Alberto Cuevas Alberto Cuevas

Speaking Lesson: Political Debate
B2 level

Materials

Abc Role-play cards
Abc Cut out phrases
Abc Pritt-tak
Abc Timer

Main Aims

  • In this lesson, the students will acquire speaking practice in the context of politics by roleplaying political debates so that they become familiar with the lexis of politics and social matters and common phrases to use in debates.

Subsidiary Aims

  • They will learn basic information about political parties and ideologies in the UK and the US.

Procedure

Warmer/Lead-in (3-5 minutes) • To set lesson context and engage students

The teacher will ask the starter question: Do you know what is a political party? Once the answers are given, the teacher will explain what they are. Then, the teacher will explain that political parties differ from each other in ideology and use terms such as "left-wing" and "right-wing" to explain such differences and exemplify with the major parties in the United States.

Exposure (3-5 minutes) • To provide, through gamification, vocabulary and examples of sentences as model of production expected in coming tasks

The teacher will divide the whiteboard in two, right and left wings. The students will work as a whole class. The teacher will leave on the desk a pack of Pritt-tak and the different cut out sentences so that the students go, read them and paste them of the respective side of the board. After the students have matched the positions with the ideology, the teacher will reveal the names of the parties in the UK and thus explain that the leader of the Conservative Party is also the Prime Minister.

Pre-Task I (3-5 minutes) • To activate language used in debates: through gamification, the students will show how familiar they are with connecting phrases and get familiar with some more.

The whiteboard will be divided once more, but now into four. Each section will have the legends "agreement", "disagreement", "personal point of view" and "general opinion". The cut out sentences will be displayed on the desk along with the Pritt-tank so that the students paste them on the right sides of the board. The phrases pasted will not be removed.

Feedback on Pre-Task I (1-5 minutes) • To make language clearer to students

Once they have finished, the teacher will provide a short feedback on the activity, mainly explaining the phrases that were not clear at all.

Pre-Task II (4-6 minutes) • To highlight and clarify useful language for coming productive tasks

The class will be divided into two different groups (if the class attendants are even in number, it's ok, if not, one of them will work with the teacher in the following task). The teacher will assign each group a Political Party, each of them shall be left or right wing respectively. Then, the teacher will hand each team the role-play cards and explain them that they are having a debate against the opposite team on the subject matters presented on the cards. The cards will match with the ones in the opposite team. If the groups are uneven, the teacher will keep one. The students will be given time to choose a representative for each topic (e.g. a representative on environmental issues, a representative on economy). In this way, they will also be given time to read the ideas outlined on the cards so that they can get familiar with the lexis. The teacher must be eager to answer questions regarding vocabulary.

The Debate (20-26 minutes) • To provide an opportunity to practice target productive skills

Students will take turns based on their roles assigned and the order of the topics to be presented (the teacher will decide the order). If the teams were uneven in number, the teacher will be in the last row of micro debates. The participants will have 5 turns of 40 seconds each to speak. If one of the speakers decides to, they may stop speaking and add the resting seconds to their next turn.

Feedback and Error Correction (5-8 minutes) • To provide feedback on students' production and use of language

Generally explain the most common mistakes made. From the most particular errors, just go over the worst. Mention how accurate was the use of the phrases presented. Congratulate the students on their performance.

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