Debates: Topics July 31, 2007
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Random Thoughts
Lying
Teenage beauty queens
Child beauty queens
Botox and/or plastic surgery
Health of school lunches (great for discussing different countries, too)
violence in video games
privatizing natural resources
smoking in public
gun laws
pit bulls
assisted suicide
From About.com: Multinationals | First World Obligations | Is Grammar Necessary? | Men and Women: Equal at Last? | Violence in the Media Needs to be Regulated | The Internet Craze
Cool Jobs – A Debate Roleplay Lesson Plan | ESL-Flow
Moonstruck! Does the Full Moon Influence Behavior?
From the University of Washington’s faculty pages, this page provides a lot of really interesting statistics (references included) about all the crazy things that happen during the full moon. A great idea for an interesting debate or discussion topic.
Handouts
Debatable Statements
A handout for groups to discuss and answer in a grid.
TV Survey and Debate
This is a handout that students can use in groups to survey each other on their TV habits, then have a debate or discussion about the merits of TV.
Writing & recognizing debatable and non-debatable statements
A list of sentences that students can decide whether they are debatable or not, then they write their own. Needs a little cleaning up, but it’s certainly useful.
Debates: How to Get it Going July 31, 2007
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Basic Procedures
You could split the class up into 2 groups of for and against, and the rest of the class is the audience/judges.
1. Each group presents a 2 or 3 minute speech explaining and backing up their argument.
2. Then each side gets to give a short rebuttal speech.
3. To conclude, each side gives a 2 or 3 minute conclusion speech.
4. Possibly leave some space at the end for questions from the audience. At the end, the audience decides which team gave the most convincing argument.
Hints & Ideas!
- Practice the techniques of debating thoroughly beforehand!
CanTeach provides a fun activity to help the students practice the “Yes, but…” mode of continuing a debate or conversation by having them add on to each other’s sentences in a row.
Other Resources
Teaching Debate to ESL Students: A Six-Class Unit | ITESLJ.org
Debate Resources from MrDonn.org
Debates and Discussions by Marina Canapero
This is a great compilation of simple, easy-to-explain assumptions and practices of having a debate. Information is definitely useful.
Make the classroom into city streets July 31, 2007
Posted by serenden in direction.add a comment
A good idea for teaching directions in the classroom is to set up all the desks so that there is a typical street pattern which you then use to direct the students through to a specified goal.
You could also play videos of travel and music or soundtracks of busy places or street corners.
How’s the Weather? July 31, 2007
Posted by serenden in weather.add a comment
This is a good information gap activity for practicing weather vocabulary.
Materials: A big map with major cities, weather flashcards, city flashcards, small weather symbols with magnets, a full world map worksheet with city names and blanks for the weather, a full world map worksheet made into A and B versions as information gaps (A has blanks that B has answers to and vise versa).
1. Introduce the question “How’s the weather in ?”
The teacher can hold up a windy card and ask “is it windy?”. The students answer yes or no.
2. Have the students repeat the weather vocabulary as practice.
3. Practice the question “How’s the weather in Chicago?” by going over each word, backwards.
Chicago / in Chicago / weather in Chicago / the weather in Chicago / How’s the weather in Chicago
4. Hand out the first full worksheet. Two teachers go over the dialogue, and the students fill in the blanks, plus maybe ask one volunteer to come up and place the correct weather magnet on that city.
5. Then have students get into pairs. Hand out the information gap worksheets for A and B. Don’t let them look at their partner’s sheet, and they must only speak English! Then the pairs fill in their worksheets by asking…
A: “How’s the weather in Chicago?”
B: “It’s sunny.” “How’s the weather in London?”
A: “It’s cloudy”. …
Drawing the Teacher’s Home July 31, 2007
Posted by serenden in direction, directions, listening, places, vocabulary.add a comment
Materials: paper and pencils, a floor plan for each student, a large diagram of the teacher’s home to place on the board afterwards, photos of the house?
The students listen to a description of the teacher’s home and draw in the items on their floor plan.
Afterwards, the teacher pins up the large copy of the actual floorplan with items so the students can compare theirs with the actual one. Note any differences in assumptions based on the different cultures?
Acting Emotions July 31, 2007
Posted by serenden in feeling.add a comment
Materials: emotions cards
Have the students practice emotions and asking how each other are by pairing them up. One student gets an emotion card, and they carry out a dialogue with their partner as follows:
A: “How are you today?”
B: makes the face on their card
A: “Are you sad?”
B: “No, I’m not.”
A: “Are you happy?”
B: “Yes, I am!”
Comic Book Onomatopeias July 31, 2007
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Materials: comic books, illustrations, cards with different English and Japanese onomatopeias on them + illustrations, or materials for the students to make their own.
Use comic books from and English-speaking country to introduce the various sounds in English. Have the students try to match up the sounds with the actions.
Ex:
doors squeak, water drips, rocks splash, fathers snore, houses creak…
Animal sounds July 31, 2007
Posted by serenden in animals.add a comment
Materials: none or stuffed animals from the teacher or from the students
Teach the different animal names and sounds by using stuffed animals, and have the students compare the differences between their own language and English animal-sounds.
As review, the students can practice saying…
A cow says “moo”
A dog says “bow-wow”
etc…
Trick-or-treating Classrooms July 31, 2007
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Materials: costumes or masks, small prizes or candy, pillow cases or bags, decorations
What about having students in a class dress up in Halloween costumes or masks, and then they get to go around to different classrooms and go trick-or-treating??
They could get ready then go around and sing “trick-or-treat!!” to another classroom, who in turn gets to ooh and aah at the costumes and hand out small prizes/treats.
Could be fun.
