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"That's Wrong!"

Improving Friendly Discussion of Controversial Issues

Lewis Malamed
Tokai University, Japan

Level: Intermediate college students in an EFL situation, but easily adaptable to other situations

Time: Four lessons, 90 minutes each, depending on size of class

Resources: Handout for conversation practice, peer evaluation sheets, blank paper for dialogues

Goal: To introduce students to a variety of pragmatic routines and lexical phrases employed in disagreements between peers

Description of the activities
Day 1

Activity 1 - Student mini-discussion and summary by teacher (30 minutes)

Ask the students to discuss in groups what they would do if the following people were expressing an opinion with which they totally disagreed: a) their boss, b) their friend, c) their child.

After about 10 minutes, get representative views from the different groups. This creates the opportunity to discuss how culture and status may affect the decision to express disagreement, the extent to which disagreement is expressed, and the choice of language used to express one's views. Explain that this unit will focus on arguments between people of similar status.

Activity 2 - Dialogue Practice (35 minutes)

Pass out handouts for phrases and sample dialogues (see Teacher Resource). Read each of the phrases and have the students repeat. Demonstrate how to adjust the strength of the disagreement with your tone of voice. The students then practice the model dialogues with a partner. A few students can model the dialogue. Topics that have worked well with intermediate EFL learners are listed in section v. of Teacher Resource. A dialogue on smoking is included in Teacher Resource.

Activity 3 - Topic Selection (remainder of class time)

Tell students to brainstorm controversial issues and choose a topic of interest to them, and then create a list of points on both sides of the issue before the next class by talking to others about the issue. They will begin to write their dialogues when they come to the following class.

Day 2

Activity 4 - Dialogue Creation (90 minutes)

The teacher explains that students are to create and perform, without reading, a four-minute dialogue showing disagreement between friends in which both sides of the argument are adequately represented. Tell students they must support both sides of the argument and, since they are arguing with someone of approximately equal status, they can be neither too polite nor too rude. The teacher circulates around the class answering questions and offering advice about appropriate language and pragmatics. Students who finish early should begin practicing their dialogues. Remind them that they are not allowed to read the dialogues (some will try anyway). Their homework is to rehearse their dialogues, which they will perform in front of the class during the next class meeting. General advice about speaking in a sufficiently loud voice is probably a good idea toward the end of class.

Day 3

Activity 5 - Dialogue Performance and Peer Evaluation (90 minutes)

Pass out peer evaluation sheets. (See Teacher Resource.) Determine the order of presentations and ask each pair doing one to write their names on the board before they begin. Remaining pairs will give their presentations during the next class. Collect peer evaluations after each presentation and, to save time later, place them in an envelope labeled with the participants' names.

Day 4

Activity 5 (continued)

Activity 6 - Mini-discussion (50 minutes)

After presentations are complete, a debriefing activity occurs during which students have an opportunity to share their observations in small groups and report their conclusions to the class. Students discuss which presentations stand out in their minds, whether or not they think these discussions would actually occur in their native language, and how the language and routines used might vary. At this time, the instructor will have the opportunity to summarize the objectives and clear up any misconceptions about pragmatic routines and language choices.

Procedure
Unit sections: (Time estimates allow some leeway for daily classroom functions.)

1. Student mini-discussion and teacher summary (30 minutes on Day 1)

2. Dialogue practice (35 minutes on Day 1)

3. Topic selection (15 minutes on Day 1)

4. Dialogue creation (90 minutes on Day 2)

5. Performances and peer-evaluation (90 minutes on Day 3; about 35 minutes on Day 4)

6. Discussion among students and teacher debriefing (about 50 minutes on Day 4)

Evaluation
The unit is best evaluated as a whole, giving appropriate weight to participation in discussions before and after the presentations, as well as to peer evaluations. Each pair receives a unit grade. If one member did significantly better than the other, note the specific strong or weak points in a comment on the evaluation. Include peer evaluations and a cover sheet with the grade and the teacher's comments in the labeled envelope, and give this to the students during the following class period.

Rationale
The central objective in this unit is to move students from memorizing dialogues to something more creative-expressing opinions in a dialogue they create using "lexical phrases" (Nattinger & DeCarrico, 1992)-and, finally, to a meta-awareness of pragmatic routines. Students also have an opportunity to test whether pragmatics routines that exist in their native language can work in English. Kasper (1997) mentions that, although positive transfer from L1 to L2 "can also facilitate learners' task in acquiring sociopragmatic knowledge," the students "...do not always make use of their free ride." She argues that there is "a clear role for pedagogic intervention...not with the purpose of providing learners with new information but to make them aware of what they know already and encourage them to use their universal or transferable L1 pragmatic knowledge in L2 contexts." In this unit, through dialogue creation and discussion of pragmatic issues, students can engage in this kind of hypothesis testing.

Reflections and Caveats
When helping students with dialogue creation, I expected students to be either too rude ("That's wrong!") or too polite. However, a third category surfaces, a particular type of negative transfer, when a student struggles to create a politeness form that exists in the native language, but not in the target language. Students are often frustrated by being unable to find a suitable equivalent, and will twist and turn their dialogues in order to satisfy their pragmatic need. Not only is there a difference in the way a pragmatic goal is accomplished in another culture, there is sometimes a different set of goals. Harmony may be preferred to argument, which may be associated with anger. An expression of politeness required in one culture may seem fawning in another. These are subtle issues, and encouraging students to develop a "meta-view" of these situations is more effective than dealing with them on the basis of language alone.

The use of the phrase, "We'll just have to agree to disagree," which appears in the sample dialogue, is probably not a high-frequency expression in English. However, the idea that such a resolution is possible is something I wanted to explicitly introduce in the lesson. It is not necessarily a given that a non-resolution of conflict, however minor, is an acceptable outcome in every culture.

References and Suggested Reading
Kasper, G. (1997). Can pragmatic competence be taught? (NetWork #6) [HTML document]. Honolulu: University of Hawaii, Second Language Teaching & Curriculum Center. Retrieved September 5, 2000 from the World Wide Web: http://www.lll.hawaii.edu/nflrc/NetWorks/NW6.

Tateyama, Y., Kasper, G., Mui, L., Tay, H., & Thananart, O., (1997). Explicit and implicit teaching of pragmatic routines. In L. Bouton (Ed.). Pragmatics and language learning, Vol. 8. Urbana, IL: Division of English as an International Language (DEIL), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Nattinger & DeCarrico (1992 ). Lexical phrases and language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Teacher Resource

Handout for Phrases and Sample Dialogues

I. Expressing Agreement or Disagreement: Common Expressions
Note: These expressions are common in the discussion of an issue:

II. Expressing an Opinion: Ways to Do So

III. Expressing an Opinion: A Friendly Argument about Smoking (Useful words and phrases in italics)

A: Hi ….
B: Hi ... . What's happening?
A: Nothing much. I'm just watching a debate on TV. It's about banning smoking in public buildings.
B: Oh, yeah. So, what do you think about it?
A: Well, I don't think people should be allowed to smoke in public places, so I support the ban.
B: Really? I'm surprised. I'm a smoker, so I should have the right to smoke whenever I want.
A: But don't you think that non-smokers have rights, too?
B: Sure. You don't have to smoke if you don't want to. What's the problem?
A: Well, I think that I should have the right not to breathe smoke.
B: So why can't you just go outside if it bothers you?
A: I could ask you the same question. Why can't smokers just go outside if they want to smoke?
B: Well, smoking is part of my lifestyle. I can think better if I have a cigarette.
A: I can breathe better if I don't have to breathe smoke. Smoking is bad for your health. Doctors say that even breathing second-hand smoke can cause cancer.
B: Well, I'm a smoker, and my health is good.
A: Yes, but will it be good in fifteen years?
B: I hope so.
A: I hope so, too. Listen, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree about this subject. Do you want to watch the debate with me?
B: Sure.

V. Expressing an Opinion: Writing your own dialogue about an issue of concern to you (select one below or one of your own)

• smoking
• gun control
• genetic manipulation
• cloning human beings
• fathers' role in care of their children
• pay equity between women & men
• judging country X by the values and morés of country Y
• requiring taxpayers to pay for food and health care of non-taxpayers, the poor
  

Peer Evaluation Sheet

Names of speakers: ______________________________

Topic: ________________________

Could you hear the speakers well? (Yes) ___ (No)___

What is one thing you enjoyed about the presentation?

What is one suggestion you have for improving the presentation?

Other comments:

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