English A1 Oral, Structured Discussion

[Youiop]

Hey I have my IB Oral coming up soon and I was thinking of doing an structured discussion instead of a presnentation

The problem is that all the other students did a presentation so I am not quite sure how to do the open discussion

Did anyone do that for his/her Oral and what do you guys think of it?

Thx for the feedback

Edited May 8, 2009 by Youiop

[Sandwich]

Hey I have my IB Oral coming up soon and I was thinking of doing an structured discussion instead of a presnentation

The problem is that all the other students did a presentation so I am not quite sure how to do the open discussion

Did anyone do that for his/her Oral and what do you guys think of it?

Thx for the feedback

I've never even heard of this... but just looking at it, would it be possible to get all the marks that a person can gain doing a solo presentation if you did a multiple-person structured discussion? O:

[Vvi]

You can get full marks, the example of a structured class discussion is in the English guide. You would most likely have to structure it like your teacher does English lessons; think about when she asks you questions in class on themes of books you are reading e.g What does this excerpt convey about _______'s attitude to _______? The teacher lets students in the class come up with a few answers on their own (out loud, by raising their hands) and then goes on to elaborate on the question and explain what the text conveys, etc.

If you do a discussion, you must have prepared your questions before, and you musn't let other people dominate the discussion. It's your presentation, you're the one supposed to be talking. Basically what you're using the other students and their questions for is prompts; they give an idea and you grab it and explore it. You can also give a contrasting interpretation (not agree with a student's opinion), which shows you are critically evaluating the text.

You would have to be very well prepared for such a discussion; read through the book several times, go through all the themes and ideas and try to anticipate what kind of ideas people will give. You can also "plant" an answer in the audience ahead of time in case your class isn't coming up with good responses/is too lazy to contribute; come up with an answer to one of your questions and tell one of your friends to say it out loud when you ask the question.

Your discussion still have to have an essay-like structure; introduce the topic, work through several ideas in the body of your presentation and then summarise the ideas at the end. Improvisation and quick thinking will probably be key here, since you won't know what ideas people will come up with and will have to feed off them and use them. Or you could just come up with counter-arguments and use those; then you know what your conclusion will be if you argue against every point people make.

[sweetnsimple786]

Vvi's given some great advice here. Everyone in my class was following the creative route and doing a play, so I knew I didn't want to do that, but the formal presentation was a bit intimidating (discussing for 15 minutes, simultaneously worrying about grammar or something? no thanks ), so I told my teacher I would do an informal presentation, which was a meld of the structured discussion and the formal presentation. It was great because I started out just talking to my class (informally, of course) and introduced the topic with some questions to elicit responses that I would later contradict.

Like Vvi said, it's easiest to contradict the general consensus. My entire topic was about how the antagonists in each novel aren't pure evil and should be pitied, so I guess what I'm trying to say is that some topics are more conducive to some styles than others. Try not to feed your classmates answers to your questions because it can sound trite or staged. This isn't always true though.

You may want to ask your class to consider some questions a few days before the oral so they can think about what they want to say and not waste your time (I almost went over the 15 minutes). Our teacher told us that we could bring a very thin/skeletal outline for our peers so they could follow our presentations. This usually keeps the listeners more engaged, and would help with your discussion. Try to be as original as possible (although not doing another presentation is original in your class ): use powerpoints or a projector or write on the white board or have students write on the white board. Class involvement will rise, but it may take up some of your precious time.

[Youiop]

Hey guys thanks for the detailed help

Well I was thinking about discussing wheter the protagonist has feelings for people or not (in the stranger/l'étranger).

I was just wondering how you would set up such a presentation concerning your quotes. Do you present a paragraph and jsut discuss that or would you present about 4-5 different quotes and after about

4 minutes you just go on and present the next quote and start talking about that one?

Also when I'm through with discussing all the quotes do I form a conclusion based on what has been said? The structured discussion seems harder then a normal presentation to me

THx

[Vvi]

Present a paragraph and include quotes in there, then explain them. Throwing individual quotes around doesn't make much sense, then your structure is all ove rthe place.

And yes, when you finish summarize what you have discussed in the entire presentation, as people/your teacher may not remember the firts part of your discussion. End with a few sentences explaining why what you discussed was important to understanding the text, and emphasize the central ideas of it.

It may sound harder than a normal presentation because you have to guide the class' discussion and lead it in the right direction. As long as you keep it moving in the direction that you want it to move in and don't let the discussion get side-tracked from your original question, it will be a good oral.