All the parts come together.
This is a review of the previous four lessons on argumentation. It will give you a chance to practice making a full, well-reasoned argument.
This course has a lot of strategies that may be easy to understand but hard to produce, and even harder to produce when you are under pressure in a test. If you can't use these strategies in a test, you may not see your score go up. Take time with this lesson, and keep practicing until you are confident about moving forward.
To confidently use these strategies during the test, students need to be able to use them without their teacher prompting them during practice.
If the student doesn't want to spend time on review, you can tell them:
Speaking tests don't really test what you can understand; they test what you can produce. Just understanding these strategies isn't enough. We need to use them.
If they still don't get it, you can add:
Is it better to learn twenty things and forget them, or learn just a couple and remember them? It's better to remember. Take the time and make sure you remember.
Of course, these early strategies are a big part of the course moving forward, and essentially every lesson will be a review lesson because students should be using these strategies in all subsequent lessons.
What does a basic answer structure look like for your test? Discuss the beginning, middle and end.
Let your student supply as much of this as possible. The points in brackets are optional, depending on the question and the style the student chooses.
NOTE: This is an idealized structure and not suitable for every answer.
Beginning:
- (React to the question) and;
- give a clear claim.
Middle:
- (Give a secondary claim);
- add evidence [fact, example, anecdote, analogy, testimony];
- give reasoning [why it’s important, what you can do];
- (repeat as necessary).
Ending:
- (Use a transition phrase),
- restate the claim(s) [just claims, not evidence or reasoning]; and
- add a “so what?” [can be a hope, recommendation, or action].
Now practice giving strong answers to common speaking test questions.