Exploring Oral Communication strategies

Debate is a Logical Discussion 

Hi All,

Today I will be talking about the oral communication strand in the language arts curriculum.  The skills that students gain from the oral communication strand help students both academically and personally. The two main skills that this strand focuses on are: speaking and listening. It is in language arts classrooms where students are able to find and explore strategies that can help them develop their speaking and listening skills.

The past two weeks in class we have been exploring different strategies that students can use when communicating orally. One of the strategies that I found most intriguing was the Role Play Debate strategy. I decided to further research this particular strategy on the website Education World. For this strategy, students are given an issue or topic to debate, then the they are assigned different roles or points of view that they have to argue either for or against.

Connections to the Ontario Language Arts Curriculum p. 9-10:

Students will:

1. listen in order to understand and respond appropriately in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes;

2. use speaking skills and strategies appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes;

3. reflect on and identify their strengths as listeners and speakers, areas for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful in oral communication situations.

The way that this activity is set-up allows for students to properly examine and reflect on the issue that is up for debate. This lesson starts off by giving the debate topic to the students then, using an index card, students identify the key stakeholders in the debate. This introduction to this activity is important because it allows the students to critically identify and evaluate both sides of an issue. Next, students are randomly given a side that they will have to debate—regardless of actual stance on the issue. I think this is crucial for students to do because it encourages them to be more open to different points of view when listening to or discussing a specific issue. The next step in this activity is having students from each side present their argument. At this time, the rest of the students listen and record questions that they may have.

After each side has presented their argument, students are allowed to challenge a particular argument or maybe ask to clarify a particular point. I think this is a very effective listening strategy because often times when debates occur each side is so focused on their own arguments, that they fail to actually listen during the debate. This type of mentality is common in situations outside of a debate, many people have a difficult time actually listening when someone else is talking because they are very anxious to share their own opinion. So, this type of strategy really encourages students to take the time to listen to another person and to practice the act of noting down potential questions. Finally, when both sides are done asking question, the class gathers together and decides which side presented the strongest case. I think this is a very effective reflective strategy for students because they reflect on the strengths and weaknesses that they observed and they discuss the actual process of creating and delivering an effective argument.

Overall, I think that this is a very useful strategy that I could use in the classroom. However, I would add two important steps in this strategy: choosing meaningful topics and co-creating debating rules and expectation. I think that choosing a topic that students are familiar with engages students’ attention and motivation to do an activity such as this. Also, I believe that co-creating debating rules or expectations is key to having the debate run smoothly. By co-creating expectations, students engage in a self-monitoring process whereby they are more conscious of their behavior during the debate.