Arguments & Communication in the Classroom

What Are the Most Effective Ways to Communicate in Class?

As a teacher, it’s vital to be able to speak to and with your students in a way that’s easy for them to follow and comprehend. When you’re lecturing or otherwise talking to your students as a group, there are a few guidelines to keep in mind.

Oral Presentations

Several of the previous lessons in this section have discussed the elements of effective public speaking. They include:

• preparing the speech with a clear purpose and point of view
• constructing sound arguments using credible premises and reliable forms of reasoning
• employing simple, logical organization and a structure well-suited to the speech’s topic and purpose
• selecting audience-specific diction and vocabulary
• engaging delivery, including appropriate pacing, volume and nonverbal interaction

There are some additional guidelines particular to speeches and presentations in the classroom that enhance the accessibility of educational presentations. Specifically,

Giving Directions

There’s a particular type of in-class oral presentation that merits special attention. The ability to give precise, easy-to-follow directions and instructions is vital to the smooth operation of a classroom.

Each of the above general guidelines is applicable to presenting directions to your class. Here are five more pointers specific to the art of getting your students to follow instructions:

• Clearly state the desired end-result: You can’t give good directions unless you have a crystal-clear idea of exactly what you want your students to accomplish. Know what you want, and convey that to your students. This is easy when assigning a worksheet for homework, but it is important to be just as clear in your expectations when assigning less outcome-oriented tasks, such as a pre-writing brainstorming session.
• Break it down: Whenever possible, provide directions in the form of a list or a series of steps. A collection of small tasks is easier to understand than one large one.
• “Say” it in different ways: If you’re giving your students verbal instructions, it’s helpful to also provide a written summary or to write the directions on the board as you go. Giving the students multiple ways to absorb the instructions increases the likelihood that they will do so.
• Say it when they’re listening: Make sure you have your students’ attention before you start giving directions. Students who miss the first part of your directions will be confused once they start paying attention and will give up instead of trying to catch up.
• Make sure you’re understood: Once you’re finished, solicit questions and comments. Call on different students to repeat each step of the directions to check for comprehension.

What are the Best Ways to Facilitate Classroom Discussion?

As important as the ability to formulate arguments and construct oral presentations is, the majority of class time isn’t spent lecturing. Equally key is knowing how to initiate and guide a discussion with your students.

That a classroom discussion will lose focus and meander at some points is a virtual certainty. To respond to such instances, you need to know how to recognize when a discussion has gone off course. There are four main categories of relevant and helpful statements that students can make in a classroom discussion.

A student comment that doesn’t fit readily under one of those four headings is probably a digression, a change in subject that turns away from the main topic at hand.

A personal story or anecdote may be the most common classroom digression. That’s not to say that all stories are irrelevant; anecdotes that provide a concrete illustration of a theoretical point can be very useful implication-type statements. But it’s important to recognize the difference and be prepared to redirect the class back to the topic at hand after a student goes off on a tangent.

It’s also important to be ready for student comments that are relevant but inelegantly or incoherently stated. When a student is trying to participate in a class discussion but fails to express his or her idea, it’s important to reward his or her effort while simultaneously moving the discussion forward. A few ways of doing so include:

• Tell the student, “Here’s how I understood what you said,” paraphrase the statement, and give the student a chance to respond.
• Ask a different student if he or she can think of another way to say the same thing.
• Gently let the student know that she or he is slightly off base (“That’s not quite right, but you’re on the right track”), and pick up the discussion with another student.
• Bring up a related point and ask the student, or the entire class, to think of how the two points are connected.

How Can Students Practice Formulating Oral Arguments?

Public speaking and debate can serve as useful adjuncts to persuasive writing as methods for teaching students the basics of speaking, reasoning, and argumentation. However, unstructured, free-form debates often devolve into shouting matches between the most outspoken and opinionated students.

The two forms of structured debate most commonly used to teach public speaking and analytical skills are the Lincoln-Douglas debate and the cross-examination debate.

Lincoln-Douglas debate

Lincoln-Douglas debates take place between two individuals who debate the moral and ethical value of a resolution, a statement that proposes a policy action. For example, students around the country recently debated this resolution:

One side, the affirmative, opens the debate. The first affirmative speech (called a constructive) begins by stating a value that would be served by affirming the given resolution and proposing a criterium to measure or achieve that value.

In effect, the value and the criteria are the speech’s main conclusion, and the rest of the first affirmative speech is spent making contentions, arguments that support the value of upholding the resolution.

The other side, the negative, also proposes a value and criteria, but the negative argues that the value is best served by negating the given resolution. The negative’s first speech not only establishes independent arguments in favor of negating the resolution, but it also refutes each of the arguments the affirmative has offered.

After each of the first two speeches, there is a cross-examination period in which the debaters question each other directly.

In the remaining speeches, called rebuttals, the two debaters attempt to refute the other’s arguments and show that he or she best upheld his or her value.

Click here for more detailed information on the format of the LD debate.

Cross-Examination Debate

Cross-examination debate, also known as CX or policy debate, is a four-person form of debate that draws from traditions and rules in the legal and policy-making fields.

In CX debate, two teams of two people each debate the merits of a proposed policy. The nature of that policy is defined by a resolution, such as:

One side, the affirmative, suggests a specific policy that falls within the bounds of that resolution and argues that the policy should be enacted because doing so would accrue a number of advantages.

The other side, the negative, argues against that specific policy by articulating drawbacks and disadvantages that would result from enacting the affirmative’s policy. The negative also refutes the affirmative’s claimed advantages.

In essence, the conclusion of the affirmative team’s argument is that this policy should be enacted. The conclusion of the negative team’s arguments is that this policy should not be passed.

CX debate differs from LD debate in that there are four constructive speeches, which can be used for the introduction of new arguments, and four rebuttal speeches, which are used for refuting and summarizing arguments.

Click here for more detailed information about the format of CX debate.