1. Discussion Activities Peter Daley

2. Aims of Discussion Activities 1.Efficient fluency practice 2.Achieving an objective 3.Learning from content 4.Other kinds of learning: cooperation, logical thinking, debating skills etc

3. Advantages of Group Work 1.Increased participation (as opposed to class discussions). 2.Reduced fear (students not addressing whole class) 3.Motivation to speak increases (close proximity of speakers) 4.Frees the teacher to wander freely and monitor 5.Scope for peer teaching

4. Advantages of Role Plays 1.No longer limited by usual classroom language and can take on any role, display an emotion, and imagine themselves in different settings 2.Usually based on real-life situations so language required is close to genuine and provides practice for situations they could meet outside the classroom 3.Students not responsible for their language. Students are less concerned with saying the right or wrong thing. 4.Improvement over simply a “talk about x” activity.

5. What Is The Task? 1.A clearly defined task provided a goal for the discussion and results in a clear ending, 2.Some kind of conclusion must be reached or a course of action decided upon to give the activity a focus. 3.A clearly defined provides a basis for feedback

6. Picture Differences

9. Have You Ever….. Have you ever sent a love letter to someone? Have you ever received a love letter? Have you ever stolen something? Have you ever met / seen someone famous? Have you ever been on TV? Have you ever cheated on a test? Have you ever seen a car accident? Have you ever had surgery? Have you ever smoked a cigarette?

10. Debates 1.While a formal debate is more like a series of speeches, students discuss the issues in teams to come up with their arguments and counter arguments for the opposing teams. 2.Your range of topics is really unlimted. Social issues, issues related to news stories, proposals, calls to ban a product, as well as less serious subjects like who is the best super hero, soccer player

11. Debates Example of some serious debate topics: Smoking should be banned The death penalty should be banned Plastic surgery is a health hazard Gay marriage should be legalised Couples should live together before marriage Women should do military service Korea should ban US beef Junk food should be banned http://vimeo.com/1349959

12. Debates Example of some non-serious debate topics: Cats make better pets than dogs Women are smarter than men Spiderman is a better superhero than batman Keimyung is the best university in Korea Soccer should be banned English should be banned New Bauer Hall restaurant is better than the old one

13. Solo and Team Presentations Some examples of Keimyung student presentations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIbi8PJG7fY http://sites.google.com/site/kemmys/semester1,2006videos

14. Online Resources http://www.btinternet.com/~ted.power/discuss.html http://www.speech-topics-help.com/group-discussion- topics.htmlhttp://www.speech-topics-help.com/group-discussion- topics.html http://www.speech-topics-help.com/ http://www.esldiscussions.com/