| Teaching and Learning purposes
To help students analyse a real-life issue critically in order to present an informed opinion by:
• identifying key information
• recognising and analysing differing points of view
• synthesising information to inform an opinion supported by logical and reasoned evidence
• identifying and analysing language used to express opinion and language used to give reasons.
Teaching and learning
1. Revisit learning task 3 and the criteria the class developed for arguing effectively, and make reference to any discussion and recorded ideas that relate to the justice system. Key Competency: Using language, symbols and texts 2. Elicit key vocabulary for talking about the justice system, for example, “sentence”, “community service”, “penalty”, “home detention”, and explain the meanings. List key vocabulary on the whiteboard and have the students keep their own vocabulary records. 3. Ask students to take a position on a continuum to indicate what sort of sentence they think should be given to someone who killed somebody when driving while drunk. The continuum could begin with community service or home detention and go on to jail sentences of increasing length or the death penalty. Have each student explain to a partner the reason for their opinion. 4. Then add that the person had killed the friends that were in the car with him/her and ask them to move if they think the penalty should change. Have the students talk to a person from another point on the continuum, explaining their reasons for their own opinion and listening to the other’s viewpoint. Select three students from different areas on the continuum to share their reasons with the class. 5. Tell the students they are going to listen to a radio interview and court transcripts of an incident in Canada similar to the one they have just formed opinions about. Explain that these texts will provide a number of examples of the way people use argument in the justice system. 6. Hand out the
Kevin's Sentence Worksheet (Word 35KB)
. Make connections between the worksheet listening tasks and the learning purposes described above, and discuss how aspects of the tasks will support their writing. Activity 1 7. Play the background interview (
Kevin Sentence (Word 33KB)
from Replay Radio
). Ask the students to listen to the interview that gives the background to the story and take notes in order to be able to describe what happened, answer the questions, and form their opinion about whether a prison sentence was appropriate. (You should plan to give the students multiple opportunities to listen, and particularly those students who are new learners of English.) 8. Have students choose whether to work individually on a written response or work in pairs on an oral response. Select students from each option to share their responses with the class. Capture, discuss, and record the important detail, prompting students to elaborate on the meaning of any vocabulary you (and they) have identified as being essential to the meaning. 9. As a class, discuss and give feedback on the logic and reasoning of the evidence given. Activity 2 10. Discuss the listening task outlined under this heading on
Kevin's Sentence Worksheet (Word 35KB)
. (Consider providing
additional activities (Word 50KB)
to clarify vocabulary and language structures as a way of scaffolding learning for some students.) 11. This could be a jigsaw listening task, as follows.
- Divide the class into two “expert” groups for a jigsaw listening task. One group will focus on the comments made by the police staff sergeant. The other group will focus on the comments of the two parents.
- Separate the two groups (in two rooms if possible) and give them audio players.
- Give the groups time to listen to their speaker's more than once and to discuss their answers.
- Each student in each group can write answers to the questions in activity 2, and then record their responses in a chart.
| PERSON
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OPINION
|
REASONS
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| Staff Sergeant
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| Joey’s Mother
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| Andrew’s father
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- Ask the students to pair with someone from the other group to share their information and complete their charts.
Key Competency: Thinking
12. As a class, listen to the recording of all three speakers. Ask the students to listen, check the information they have in their charts, and then work in pairs or groups to discuss which speaker’s argument is strongest. Refer the students back to the criteria for effective arguing that the class developed earlier. 13. As a class, go through the possible answers to fill in the chart and discuss the students’ evaluations of the speakers’ arguments. Prompt the students to justify their opinions and to use the language you have focused on during this task.
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