Read recent discussion posts here: theenglishfarm.com/discussion
Audience
Discussions are for students to do in class. Our students expect interesting, informative lessons. However, they may find their textbook monotonous or simply enjoy a change of pace. Discussions allow teachers to have short lessons available with zero preparation.
Writing a discussion
Discussions are produced by the discussions team. If you'd like to join the team or are new to the team, read the following.
We generally publish 3 posts per week.
Guidelines for producing discussions.
- Write it in your own words. You may use ideas from an external source. If you do, be sure to link it.
- Keep it short. It should take about 3 minutes to read (so, 200 words, +/- 20%).
- Write with a level in mind. We have discussions for all levels, from beginner to advanced.
- Guide the discussion by writing 3 or 4 questions with ascending difficulty.
Here are the types of discussion posts. One post may fall into multiple categories. We try to have a mix of different types each month.
- Big ideas—something the student doesn't know about, but may have an opinion about.
- Small talk—a familiar topic you might talk about over a business lunch or while waiting for a meeting to start.
- Business—topics written by and for business people.
- Topical—a topic in the news now.
- Evergreen—a topic that's always interesting.
- Visuals—give a presentation using a graph or another type of visual aid.
- Saying and quotes—engage with English culture as well as colloquial language.
You can set discussions as homework, if you wish.
You can also set the discussion post for the next lesson and instruct the student to prepare answers to the questions.
If you wish to join the discussions team to create posts, contact the Content & Curriculum head.