way that they don't get lost when they get back to them after looking at the audience.

Therefore they should :

• write their notes every other line, 

• underline key words, and 

• divide into paragraphs (at least 1 for each part).

You can access the handouts needed for this lesson by clicking on the links or pictures below:

Useful expressions to speak about a text

Tractor buying facts worksheet

Cécile Sohier