Oral Presentation  : Agree to Disagree   
Approach: Team
56k
Resources: Two sets of topic cards, one for year 4 and one for year 8, and 2 prompt cards.

Questions / instructions: In this activity we want you to talk about your opinions, and the reasons for your opinions. The others will listen to what you say, then they will have the opportunity to agree or disagree with your opinions.
Here is what you are to do.

One person at a time picks a card off the top of the pile.
Read the card out loud - think about it - then start off talking by saying

"I agree, because ...." or "I don't agree, because ..."

Show students the [above] prompt card.
Try to talk the others into what you are saying, and tell them as much as you can.

When you finish, the others each have a turn at saying

"I agree, because ...." or "I don't agree, because ..."

Show students the [above] prompt card.
When each person talks they will try to talk the others into agreeing with with their ideas.

Continue the activity until each student has spoken to 2 cards.

Topic cards for both year 8 and year 4

Children should only have to go to school if they want to.
Schools should not have any rules.
There should be no adverts on TV.

Topic cards for year 8 only

Children should be allowed to eat lollies and anything else in class
Fire crackers should be banned
All boys should play rugby and all girls should play netball
Girls should go to school in the mornings, and boys in the afternoon.
New Zealand is the best country in the world.

Topic cards for year 4 only.

Children should be allowed to eat lollies and icecreams in class.
Each family should have no more than one pet.
Boys are more friendly than girls.
We should go to bed at 7 o'clock every night.
The best colour is red.
% responses
y4 y8

Relevance of ideas to topic

strong
moderate
weak

24
60
16		 55
40
5

Quality of argument to support viewpoints

strong
moderate
weak

12
56
32		 31
55
14

Clarity of ideas

strong
moderate
weak

15
66
19		 38
53
9

Speech clarity

strong
moderate
weak

45
46
9		 52
39
9

Commentary: The same procedures and instructions were given for the year 4 and year 8 versions of these matching tasks, but the discussion topics were different.

With the exception of speech clarity, year 8 students showed noticeably higher levels of skill on the attributes assessed.

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