Chrissie spoke to us
about using debate, group discussion and oral interpretation to help learners
develop their speaking skills.
She informed us of research results concerning debate.
According to the research, it improves formal functional language, develops
critical thinking, prioritizing, listening, summarizing, expressing
disagreement and extended discourse, expressing opinion and justifying. Group
discussion in turn improves interactive communication, extended discourse,
listening, expressing polite disagreement, facilitating discussion, summarizing,
interrupting, research ,critical thinking. Oral interpretation (reading aloud)
requires good phonology, body language, manner of expression and interpretation
of text.
Then she took us to
the children who participated .They were given, before they took part in
debates and group discussions, useful language which they were to use. It gave us encouragement to see 11 year olds
debating, very politely and using precise language to present and argue their
points, to present their arguments logically and coherently and then participating in a group discussion, presenting
results of research they had
undertaken, asking for further defining…
and all in excellent English.
By George Raptopoulos
No comments:
Post a Comment