Debate Competition: a Speaking and Listening Activity

Students take part in a debate in form of a game/competition and practise their speaking and listening skills.

The best way to describe this activity is as simple as its name: it is a debate, but it is also a competition. Therefore it is a game with rules, where you score points.

In this competition, there are positive and negative points. The rules are as follows:

1. How to score positive points:

Every new, understandable and relevant argument scores a point.

2. How to score negative points:

Every time a team member speaks French.

If a team member has not spoken by the end of the debate.

So there are two main rules to win this competition: everyone in a team has to speak and they have to speak English!

I came up with a template to write down the points for each team.

Debate ideas are:
- Being a farmer/mechanic is a great job.
- Tractors have not changed in the last 100 years.
- Tractors should be replaced by robots or other innovations.
- Oil energy is great.
- Apple is better than Samsung.
- Video games are better than sports.
- You have to get a university degree to get a good job.
- Chemical inputs are necessary to grow food.
- New Holland equipment is better than John Deere.
- Organic is better than industrial farming.
- The United States vs France
- Football vs Rugby
- Speed limitation is necessary to reduce the number of deaths on the road
- Marvel vs DC Comics


Debate Competition Template

Cécile Sohier 

How to Spot Fake News: Listening, Reading and Speaking Activities

Students discuss how to make the difference between real news and fake news, and practise their speaking, reading and listening skills.

Following the lessons on Fake News and Conspiracy Theory: Listening and Speaking Activities, I designed a series of activities to enhance students' awareness on the issue of fake news, as well as their ability to spot them.

This lesson includes a discussion, a reading/speaking activity, and a listening.

1. Discussion on fake news

After listening to the NPR podcast (see the post Fake News and Conspiracy Theory: Listening and Speaking Activities), I initiated a class discussion on the issue of fake news. Among the questions that I asked were:

• What are fake news? 
• What is the opposite of fake news? (facts, real news or just news)
• How is fake news different from real news/facts/news?
• Can you give examples of fake news?
• Where can you find fake news?
• Who creates fake news? Why do they exist?/What is the purpose of fake news?

Here is the worksheet:

Fake news and real news headlines worksheet

2. Reading and speaking activities on real and fake news headlines

In order to create this worksheet, I browsed through fact-checking websites such as Snopes or on buzzfeed to find recent famous fake stories. I mixed fake news headlines with real headlines, and asked students to read and discuss every headline in order to determine whether they were fake or real. 

Here are a few fake headlines:

(961,000 shares)

 (802,000 shares)

(560,000 shares)

Click on the link below to see the worksheet

Fake news and real news headlines worksheet

You can use the following powerpoint to present the answers to the exercise:

Fake News and Real News Answers Powerpoint


3. Listening activity

I went through some vocabulary and then showed them two videos to discuss different ways of spotting fake news. 

Here is the worksheet:

How to spot fake news worksheet

And the videos:

5 ways to spot fake news

How to spot fake news Vocabulary Listening and Writing Activity

Cécile Sohier 

Farmer Interview - Teaching the Vocabulary of Farming: Writing and Speaking Lesson

Students learn the vocabulary of farming, revise how to make questions, and practise their speaking, listening and writing skills.

As a final task and after they wrote their own "farming parody", I got the students to make up the profile of farmers, who became famous making videos about their farm.

The first step is to create the farmers' profiles. They will have to give them a name, decide what they are famous for (videos, songs, invention...), and create a farm with machines, tools, cattle and/or crops. They also have to explain what they like or don't like doing on the farm, and why they decided to become farmers.

This writing activity is followed up by a speaking activity in which students role-play an interview of the farmers.

You can find the worksheet below:

Farming Parody Stars Worksheet

Cécile Sohier 

Fake News and Conspiracy Theory: Listening and Speaking Activities

Students discuss the difference between real news and fake news, and practise their speaking, and listening skills.

I wanted to address an issue that is growing on the web and among young (and not so young) people: discerning the difference between real news and fake news.

This lesson includes listening activities on conspiracy theories and fake news.

1. Conspiracy theory:

I explained and brainstormed the term "conspiracy theory". Surprisingly - and worryingly if I dare say - some students did not know what a conspiracy theory was. So it really felt like I was teaching them not just how to speak or listen to English, but also how to understand what they read or hear, and be cautious about the content of online articles and videos.

Students then listened to a 2-minute video and took notes. I only showed them the video at the end, as the video is subtitled in English and I really wanted to get them to focus on what they heard. 

I gave them the words lunar module and crater beforehand. Crater is not a difficult word as it is transparent, but students are not usually familiar with the American pronunciation of the letter 't'. For instance, they tend to find it hard to spot words like twenty, international or integration in a listening when they are spoken with an American accent.

Moon landing explained

2. Fake news:

We also did a listening activity on the first 2 minutes and a half of an NPR podcast called 'Stanford Study Finds Most Students Vulnerable to Fake News'. I got the students to anticipate the content of the listening from the title as well as the following words: real news, a test, a study, a photo, to influence, to educate, information.

You will find more activities on the worksheet i.e. a gap-fill exercise and questions on the transcript.

NPR Podcast Stanford Study Finds Most Students Vulnerable to Fake News

NPR Podcast Stanford Study Finds Most Students...worksheet 

Cécile Sohier