Communication Strategies 1 Argumentation basics: Beginning impressively

woman ready for race on track

Get off to a good start

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Onlyyouqj via freepik

This lesson will help you set goals for this Communication Strategies course for business and academics. 

Introduction

First, let's establish a few points:

  1. What topics do you expect to be talking about? 
  2. What problems with communication have you had in the past? 

Dig for some topics and goals. Take a couple of minutes to get as specific as possible. Note all the information you gather in the student's profile for future reference.

  1. Where they will be communicating, and how.
    • Discussion?
    • Presentation?
    • Writing?
  2. What topics they will cover.
  3. What their issues are.
    • Fluency?
    • Persuasive argumentation?
    • Nervousness?
Warm Up

Your teacher has a few questions for you. Answer them as you would in the situations you just described in the introduction. 

After you are finished, your teacher will give you general feedback on your sophistication, fluency and delivery.

If your student has given you a concrete situation in the Introduction, then ask about that. 

Remember, the goal is to give your student a question that will make them pause and think. 

Here are a few options, if they didn't come up with anything in the Introduction: 

  1. (lower level) What's the hardest aspect of your job?
  2. (intermediate level) What are two pieces of advice you would give to a new recruit at your company?
  3. (advanced level) What's something you wish someone had told you when you started your job?

Score your student on these aspects: 

  1. Sophistication
  • Needs work: You didn't use much memorable language or sophisticated logic. If you give this answer, I'm still not sure if you are a high level English speaker or not. 
  • Okay: You used some memorable language, but you need to work on sophisticated logic. You need to speak not only correctly, but impressively. We'll have some ideas in lessons three and four to help you.
  1. Fluency and delivery
  • Needs work: Honestly, you sounded really flat. Are you excited about this? I didn't hear excitement! You sounded bored. Have you watched a TED talk? The speakers are always excited, and that makes the listener excited. 
  • Okay: You sounded pretty excited, but I still heard some choppy speech. I want to hear nice, smooth speech with a good rhythm in the future. We'll work on that later.
Language

Let's start at the beginning.

Discuss with your teacher what makes a strong beginning.

What makes a strong beginning :

  1. Respond right away;
  2. Give a clear claim.

Responding

This does not mean answering. It's just a way to show that you understand the question, and you are thinking about it. Here are some natural responses you can use: 

  1. That's a good/interesting/tough/big question.

  2. Hmm, [repeat key words from the question] ...

  3. Okay, I see. Let me think for a moment. 

  4. Honestly, I haven't considered this deeply. But off the top of my head, I'd say...

NOTE: Keep in mind that your response needs to be appropriate. If someone asks, "Do you have the information about last year's sales?", the response is simply yes or no.

Claim

Give a clear claim/opinion to begin your answer. This should be short and punchy.

The answer depends on the question, but the rule is:

The first thing you say should be as short as possible. 

  • Weak: "Well, my opinion would be that the hardest aspect of my current job is the demanding schedule that I have." 
  • Strong: "The hardest aspect of my job? It's my schedule. It's so demanding."

After your clear beginning, you can then use plenty of long sentences to justify your opinion. 

Optional

If possible, outline all the basic claims at the beginning of the answer.

This works well for complex questions about topics that the student is already familiar with.

You can ask, "Which sector do you specialize in?" Then ask them to describe two big changes that have happened recently. They can probably tell you two fairly quickly. So for these kinds of questions, the intro should include all of their ideas.

If you already have a clear idea for the answer: 

When it comes to English education, two major changes in the last 10 years are the internet and globalizing business. First, the internet has changed education because you can search for any topic and find lessons, book teachers online, and find YouTube channels and a wide variety of articles. Second, globalizing business has changed the goals of many students. It used to be that you might need English at some point in the future. But nowadays, there are so many opportunities to use English in the workplace that it has become necessary to learn English if you want to advance in your career.

You can see that the claims are outlined at the beginning because the person has a clear idea of what they are going to say. 

Thinking of the answer on the spot: 

Good question. Let me see. Well, when it comes to English education, there have been a lot of changes. First, the internet has changed it. You can search for any topic and find lessons, book teachers online, and find YouTube channels and a wide variety of articles. The second major change is globalizing business. It has changed the goals of many students. It used to be that you might need English at some point in the future. But nowadays, there are so many opportunities to use English in the workplace that it has become necessary to learn English if you want to advance in your career.

Practice

Now that you have learned how to begin powerfully, let's do some practice!