ORAL PRESENTATIONS

GROUP 1
In our opinion, this group has made a good presentation. They have developed a brief but well structured introduction with many graphical presentations, maps and drawings. In terms of content, we believe they have talked about all the fields: etymology, phonetics, grammar... Their conclusion was good and we have also liked the final photograph. It has been really funny.
At the same time, we consider that their pronunciation has been correct and well expressed, although they have had to resort to their notes several times. As well, their ME speech has been very long, with many and different examples. In short, they have worked hard and we have enjoyed their oral presentation. GROUP 2 This group has made a very original presentation. They have used photographs, maps, graphs and they have also remembered us how ME was pronounced at that time. That issue has been very interesting. They were well documented. However, they have barely made a short reference to GVS, which was very relevant at Chaucer's time, while they have spent too long on talking about the Indoeuropean languages , which in our opinion is so far from the initial objective of this work.
Broadly speaking, this reading has been clear and well prepared.
GROUP 3 This presentation has been clearly good, but we would like to highlight their explanation of the GVS by means of graphics that developed the lengthening of vowels. Moreover, the most significant information of this presentation has been the evolution from Old English declensions to ME. They have shown a lot of examples and have been concerned with a complicated issue. All members of this group have pronounced very well and many times ME, even one of them has memorized the ME excerpt she had to perform. The final result has been excellent.
GROUP 4
They have offered us a good presentation divided in three parts: plot, phonology and etymology. It has been very well organised with a good introduction and a brief conclusion. However, the talking has been too fast and they have spent too much time speaking about the plot. In our opinion, they were very concerned about the theoretical concepts, so they have had to read their notes during their delivery. ME has been largely used and PDE pronunciation has been correct.

GROUP 5
This presentation has attracted our attention because the group has simulated a pilgrimage similar to the one of "Canterbury Tales" as structure of their work. They have focused on metrics, talking about some irregularities of Chaucer's rhyme like the trochee. They have also made allusions to semantics, mainly to words which do not longer exist, synonyms, meaning changes... They have talked about many fields, but they have forgotten phonetics, one matter that we consider very outstanding to speak about it. On the contrary, they have explained the function words from a grammatical point of view that was not so important or interesting for the presentation.

GROUP 6
This group has developed a shorter presentation than it should have been, but its content has referred to fields of all kinds: lexical analysis, syntax, grammar, phonetics and etymology. They have also made a good introduction and a final conclusion. As well, they have used many ME examples. Their pronunciation has been good but they have repeated too many times the same words. Finally, we would like to highlight the last photogragh where Chaucer appeared giving thanks for our attention. It has been an enjoyable final slide. GROUP 7 The content of this presentation has been similar to the rest and the pronunciation has been good too. It has been especially interesting the comparison they have done between the iambic pentameter and the modern pronunciation. However, they have pointed out the Protogermanic, a fact that we consider as no relevant. Regarding the GVS, they have not mentioned it and the ME examples have been very limited and poor. The presentation has been developed too quickly, so the audience could not read the slides.

GROUP 8
One of the most relevant features to point out in this presentation has been a video of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales that this group has shown. This has been a fact that has differentiated their work from the other powerpoint presentations. One girl of the group has pronounced so well that she seemed to be native. Regarding the content, we have to mention that they have named neither the GVS nor phonetics. On the contrary, they have focused on Chaucer's language, etymology, semantics and scansion.

GROUP 9
The pronunciation of this group has been really good, but they have had to read their notes from the beginning, maybe because they were rather nervous. They have used only a few ME examples and the GVS has not been mentioned. However, they have talked about other issues as semantics, etymology, grammar... A positive point has been the fact that they concluded their presentation highlighting the main points.

GROUP 10
They have done a great job by a clear and ordered presentation, equally divided between the three members of the group. And it was probably the explanation on the blackboard of the changes of the vowels occurred in the GVS with the Vowel Chart what proved to be the most interesting point. Not only did it explained and clarified our doubts about this phonological transformation, but it also proved the Power point sometimes unable to show in a clearly way the points to mention.

GROUP 11
This group was formed by three members that used their 15 minutes available in a balanced way. It was a clear presentation, but in certain moments one of the group laughed and talked while one of the other members was presenting, which was not a good detail, but it was certainly a consequence of her nerves and can’t be taken into account.
We only want to highlight two points which were confusing for us. One, the fact that they presented it as “The Clerk Tale”, when it was just the description of this character but still part of the “General Prologue”. And, secondly, to say that, from our point of view, the case of ME speche that is in our days speech is not an example of metathesis, or at least we do not consider that the change in the spelling is due to this fact but to the loss of the final unstressed vowel and the change occurred in the long midclose front vowel in the GVS.

GROUP 12
The three members in this group have done a good presentation that was probably too short, but well structured and well summarized. The short duration was probably due to their fluent way of presenting their points. And, despite the fact that one of them did need to turn to her paper and did read in some moments in order to continue with her part, they proved that they knew what they were talking about.

GROUP 13
They have done a very good presentation. From our point of view, it was one of the most complete ones. They not only did a good work in their power point presentation, by adding medieval images as background, but also did a presentation taking into account all the interesting linguistic aspects that they could find in their excerpt. Furthermore, the three of them were synchronized in a very fluent way that proved them to be well prepared for that moment.

GROUP 14
Their presentation have exceeded the 15 minutes that we have to do it. But it was justified by the amount of work they exposed to us. However, we want to mention some details that drew our attention:

For example, the short time given to each slide with sound changes full of information which was not mentioned and we didn’t have time to read the examples of them. Or their presentation of the Frequency list with entries different for words which were the same, apart from the initial capital letter which was an important, although small detail. We consider that it will probably have proved more effective a presentation with less content but with all the information clearly presented.


GROUP 16

The presentation of this group has been probably too short. But what we want to emphasize from this group is their way to make sure that we all knew what they were talking about before putting examples that show it. One of the members was a little nervous, but it did not affect to the content of his presentation, which was well-worked.



GROUP 17


They have been the only group that had only two people. However, they have done a good presentation framed by a good introduction followed by different linguistic aspects as pronunciation, scansion, lexical analysis... The girl has shown an excellent ability speaking to the audience. She had a wonderful pronunciation and was so self-confident that obtained a great oral presentation. The man has not been so fresh and active but he has explained his part with security on stage.

GROUP 18

Many people have kept attentive when this group have presented their work. It is necessary to point out their great pronunciation and the way they have made the audience pay attention. Even they have asked some questions to the public. Because of this, we think this group has carried out the most dynamic presentation of the class.

Concerning the content, they have also highlighted some interesting points like the superlative form "gretteste", similar to PDE form, or some examples from their fragment of the addition of suffix -ly. In conclusion, we believe this group has done a good job.


GROUP 21


This group has included a very good introduction and conclusion about the contents exposed in class. We would like to highlight their analysis of adjectives and their comments about the word "gan" as an auxiliary form to build the past tense of verbs.

They have shown a suitable way of talking to the public with security and confidence, except one of them who seemed to be quite nervous. Because of that, his part has been characterized by a notable lack of fluency, although he has finally defended it quite well.


GROUP 22
This presentation has been really great. They have taken continuous turns in order to speak and have explained the characters of their excerpt showing pictures of them. At the same time, they have introduced the text they had to analyse. They have also done a tremendous effort memorising many lines of their fragment in ME. As a result, their performance has been very active and enjoyable. On the other hand, we think that the content has not been so complete and detailed. For instance, they have talked so much about function words, but nothing about lexical ones.


GROUP 24

This group has surprised us with an introduction speaking ME. After that, they have presented a content clearly divided into three fields, phonology, semantics and syntax. All of them have been explained with enough examples to make the presentation clear and understable. They have achieved a great level of knowledge, so they have shown a perfect and contrasted collection of data. On the whole, their pronunciation has been very accurate and articulate. In our opinion, this group has been one of the best taking into account content and oral exposition.

GROUP 27
In general, we consider it has been a good presentation. They have structured their work in three different fields: metrical aspects, phonology and etymology. They have explained all the features of their text adding an example on each one. First, they have made some questions and later they have verified them through theory. However, they have used too much time to metrics, so the delivery has resulted too long. The first component of the group has pronounced very well, but so quick that it has been difficult to follow him. The last one, on the contrary, has faced better the public, so his part has been more dynamic.


OUR PRESENTATION

After having attended to all the oral presentations of our class, now we are going to try to evaluate ourselves as objectively as possible.

Regarding the structure of our work, we have taken into account the fields we consideredto be more importants in order to develop them. That is, phonology, grammar, etymology, metrics and semantics. We have focused on our text to extract from it as many examples as possible referred to the most important aspects studied in class. However, we have concentrated too much on speaking about phonology and we have not clearly explained other issues as metrics.

Our power point presentation has been rather average if we compare it with those exposed by our classmates. We have focused our interest on the content and we have not included photograhs, maps, videos... As a result, our exposition has been visually unattractive to the audience. We have worked really hard, but we have also forgotten to include an initial schedule so people could follow us and a brief but clear conclusion. However, we would like to highlight the number of sentences we have pronounced in ME, which we think was one of the main objectives of this presentation.

Concerning the speech, we recognize it has been monotonous during some moments, because we were rather nervous and we have not established alternative turns between us. So our delivery has not been dynamic and we have not communicated with the audience. It has been a pity, becase we had many ideas in order to catch the public's attention making questions and jokes, but we have chosen to memorize the text without using notes. On the other hand, our pronunciation has not been as accurate as we wanted.

In short, we believe that we have developed a well-formed and very documented presentation. We have tried to include all the aspects we have studied in classk, but the lack of time has hindered us from reaching them. However, we hope that our effort be taken into account.