Teaching IELTS Writing Module through English Debate: A Case Study in Thailand

Suchada Sanonguthai

doi:10.1186/2229-0443-1-4-39

Abstract

Abstract The study explores how effective teaching IELTS writing module through English debate can be for 20 students in their last year in high at a private school in Thailand. The school has acquired Ms Cynthia Luo, a debate coach of the school, to teach Grade 12B academic writing course and this has made it possible for the students to brainstorm, discuss and debate over IELTS oriented issues before they start working on draft 1 and draft 2 of their essays. Three follow-up student interviews and the debate teacher interview were conducted. Active students responded positively to the use of debate in their writing class while expressing their concerns about academic vocabulary and paraphrasing skills. Passive students need more support during debate activities. Additional English activities are introduced for students' accuracy and fluency. The student participants took their IELTS mock test and their scores reflect effectiveness of debate activities in classroom while some of the students need to develop their classroom learning motivation.

Highlights

Assumption College Thonburi (ACT), a private school officially established in 1961, has been serving 5,208 students altogether from Grades 1-12 with a variety of academic programs
In the academic year 20111 there are 306 Thai teachers and 68 foreign teachers working for ACT
Program 2: English Program which offers English, Mathematics, Science, Music, Basic Vocational, Physical Education and Health Education taught in English by foreign teachers, accompanied by Thai teachers

Summary

Introduction

Assumption College Thonburi (ACT), a private school officially established in 1961, has been serving 5,208 students altogether from Grades 1-12 with a variety of academic programs. The topic areas discussed in the interviews were: Advantages and disadvantages of a class debate activity In response to this topic Group A expressed that they learned a lot of argumentative skills and ways to balance and win the opposite party’s argument They enjoyed every debate session as it brought new ideas which were useful for their writing. By requiring everyone to go through essay student-correction before they submitted peer edit draft two, they were learning to be responsible to others Overall, these criteria were developed based on the IELTS/TOEFL academic writing scoring criteria but tailored to evaluate student’s efforts and motivate students to develop their critical thinking skills and analysis of logical structures as can be seen below: Assignment Grading Criteria for Grade 12B. 20 How much effort did you put in writing this essay? Are there obvious mistakes that can be fixed by yourself if you revise your homework carefully? Did you submit your work on time? Did you follow the correct format?

20 How good is the grammar of your essay?

Findings

Discussion