This is a boardgame that I use to get the students to talk about their summer vacation and what they did.

I have found that even though it may give certain students less talk time than simple pair work it seems to work better at getting students to talk with each other than find someone who tends to.

Uni Vacation Boardgame9-26-06.pdf

The Summer Vacation Game.doc

This is a reading and discussion activity to prepare students to discuss Topic 3 in the Level 3 speaking test. It includes an adapted news story about the future financial burden faced by current univeristy students as a result of the increasing number of retired workers. Following the reading, students write answers to comprehension and reaction questions and discuss their answers in a group.

Special Report: Japan’s Aging Population

This activity will help students prepare for Topic 2 of the group discussion test: Advice to high school students. It complements Unit 8A Values, and can be done as an extension of Page 68 A, or as a review and rehearsal activity in the week leading up to the GDT. It fits nicely with the composition on page 69. If the writing teacher is not using that page, it can be a good warm up to have them read it.

Advice to High School Students

This activity complements Unit 7B, and is meant to help students prepare for the discussion test. There are four current news stories copied from Japan Today. Students get in groups of 4, read the headlines only, choose one member to read each story. After reading time, they take turns relating and then discussing each story.

News Stories and Task Sheet

This is a simple task sheet to support “Unexpected Experiences,” Passages page 60. The sheet provides structured planning, additional vocabulary, and a record of the task. Because the “Personal Story” will be one of the topic choices for the group discussion test in December, having students create a written record of this activity might be very useful for review and pre GDT practice.

Personal Story - Planning sheet

This is a kind of “find someone who…” activity that is based on Unit 6 “Food and drink”. However, it could be used at any time during the year as a warm up or as review. it can be used as a find someone who activity, requiring students to speak to 20 of their classmates, or you could have students interview 5 students and have them ask four questions each.
Because of the amount of time involved witht this activity (20mins. or more), I don’t require students to write the names of the students they talk to, nor the extra question that they think of themselves, just the answers.

Let’s Talk Unit 6 Activity (20 Questions)

This is a kind of “find someone who…” activity that is based on Unit 3 “Free time”, interests and sports. However, it could be used at any time during the year as a warm up or as review. it can be used as a find someone who activity, requiring students to speak to 20 of their classmates, or you could have students interview 5 students and have them ask four questions each.
Because of the amount of time involved witht this activity (20mins. or more), I don’t require students to write the names of the students they talk to, nor the extra question that they think of themselves, just the answers.

Lets Talk Unit 3 20 Questions.doc

This is a simple notetaking task sheet to be used with the Level 3 Discussion - Education video. This video is currently (May, 2005) available as a DVD on the Level 3 shelf, as well as from the ELP Web at:

http://elpweb.com/resources/slevel3listspeaking.php?id=discedu

The web version might be preferable for students with weaker listening skills because they can easily rewind and listen again for small points. If done in the FLSC, students can be sent there with this worksheet, and then come back to class to compare notes.

I am using this activity mainly to introduce how the Group Discussion test will work, and to clarify that there are many possible discussion points, such as things to change at Obirin, ways of learning, extracurricular activities, purpose of education, personal educational goals and dreams, etc. which could fit under the “Education” theme.

Education Discussion Tasksheet - to be used in conjuction with the Education discussion video.

There seem to be a lot of people who, like me, are teaching discussion and debate extensions classes. Since I’ve not heard of anyone using a textbook, there’s a good chance to improve our courses by sharing materials. I’m going to gradually add my “Discussing Current Issues” materials to this posting. When it’s unclear how to use them, I’ll add some teachers’ notes.

Language for giving an opinion, agreeing and disagreeing
Language for giving an opinion, agreeing and disagreeing with answers

Here’s the list of target words in Unit 1 - 6 of Passages. Please distribute this to the students and inform them that

1) words on the vocab quizzes will be selected mostly from the Vocabulary and Reading sections of Unit 1, 2, 3, and 5.

2) the words on the list will help their speechs and group discussions.

Passages Vocabulary List (spring).pdfPassages Vocabulary List (spring).doc