An oral presentation can feature 'written-like' grammar, guided by the focus text. In science, formal oral presentations are usually accompanied by visual or multi-modal elements. For example, talk could accompany a model that students have constructed or a poster of the life-cycle of a butterfly. It could explain a diagram or a video. Of course, your topic could stop at the point of independent writing, but if you want, students can proceed to a formal presentation. It is important to introduce a formal presentation after the written activity, so that new language has had a chance to become consolidated.

While the topic is the same, students have to think about the audience when delivering a formal presentation. Here is some additional learning that the teacher might explicitly introduce:

• How to produce a PowerPoint slide that is accessible for the audience
• How to face the audience and point at the same time to a diagram or model
• How to keep the audience engaged through eye contact and bids to the audience such as, 'It is an interesting fact that..., You might not know that...'
• How to summarise text into points and work from cue cards while maintaining eye contact
• How to explain technical language for a lay audience.

Remember that the language, including the text type that students use, has to match your learning goals. If students are introducing a model or diagram they have constructed themselves, the teacher has to be explicit about the purpose of the talk. For example, when a student has made a model of an atom, the target language would be something like: This is an atom. It consists of three elements: the electrons, the protons and the nucleus. It isn't to scale, because the electrons orbit a long way from the nucleus...This is quite different from Well...I made this atom and I got some wire and I stuck the nucleus inside with sticky tape, and I used ping pong balls for electrons... We want to hear an information report about an atom, with the student using the model to demonstrate, not a procedural recount of how they made it. It up to us as teachers to make the distinction clear.

Examples of a formal oral presentation could include:

• interpreting a poster to parents
• explaining a science project
• explaining a two-dimensional diagram, a photograph or a three-dimensional model
• providing the soundtrack for a video, with the sound turned off
• making a sequence of PowerPoint slides.

Just as with writing activities, students can work independently, collegiately, or with the teacher in a small group.