Applying the “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” Principle to Giving a Long Presentation

By: David Kluge

The problem

A few years ago, I started writing a reading textbook that was composed of chapters, with each chapter containing four units on a related topic. The first unit would introduce the topic in general. The second unit would give a large-scale example of the topic. The third unit would give an individual-based example of the topic. Finally, the fourth unit would be a review of the chapter. Part of the review was a PowerPoint presentation on what the students had learned. The problem was that by the time we got to the end of the chapter, the students had pretty much forgotten what we covered at the beginning. The intention in writing the book with the general-to-specific format was that students would build on their learning so they would acquire well-rounded knowledge of the topic. Unfortunately, the students treated each unit as a stand-alone and felt it was fine to forget as soon as they were finished with that particular unit. However, suddenly assigning one long presentation at the end of the semester that covered what students learned throughout the previous three units was too large of a burden for students at this level of proficiency to do well given the amount of time available. How could this problem be solved?

Developing working memory

I thought that the heart of the problem was connected to working memory. Cowan (2014), defined it this way:

Working memory is the small amount of information that can be held in mind and used in the execution of cognitive tasks, in contrast with long-term memory, the vast amount of information saved in one’s life.

According to Eriksson et al., the regions of the brain involved in working memory include “the ‘executive’ regions in the PFC [prefrontal cortex], parietal cortex, and basal ganglia, as well as regions specialized for processing the particular representations to be maintained, such as the fusiform face area for maintaining face information” (2015, p. 34).

The following are characteristics of working memory, according to neuroscientists Eriksson et al.:

A fundamental property of working memory is that it is highly limited in how much information can be held active simultaneously (Baddeley, 2003; Cowan, 2001; Luck & Vogel,1997). Most estimates of the average capacity among healthy young adults suggest that working memory has a capacity limit of approximately three or four simple items (Luck & Vogel, 1997). (2015, p. 35)

This limits how much a person can contain in working memory. The long-term goal of education is to move a significant amount of working memory data to long-term memory, and how to do this is the question I tried to answer.

Inspiration for the solution

Suddenly, I remembered a traditional nursery rhyme and the solution came to me. Here is the eureka moment rhyme:

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly—Perhaps she’ll die!

There was an old lady who swallowed a spider,
That wriggled and wiggled and jiggled inside her;
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly—Perhaps she’ll die!

There was an old lady who swallowed a bird;
How absurd to swallow a bird.
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly—Perhaps she’ll die!

There was an old lady who swallowed a cat;
Fancy that to swallow a cat!
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly—Perhaps she’ll die!

There was an old lady who swallowed a dog;
What a hog, to swallow a dog;
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly—Perhaps she’ll die!

There was an old lady who swallowed a goat;

Just opened her throat, to swallow a goat;

She swallowed the goat to catch the dog,
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly—Perhaps she’ll die!

There was an old lady who swallowed a cow,
I don’t know how she swallowed a cow;
She swallowed the cow to catch the goat,

There was an old lady who swallowed a horse…
She’s dead, of course!

(Variations exist, and here’s a well-done performance of the rhyme and puppet show: link)

So, try to remember this sequence of words: horse, cow, goat, dog, cat, bird, spider, fly. The list of animals has eight constituents, which is double the average working memory capacity of our students. This is even more true of students’ capability to remember the whole verse of the penultimate stanza of the nursery rhyme:

There was an old lady who swallowed a cow,
I don’t know how she swallowed a cow;
She swallowed the cow to catch the goat,

Yet, with the help of the aide-mémoire of the entire nursery rhyme, the progressive building up of working memory is accomplished, and our students can easily remember the whole song. Using this “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” technique may help students build from a two-minute presentation to an eight-minute presentation in English. This article provides a description of how this could be accomplished.

Chapters and units

Students in my most recent reading course tackled the chapter entitled “Altruism: NPOs, and NGOs Helping the World,” which is composed of these four units:

Unit 1: Altruism? [general altruism]

Unit 2: Volunteers Without Borders [Doctors Without Borders NPO—large scale]

Unit 3: Not Enough Food and Too Many Calories [Table for Two NPO—individual scale]

Unit 4: Change the World! (review of the chapter)

For the semester report, the students created a PowerPoint presentation on the chapter, which previously had been three or four separate presentations for each unit in the chapter, depending on the year the textbook was taught and pace of individual sections of the course.

The new assignment

The old assignment was that, at the end of each chapter, students had to submit four separate PowerPoint presentation videos: Unit 1, Unit 2, Unit 3, and Unit 4. This year, inspired by the nursery rhyme, I changed the assignment so that each new presentation developed from the prior one:

Unit 1: Introduction and Unit 1: Altruism? [general altruism]: ASSIGNMENT: PowerPoint presentation on Introduction + Unit 1

Unit 2: Volunteers Without Borders [Doctors Without Borders NPO—large scale] ASSIGNMENT: PowerPoint presentation on Introduction +Unit 1 + Unit 2

Unit 3: Not Enough Food and Too Many Calories [Table for Two NPO—individual scale] ASSIGNMENT: PowerPoint presentation on Introduction +Unit 1 + Unit 2, + Unit 3

Unit 4: Change the World! [review of the chapter] ASSIGNMENT: PowerPoint presentation on Introduction + Unit 1 + Unit 2+ Unit 3 + Unit 4 + Conclusion

This semester the students only had to do three PowerPoint presentations as Units 3 and 4 were assigned at the same time due to lack of time.

First, I explained what a good PowerPoint presentation consists of:

What makes a good PowerPoint presentation?

1. 1. Designing a good PowerPoint slideshow
  2. Creating an interesting and effective presentation
  3. Practicing your presentation with the slideshow
  4. Recording your presentation

I then explained how to design a good PowerPoint slideshow:

- Designing a Good PowerPoint Slideshow

1. 1. The KISS Method: Keep It Short and Simple
    1. No sentences! Use a word, phrase, or image
    2. Use color and design (and large fonts, 30-40-point size text)
    3. Use good color combination of background and font colors
    4. Use animation effects
    5. Use good transition effects
  2. Good Content: Old (from teacher and textbook) and New information (your thoughts, feelings, experience) on each slide
  3. Good Structure
    1. Title Slide (Title, Name, Student Number)
    2. Overview Slide (List of what you will cover in your presentation)
    3. Content Slides: 1 or more slide for each point in the Overview
    4. Review Slide: Review of main points on Overview Slide + New information
    5. Conclusion Slide: What is your main message?

I emailed the students a template for the PowerPoint slides for the Introduction and Unit 1 and gave them the assignment. They downloaded the template file, renamed the file with DayPeriod Name StudentNumber Unit 1.

Introduction + Unit 1 | Slides 1-7
Slide 1: My Thoughts on Altruism, NPOs, and NGOs
Slide 2: Overview

Slide 3: Unit 1: What I Think About Altruism
Slide 4: What I Think About Altruism
Slide 5: What Altruistic Thing I Have Done
Slide 6: What Altruistic Thing I Would Like to Do in the Future
Slide 7: What I Learned About Altruism

Each semester, I conference with students in groups of three, giving advice on each student’s PowerPoint slides. It is important to do this at the beginning of the work on the PowerPoint slideshow during the first unit so students know what to do for the following units’ slides. After the first set of conferences, students came up with some interesting slide designs, often using the design suggestions from the PowerPoint app design feature where it suggests a variety of layouts and illustrations/photos to choose from. Some student slideshow files were minimalist—simple but clear. Some were complex and beautifully detailed. All were interesting. I also emailed students the Word document template below giving directions and hints for making a good PowerPoint presentation:

- Creating an Interesting and Effective Presentation

1. Don’t read the slides: Add your own personal information
2. Don’t memorize the presentation
3. Choose the most important word or phrase to emphasize for each line of each slide
4. Emphasize the word/phrase/line by voice variety:
  1. Volume (loud ↔ soft)
  2. Speed (fast ↔ slow)
  3. Tone (low ↔ high)
  4. Style (smooth ↔ broken)
5. Use facial expressions and a few gestures
6. (If given person-to-person) Use motion
7. (If given person-to-person) Use eye contact/If online, look directly at the camera

Students were given time in class to practice their presentation, first by themselves, and then performing in groups of three or four students. Students were given instructions on how to effectively practice the presentation at home using the record function of PowerPoint.

- Practicing of the Presentation with the Slideshow

Rather than read or memorize the presentation, practice it often so you know the presentation well. (See section IV below for a good way to practice.)

- How to Record Your PowerPoint Presentation

1. Open up your PowerPoint file.
2. Under the Record menu, click Record. Make sure your face appears on the video.
3. Watch your video. If you like it, submit it to the teacher (via email attachment). If you do not like it, make notes on what to change, record it again, starting at Step A above.

When they decide their video presentation is good enough to submit, the students submit the video to the teacher via email. Voila! They have finished their first of three videos for the chapter!

The same procedure is followed regarding Unit 2, but this time the video consists of Unit 1 + Unit 2. This is the start of the Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly magic.

After introducing Unit 2 and assigning students to complete pre-reading, reading skills (skimming, scanning, predicting, summarizing) and comprehension activities worksheets and discussing the reading, I sent students a Unit 2 slide template and asked them to add the new slides to their Unit 1 slides and rename the file with DayPeriod Name StudentNumber Unit 1+2. Students had to complete the slides, practice the extended presentation, and then record the extended presentation starting with Slide 1 and ending with Slide 14.

Unit 2 | Slides 8-14

Slide 8: Unit 2: What I Think About Doctors Without Borders (MSF)
Slide 9: What I Think About the FOUR Basic Principles of MSF
Slide 10: Which of the FOUR Basic Principles of MSF Do I Think Is the Most Important?
Slide 11: What I Think About the Proximity Concept
Slide 12: What I Think About the Good Quality Free Medical Help Concept
Slide 13: What I Think About the Témoignage Concept
Slide 14: How I Think I Can Support MSF

After introducing Unit 3 and again assigning students to complete worksheets and discussing the reading, I sent them a Unit 3 slide template and asked them to add the new slides to their Unit 1 and 2 slides and rename the file. Students had to complete the slides, practice the extended presentation, and then record and submit the extended presentation again starting with Slide 1 and ending with Slide 21.

Unit 3 | Slides 15-18
Slide 15: Unit 3: What I Can Do to Help the World: Table for Two

Slide 16: Unit 3: What I Think of Table for Two

Slide 17: If Table for Two were available at the cafeteria, how much extra I would be willing to pay for a healthy lunch knowing that I would also
be feeding a hungry person
Slide 18: What I Can Do to Help the World

The same procedure is followed for Unit 4, but due to lack of time remaining in the semester, this was done at the same time as the Unit 3 video.

Conclusion, Unit 4 | Slides 19-21
Slide 19: Unit 4: What I Learned About Altruism
Slide 20: Unit 4: What I Learned About Altruism
Altruism
We Are the World
Table for Two
Slide 21: Conclusion

Evaluation

In addition to giving students oral feedback on the developing slideshow files, at the end of the unit, the students evaluated each presentation with the use of a simple rubric on how good they thought their PowerPoint slideshow and their presentation was. Their responses were submitted via Google Forms.

Conclusion

By using the “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” technique, the students naturally expanded their working memory, practiced the final presentation first in pieces, and then put the pieces together. In the final Google Form survey, many students said they felt they learned better than usual university lectures because of my personal attention to each student during the teacher-student conferences and were proud of themselves for doing so well. I was happy that they felt so, and felt that I was able to watch much more interesting presentations when doing end-of-the-semester evaluations than I usually saw without the progressively-built presentations.

References

Cowan N. (2014). Working memory underpins cognitive development, learning, and education. Educational Psychology Review. 26(2),197-223.
Eriksson, J., Vogel, E., Lansner, A., Bergstrom, F., & Nyberg, L. (2015). Neurocognitive architecture of working memory. Neuron 88, 33-46.

This animated cartoon video brings the song “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly” to life in a fun and engaging way.

David Kluge is a university Adjunct Professor, Chukyo University, teaching reading with 44 years of teaching at the secondary and tertiary levels in the US and Japan. He used to have a phenomenal memory, but recently (can’t remember exactly when) it has become occasionally spotty.