Lesson POL-6

Welcome! Please consider how your attitude affects your and other students experience of the lesson.

Be respectful, come prepared with relevant material and show interest in order to have the best possible educational experience.

Learning outcomes

During the course of this lesson, you will learn:

  • Listen to and describe how to use rhetorically and grammatically empowered spoken English.

  • Choose and incorporate sources in your mock debate or negotiation.

  • Interact with another student (or alone) and record a rhetorically empowered mock debate or mock negotiation, using correct grammar, fluency and a varied vocabulary.

Lesson outline

Essential exercise: pre-watching exercises

Detailed exercise: The great debate, episode 2

Advanced exercise: vocabulary exercise

Homework and exit ticket

Essential exercise: pre-watching

Before watching The great debate: Confidence, presence, poise

Time for the exercise: 5-10 minutes

Before watching the show:

  • The topic is Should we legalize marijuana? What do you think, what are the pros and cons to legalizing marijuana?

  • What arguments do you think the debaters will use?

  • Click the vocabulary list below and read both the English and Swedish versions of the words used during this episode.

Vocabulary - Eng/Swe

  • Benefits - fördelar ■Eexclude - utesluta

  • Addiction - missbruk ■ Refer to - hänvisa till

  • Provide - förse ■ Convey an air of seriousness - att verka allvarlig

  • In moderation - med måtta ■ Courteous - artig

  • Significantly - betydligt ■ Posture - hållning

  • Despite - trots ■ Decrease - minska

  • Justify - rättfärdiga ■ Revenue - inkomst

Detailed exercise

Watch The great debate: Confidence, presence, poise and discuss

Time for the exercise: 40 minutes

Take notes as you listen on https://padlet.com/feke_norman/sifikd17rxt6zlfa

  1. In what way are rebuttals important? How do the speakers handle them? How does Erik handle them, for example?

  2. How can your appearance help build credibility? What other factors are mentioned?

  3. Compare how the two teams handle their scripts. Who has the best eye contact and how and why is that important?

  4. Discuss where you might find “reliable sources”. Do you always have to state your exact source or could there be situations when something more general would be sufficient?

  5. Elinor gets special credit for saying: “profits, protects and pushes”. What is this rhetorical device called and why is it effective?

  6. In your opinion, who won the debate?

  7. Using the assessment rubrics, how would you assess their spoken English? What are their strenghts and areas of improvement?

Source: UR, retrieved 2021

Advanced exercise

Defining vocabulary using a Frayer model

Time for the exercise: 30 minutes


  1. Select a word from the vocabulary list to describe.

  2. Watch the video to the right

  3. Create a Frayer model and include:

    • A definition

    • Characteristics

    • Examples

    • Non-examples

  4. After 30 minutes, 3 students will be randomly selected to show their Frayer model and explain their word.

Pro-tip!

    • Google your word + define = Oxford definitions

    • Google your word + anontym = Oxford similar or opposite words

Exit ticket

"One thing that surprised me was ..."

Homework

Record a short spoken argument on Flipgrid on the topic:

Should we legalize marijuana?