Lesson video

Hi everyone and welcome to today's lesson.

Today's lesson is the final one in our unit.

In today's lesson, you will be using your research about early Islamic civilization to present some aspects of your learning.

Here, we are going to be spending the first part of our lesson preparing to present and then presenting our learning.

Here are some key words we're going to use.

Presenting, projection, diction, eye contact, body language.

Well done.

Presenting involves speaking in front of others and listening to others.

Projection is using our voice to speak powerfully and clearly.

Diction involves pronouncing words clearly.

Eye contact involves looking into the eyes of the people in our audience.

Body language refers to how we use our posture and gestures to communicate meaning and feelings.

Presenting can be an important final stage of the writing process.

Presenting can be a way of sharing information or showing a piece you've written to other people.

Presenting involves speaking in front of others and listening to others.

When presenting, we need to think about all of these things.

Projection, diction, eye contact, body language and pace.

Let's start with learning a little bit more about projection.

Projecting our voice involves speaking powerfully and clearly.

Projection is very important because our audience needs to be able to hear what we are saying.

When we're projecting our voices, we need to use deep breaths and use the muscles in our stomachs to help us speak.

This muscle is called the diaphragm.

This helps us project our voice around the room and speak at an appropriate volume so everyone in the audience can hear us.

Projecting our voice is not the same thing as shouting.

Sometimes when people project their voices, they can think that this just means shouting and that can sound very high pitched and quite sharp.

We don't want this for our audience.

Instead, we want to use a strong, powerful voice that really spreads around the room so everyone can hear us clearly.

Projecting involves which of these? Pause the video while you decide.

Well done if you spotted that projection involves using the stomach muscles when speaking and taking deep breaths before speaking.

It does not involve shouting or speaking in a high pitched voice.

When presenting, we need to think about all of these, projection, diction, eye contact, body language and pace.

Let's focus on diction now.

Diction involves pronouncing words clearly.

Diction is very important because our audience needs to be able to understand what we're saying.

When speaking with clear diction, we take our time to pronounce our words carefully.

This might involve practising saying some tricky subject specific vocabulary so we can pronounce it clearly in our presentation.

If we know that there are some words that we find tricky to say because maybe we don't say them very often in our usual language, it's really worth taking the time to practise saying those words over and over again so that we get more comfortable with saying them.

Speaking with clear diction is important because, pause the video while you decide.

Well done if you spotted that.

It helps the audience understand the words we are saying.

It also helps us slow down and pronounce tricky words correctly.

And it keeps the audience engaged in our presentation.

All three of these are reasons why diction is so important.

When presenting, we need to think about projection, diction, eye contact, body language and pace.

Now let's focus on eye contact.

Eye contact involves looking into the eyes of the people in our audience.

Eye contact is very important because it helps us connect with our audience and for them to feel connected to us.

When the audience feels connected to us, they find what we have to say more interesting.

We may need to speak more slowly so that we have time to make eye contact with the members of our audience.

It's really important for our audience to feel engaged and connected with us because ultimately we want to be presenting our information to them in a way that's engaging and entertaining so that they learn something from what we're saying.

True or false? Eye contact helps us connect with our audience.

Pause the video while you decide.

Well done if you spotted that this is true.

Now justify your answer.

Pause the video while you decide how to do this.

Well done everyone.

Eye contact helps us connect with our audience because it involves looking people in the eye as we're speaking to them.

When presenting, we need to think about projection, diction, eye contact, body language and pace.

Now let's focus on body language.

Body language refers to how we use our posture and gestures to communicate meaning and feelings.

Body language is very important because it helps us look confident.

Strong body language includes all of these.

Standing with our feet shoulder width apart, speaking with our chin up, standing with our shoulders back and a really good hint about using strong body language is it can create an illusion of confidence even if we don't feel completely confident in the moment.

So acting like you're more confident by using strong body language can really send messages to your brain to help calm down and make you feel more confident during your presentation.

Strong body language includes which of these? Pause the video while you decide.

Well done if you spotted that strong body language involves speaking with our chin up, standing with our feet shoulder width apart and standing with our shoulders back.

Speaking with a loud, clear voice is also very important but it's not an aspect of strong body language.

When presenting, we need to think about projection, diction, eye contact, body language and pace.

Now let's focus on pace.

Pace refers to the speed at which we speak.

If we speak too quickly, our audience may not be able to clearly hear what we're saying.

If we speak too slowly, our audience may lose interest in what we are saying.

Successful presenters speak at a slow, clear pace so that everyone can hear them.

Speaking at the correct pace will give us more time to project our voices, speak with clear diction and make eye contact.

Now it's time for your task.

Match the key aspects of successful presenting to their definitions.

Pause the video while you complete your task.

Great work, everyone.

Projection involves speaking powerfully, clearly and at an appropriate volume.

Diction involves pronouncing all our words clearly.

Eye contact involves looking at audience members in the eye.

Body language refers to our posture, stance and gestures which help convey meaning and emotions.

Pace is the speed at which we speak.

Great work, everyone.

Now we've completed our preparations for presenting.

We're now going to move on to presenting our learning.

Next, we're going to make a model of the city of Baghdad and present information about its design and structure.

We will explain how this design and structure helped Baghdad become a centre for learning.

Let's begin by reviewing some information we have learned about Baghdad.

New dynasties often built new capital cities to signal a fresh start.

So Caliph Al-Mansur ordered the construction of a new capital city in the country of Iraq.

The new capital city was built on the banks of the river Tigris on the site of a small village called Baghdad.

In 762 CE, the construction of Baghdad began.

It was completed four years later in 766 CE.

It had been built by thousands of architects, labourers and engineers from around the world.

The city of Baghdad had four pillars.

Defence, community, Religion, government.

By defence, we mean that the city was difficult to penetrate.

Community meant that the city was welcoming to scholars and academics from all over the world.

Religion, the city structure and shape was itself symbolic of heaven and earth.

And the government was very centrally located in the city to signify its importance.

Baghdad was designed in a circle to reflect the astronomy of the sky and to symbolise heaven.

In the centre of the city was the Great Mosque and it was surrounded by walls and a moat.

Again, these elements of the city are reflective of the four pillars of defence, community, religion and government.

Baghdad had a population of one million.

This made it the largest city in the world, at the time.

Baghdad quickly established itself as a centre for learning and trade.

The city's location meant it had good connections to the East and West.

As a result, it became a centre for merchants who wanted to benefit from this.

Merchants are people who sell goods.

The city's population grew and this led to the development of a number of schools.

The most significant school in Baghdad was the House of Wisdom.

It acted as a library, translation centre and school.

It brought together scholars from many countries.

Language, ideas and cultures were shared.

This led to Baghdad becoming a hugely significant city by 900 CE.

True or false? Baghdad was designed in a square shape.

Pause the video while you decide.

Well done if you spotted that this is false.

Now choose how to justify your answer.

Well done if you spotted that Baghdad was designed in a circle shape to reflect the astronomy of the sky and to symbolise heaven.

Baghdad was also a hub of new inventions.

Ismail al-Jazari became one of the greatest inventors in the Islamic world.

He wrote a book in 1206 CE, which is titled in English as "The Book of Knowledge of Mechanical Devices." In this book, Al-Jazari described and drew 50 inventions including designs for clocks, water pumps and self-operating machines.

Baghdad became a great centre for astrology.

Astrology is the study of the movements of the planets, sun, moon and stars in the belief that these can have an influence on people's lives.

Islamic astrologers made huge breakthroughs in our understanding of the movement of planets.

The world's first modern style observatory, the Shammasiyah was built in Baghdad in 828 CE.

In the observatory, measurements were made of the movements of the sun, moon and planets and detailed maps of the stars were drawn.

In 830 CE, a group of Baghdad astronomers worked out the circumference of the earth.

(mouse clicks) Now it's time for your second task.

Reread your essay and prior research about Baghdad.

Then, in pairs or small groups, create a model of the city of Baghdad using cardboard or paper.

After that, when practising your presentation in your pair or small group, share your knowledge about the four pillars of Baghdad's design and creation and how these contributed to Baghdad becoming a centre for learning.

At this point, you might find it helpful to conduct some of your own research and look at pictures and videos of the construction of Baghdad in early Islamic civilization.

Pause the video while you complete these tasks.

Great work, everyone.

When reviewing your model of the city, take a moment to think, did you include a circular model? Did you have this great mosque in the centre of the city? Were there walls and a moat around the city? If you forgot any of these important elements, you could add them in now.

Let's review task three.

You were to make a presentation in your pair or small group and share your knowledge about the four pillars of Baghdad's design and creation and how these contributed to Baghdad becoming a centre for learning.

Take a moment to review this.

Did your presentation plan include reference to the city's four pillars? Did it include an explanation of how the city's design and structure supported the four pillars? And did it include an explanation of how the city's design and structure helped make it a centre for learning? Take some time to review these questions in your group and make any edits if you need to.

Great work, everyone.

Now we're going to present our models and information about Baghdad.

We can use the presenting checklist below to help us.

We want to project our voices so all members of the audience can hear us, speak with clear diction so the audience can understand every word you say, make eye contact with audience members in order to form connections with them as you speak, use strong body language to convey the information confidently and speak at a slow, clear pace.

Now it's time for the final element of your task today.

Present your model and information about Baghdad and use this checklist to help you.

Pause the video while you complete this task.

Well done, everyone.

Now that we've finished our presentation, let's take a moment to review.

Did you remember to do all of these? Did you project your voice so all of the audience could hear you? Did you speak with clear diction so your audience could understand every word you said? Did you make eye contact with audience members? Did you use strong body language? And did you speak at a slow, clear pace? Well done.

And if there were some elements of the presentation that you know you need to work on, that's a really good thing for you to be aware of when you come to speaking in public again in the future.

Great work, everyone.

That now brings us on to the end of our lesson where today we've been presenting our knowledge related to early Islamic civilization.

Effective presenting involves projecting our voices, speaking with clear diction, making eye contact with the audience and using strong body language when speaking.

Speaking at a calm, slow pace helps us remember to use the above presenting techniques.

Presenting is about conveying key knowledge to an audience.

By identifying the key knowledge beforehand, we make it easier to present it with clarity when it comes to presenting.

Well done for all your hard work today and I hope you really enjoyed this lesson.