I love teaching  debating, speeches and oral presentations. It really prepares the students for the oral presentations and to write speeches for the functional writing section on paper 1 of the English Junior Cert. It helps the students to foster their creativity, confidence, vocabulary, grammar, communication skills, organisational skills and to think critically.
As my school is ASTI, I have not been able to go to any of the English Junior Cycle induction days. However, I have self-taught myself using a range of websites. English in the Junior Cycle aims to expand a students’ knowledge of language and literature, deepen their literacy skills and make them more self-aware as learners, creativity and teach them to think critically. Debating, speeches and oral presentations help students to foster ‘control over English using it and responding to it with purpose and effect through the interconnected literacy skills of oral language, reading and writing’.
The six Key Skills of the Junior Cycle are evident in debating, speeches and oral presentations. You must be creative as debating demands you to think on your feet. Debating develops literacy as you are practicing oral presentations and you are using a solid vocabulary. You are being numerate as you are keeping track of time. You are communicating with others and also working with others as you must communicate with your team members to prepare a good argument and then debate against members of the opposition or by delivering a speech/oral presentation in front of your peers. ‘The English classroom is a place of talk and discussion. Students enjoy frequent opportunities to debate, to adopt a point of view and defend it. They learn to communicate by writing in a range of forms and for many purposes.’[1] You are managing information and thinking as you must structure your argument. You are staying well as you are communicating with others and by participating in an oral presentation, you are growing in confidence.
There are many activities you can do for these topics!
Walking debate
Students no matter what age love this activity. Write ‘Strongly agree’, ‘Agree’, ‘Strongly disagree’ and ‘Disagree’ on different sheets of paper. Stick the sheets of paper on different sides of the room. Get all the students to stand up. Now call out statements and tell the students to go and stand beside the poster that portrays their view. Give the students a minute to decide where they are going. Once the students are in front of their chosen statement. Ask a number of students why they have picked that statement.
Traffic light debate
This works the same as the walking debate above except you must put the colours red, green and orange on different walls in the classroom. You must explain to the students that green means agree, orange means neutral and red means disagree. Like the walking debate, you call out statements and the students stand beside the colour which matches their opinion.
Statements
You write a statement on the whiteboard and then you ask the students to agree or disagree with this statement and to write down 5 reasons to back up their point. This is a really good exercise as it helps the students to develop opinions and also to develop reasons thus meaning they fully understand why they agree or why they do not agree with a given statement. It is a great starter exercise to prepare the students for debating.
Class debating
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Make two groups of 4 students each. Pick  a chairperson, three adjudicators and one timekeeper.  The rest of the class will be the audience. Rotate this daily so each student gets a turn. Write a statement on the whiteboard such as ‘Should all schools be single sex?’. Tell each group to decide who in their group is going to go:
1st– Introduction
2nd- Middle
3rd. Middle
4th-Conclusion
Each speaker in the group will speak for 2 minutes each which means that each group will speak for 8 minutes.
The adjudicator will control the meeting. The timekeeper will time the students. They must make the students aware of the first 30 minutes and the last 30 seconds.
School debating competition
You can either invite other schools to come into your school and thus have a debating competition with one school or many schools. Get the students to help you organise it, this will improve their communication and organisational skills.
6. Speeches
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Tell the students that each of them must write a speech and present it in front of the class. Topics can be
‘Imagine you are the new principal of your school, write your first speech welcoming everyone and outlining what your leadership will be like.
‘Imagine you are the running for class president, write a speech outlining what you will implement if you win.
‘Imagine you are a second year student who has been chosen to give advice to 1styear pupils about how to survive 1st Write the speech you would give the first years.
‘Imagine you are setting up a new extracurricular activity in school. Write the speech you would give to the students in your school to encourage them to join’.
‘You want a half day on Wednesdays at school, write the speech you would give to encourage your principal to implement this change’.
‘We should be allowed wear whatever we want.’ (Caityn Jenner and the transgender community are topical news stories).
‘The importance of school uniforms for equality’.
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WHAT NOT TO DO- INTERRUPT SOMEONE DURING THEIR SPEECH
GrammarÂ
Split the students into groups and give each group an envelope of statements. In each envelope there will be 15 statements.  I will give each group 2 boxes. The 1stbox will say ‘Debating statements’ and the second box will say ‘Grammar errors’.
The students must work together in their group and decide what box each statement goes in. This is a really good activity to test the students’ grammar. Some of the statements will feature slang as I want the students to learn that they must not use slang. The Junior Cycle aims ‘to gain an understanding of the grammar and conventions of English and how they might be used to promote clear and effective communication’.
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8. Oral presentations
Do this one day a week so the students will have a routine. For example every Friday. Each week give the students a topic to research, write about and then present in front of their class. Sample topics are my favourite animal, my favourite hobby, an inspirational person, a book review, a film review, a music album review, my favourite singer, my favourite band, my favourite sports team, my favourite celebrity, a great charity, a news story from a newspaper, why it is good to live in Ireland, what it means to be Irish, a student presents on country of their choice, its culture and literature and the stereotypes we need to cast off to truly understand the country, the students conduct interviews on others, the benefits of using technology in education and the student writes their own poem and presents it to the class.
9. Unseen pictures
Split the students into groups. Using unseen pictures, each group will argue a point. Each group must use each picture, thinking of a way it can support their argument.
There are 6 key skills. In this blog post, I will discuss  how to utilise the key skills of the Junior  Cycle and use technology in the classroom.
Key skill 1. Communication.
COMMUNICATING is a skill that helps learners develop good communication skills in all aspects of life, using a variety of media. As well as developing literacy skills it also develops a student’s confidence in:
Communicating
Expressing opinions
Writing
Making oral presentations
Performing
The NCCA describes Communication as:
Listening and expressing myself • Using language • Using numbers and data • Performing and presenting • Discussing and debating • Using digital technology to communicate.
Some people are natural good communicators and some people find communication very difficult. You must help all your students to improve their communication skills regardless of whether the are good communicators or not.
Students need to know how to communicate in school and in life. It is a vital key skill. With an oral presentation becoming a part of the new English Junior Cycle course, communication is of the utmost importantance.Â
Last semester for my masters, I studied a module on Mentoring and Leadership. One of the main things I learnt from this module is the importance of being a good communicator and listening emphatically to others.
Students must be encouraged to listen to their teacher and also their peers.There must be a mutual feeling of respect throughout the classroom. The teacher must embody these traits in order for the pupils to follow.
Signposts is a great resource that really helps a teacher to create a ‘safe place’. As schools are now more diverse than ever, this is of the utmost importance. Students must respect each other’s diversity. The teacher should have their opinions and beliefs but they should be impartial.
It is really important to have set rules in your classroom while using web 2.0 tools in order to prevent bullying.
Web 2.0 is also known as the New Web. These tools ‘can provide new methods for teaching and address a variety of learning styles’.[1] Our students today are a different breed as they are ‘digital natives’.[2] Web 2.0 tools encourage students to think critically and to not simply rote learn. ‘Web 2.0 tools provide instructors with technologies that facilitate learning in the ways that work best for students’. [3] Web 2.0 tools offer great substance as they work for all types of learners. Web 2.0 is using wikis, blogs, social networking and photo and video sharing tools. However, what does web 2.0 mean for education? Web 2.0 is bringing education into the twenty first century. Web 2.0 tools offer real change as they make collaboration faster and easier as there are no downloads needed. The internet was created to foster communication therefore increasing student engagement.
As our students these days are ‘digital natives’. Web 2.0 should be utilised while we are teaching them. Web 2.0 Â tools offer exciting opportunities for communication in the classroom.
The web 2.0 tool that I have chosen for communication is Edmodo. Edmodo is an amazing tool which teaches the students the importance of collaboration as the students must communicate with each other while using Edmodo.
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Edmodo is a free social learning network for students and teachers.
It connects more than twelve million teachers and students globally. Edmodo provides a secure network for teachers and students to interact and collaborate online. It combines the elements of a blog, Twitter and Facebook into one platform for learning. Edmodo is available for free on the web and the app is also available for free in the app store.
Edmodo allows teachers to differentiate learning, create a learning environment that cultivates modern learning, receive student performance data and see pupils work and what pupils are not working. Edmodo promotes collaboration, communication, creativity and autonomy as the student is given control of their own learning. Teachers can give instructions, post pictures, videos, assignments, links and create polls and quizzes through their Edmodo class network.
Teachers can create as many groups as they like. Each group requires a different code. If student shares their class code with others then the teacher can simply just change the code.
My class groups
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Students can share digital media such as blogs, pictures, videos, notes, documents, presentations and links. Students can also participate in online discussions. Teachers can connect with other teachers around the world who share their passion and interest. Edmodo provides a professional library. If another teacher adds a great resource, you can click ‘library’ and add it to your own library.
Students are able to log on and collaborate with each other. They do not just collaborate on assignments. The students can also share resources and opinions about topics. They can also offer homework advice if one of their peers is confused.
Edmodo has high educational value as it makes the student an active learner thus increasing student engagement.
Edmodo increases a student’s critical thinking skills as the students write comments to each other. Edmodo allows all students involved to contribute. It is of the utmost importance that the students write more to each other than ‘Great job’. Edmodo is not a chat room through posts. Students need to be taught the difference between a chat room and a social learning tool.
2. Managing myself
This key skill requires the students to know themselves, making considered decisions, setting and achieving personal goals, being able to reflect on their learning and using digital technology to manage themselves.
Penzu is an online diary and a personal journal that is focused on privacy. With a unique and compelling user experience, it makes writing online as easy and intuitive as writing on a pad of paper. By managing a diary and a personal journal the student is managing their thoughts and feelings thus managing themselves.
Why isn’t there an easy and secure way to record your thoughts online? Well now there is. Penzu makes this possible. Â All of the current online solutions are not not suitable for private writing. Some young people are writing their personal feeling son Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook. This is not safe! The alternatives to keeping private information on a desktop computer in a Word Document or in a notepad while effective, aren’t entirely safe either. Anyone could access it!
Penzu offers a safe and secure place to store your thoughts and ideas in the cloud.
Not only are entries password protected in an online account, but individual entries can be locked with military-grade encryption.
With our powerful security also comes extreme ease of use. The core component of the interface is the Pad which is a metaphor for a pad of paper. This universal design element has allowed Penzu to transcend language and cultural barriers as people from 170 countries continue to use the service. We have always made the user experience a top priority and it is one of our main differentiation’s from complicated and confusing competitors.
The name, Penzu, comes from many influences, but mainly it is a derivative of the Latin “pensare” which means to think or be full of thought.
Benefits of Penzu:
Privacy–Â Designed to focus on privacy, your entries are totally private by default!
Availability-Â Enjoy Penzu on the move. Available for iOS and Android and totally free! Young people love apps!
Reminders-Custom email reminders help you make sure you never forget to write. This is genius!
Background–Â Make each journal your own with custom covers, backgrounds, and fonts. How cute! Why would anyone want a paper diary after this? How boring!
Search-Quickly and easily search through your journals, entries, and tags.
Password protected– Also you can further protect your diary with military-grade 256-bit AES encryption.
Penzu also have a range of different journals and diaries! They also have school diaries! They are all completely free!!
It is so easy to sign up. All you need is your name, your email address and a password. It takes one minute!The you click the colour of your diary. Then you get to choose the font. You can then give your mobile number so they can send you a mobile pin code to protect your diary. (You can skip this part). You are now ready to write your first entry!
School Diary Template
If you’re new to the school diary world, you may want to know how they look or what you can put in them. A standard template for a school diary post will usually include:
Date of entry
Term or semester number
A place for your school name and your name
Post title or topic
Plenty of writing space
Tasks to take care of in the future
Unlike printed diaries, electronic school diaries are much more customizable and some have multiple categories pre-set for you. You can also upload photographs from your computer, smartphone or tablet directly to your entries. You can choose your own colours and font.
School Diary Samples
A few examples for school diary posts are:
Today Ms. O Reilly is totally springing that quiz on us! Â I guess I better study tonight. Note to self: Study poetry techniques tonight. Ace the test tomorrow!
I was sitting beside John today and Ellen cracked the dumbest joke at lunch. Â Before I could start laughing, John split his food all over the table. Note: Never tell John a joke when he is eating (Insert picture food). It was funnier than the joke!
With Penzu, you can type out your daily thoughts and journal your most unforgettable moments at school.
Remember when your friend said that really funny thing and you just couldn’t wait to get home to Facebook it, but then by the time you got home you forgot how it was said? Well, no more of those wasted jokes or secret thoughts. Penzu lets you log in with your password and start typing away whenever you want!
The best part about Penzu is that you can keep track of your homework, essays, projects, exam dates and ideas, so no more forgetful moments.
If you like to keep things in more than one place, you can sync your entries from your app to the web as well! You’ll have privacy, room to express your thoughts and lots of funny things to read back over when you’re bored.
Here is a great video clip about how to use Penzu.
3. A web 2.0 tool that you can use for managing information and thinking is Livebinders.
This key skill requires the student to be curious ( They can do this by looking up information to put into their tabs), gathering, recording, organising and evaluating information. (They can do this by deciding what putting information into their tabs and organising the content into sub tabs and then evaluating the content then). The students must think critically and creatively. (What fun things can I add to my tabs? Os this suitable for my tab?). Using digital technology to manage information and thinking. Livebinders ticks them all!
Livebinders is a digital 3 ring binder that you can put virtually anything into; webpage, PDF, document, image, or video. Everything is organized by tab and you can even have subtabs within those tabs. It is free and it is really easy to set up.
Students and teachers can use Livebinders! It is a simply way to share knowledge.
Once in, you set up a binder. You name it and you can use tags, categories and you can make it public or private. You do not have to use tags and if you choose private then you simply just use a password to protect it. In your Livebinder, there will be different tabs for your different subjects. For example, English, Irish, Maths. Click on the tabs to name them. You can put any website address into your binder by adding in the URL address into the tab bar and it will allow you to access that site. Pretty cool huh! In each of your tabs, you can add subtabs. This allows you to become even more organised! Genius! Click on add content to add images and documents. You can add files form your computer and you can even add files from Dropbox. Lifesaver! Unfortunately unless it is PDF format, you will have to download the file to view it. If it is in PDF format, you can just scroll through it! You can customize the layout of your Livebinder. It is really simply yo use!
4. Being creative
For this key skill, students must use their imagination, implement ideas and take action, learn creatively whilst using digital technology.Â
The web 2.0 tool I have chosen is Zimmer Twins. It is a creative storytelling site that I love to use in my English lessons. I have used this tool with my first years, 2nd years and 4th years to write stories. Instead of sitting in the classroom and getting the students to write a story, I brought them to the computer room and each student made their own story. It was a great success! The students absolutely love making their own stories. They were happy, hard working and full of creativity! That is what every English classroom should be like!
Students create and share their own animated stories. Pretty cool! I clicked on the educators and school tab. There is also a family version available. Both the teacher and the students have their own profiles. You can edit your account and the students will see this information. Your students can not edit their accounts, only their online profiles. The teacher can subscribe to the regular newsletter with information about Zimmer Twins. Using the my class tab, you can manage and delete your students passwords and information. If you delete a student then you delete all of their class work. To add a student, just click on add student. You can add up to 3 students at a time. You can see when and how many times your students have logged in. You can see all of your students passwords.
The students can write comments to each other under their movies.You manage their comments and you can delete any comment about a movie whenever you wish. You can make a movie for all of your class to view or they can make their own movies. You can either finish a story already made or you can start from scratch and make your own story.
By clicking on gallery, you can view videos made by other schools. The site explains really well how to make video clips.  First you choose an animation clip, you can make their characters act a feeling such as anger and you can control the characters movements such as to walk/sing/dance.
You can then add in fun bits such as newspaper headlines, maps, fortune cookies or tickets.The timeline is the ruler at the bottom of the screen which shows the different sections of your movie. By clicking on the sentence, you can change the background, the characters or even the things that they are holding. To lengthen your move, keep adding on clips. Add in talk bubbles and click on the bubbles to add in speech.Â
5. Staying Well
This skill requires students to be healthy, social, safe, confident and positive about learning. The students must be responsible and safe when using digital technology.
Scribblar is an online meeting room / white board.
Students can use it to collaborate on projects, teachers can tutor via the computer, and teachers can use it for collaborative meetings and projects. It is really easy to set up! The teacher is can monitor progress which makes it safe.Â
Scribblar gives the users a virtual white board on the screen and writing tools to create text, lines and shapes. They can even add images.
There is also a chat window on the side bar so that users can talk to each other while working. There is even a live chat system if you have a microphone and speakers. This allows the student to be social. Â
I see students using this to work on homework problems together. This makes the students feel positive about learning. Teachers could use this to help students with homework after school or on the weekends. The great thing about Scibblar is that more than one person can be working/drawing at the same time. You can change the font and colour and you can save the chat transcript. You can also add different pages. You can email it to people or paste the link to a website and someone can enter and edit your page.Â
Scribblar can now support PDF files. Free users can upload PDFs with up to 5 pages. Your uploaded PDF will be turned into an editable image in Scribblar.Â
6. Working with Others
This key skill requires the students to develop good relationships, respect difference co-operate, learn with others and work with others using digital technology.
This allows learning to continue beyond the classroom. Teachers can create their own groups. It is protected and private so it is safe. I love this web 2.0 tool.It is free and really easy to use. It takes 2 minutes to set up! It reminded me of Edmodo. It is also like social media especially Facebook thus meaning the students find it easy to use. It is a private and secure site complements classroom instruction and gives all students a voice in classroom discussions. Teachers can make polls/yes or no/multiple choice or just questions and the students answer. The site’s allows teachers to to embed videos, attach PDFs, MS Word documents, and images .
The teacher can also create a discussion between the pupils. This ensures the students are working with each other. At the conclusion of a discussion, teachers and students can access the results for review, reflection, and extension.  Collaborize Classroom also boasts many support features for teachers including a Topic Library, and links for an FAQ section, email contact, as well as webinars. You can see the numbers of comments and activities each student has participated in. It is excellent for keeping track of each student!
Sources used:Â
[1] Terry T. Kidd, Irene Chan, Wired for Learning: An Educator’s Guide to Web 2.0 (Charlotte: Information Age Publishing, Inc, 2009), p. 298.
[2] Marc Prensky, Teaching Digital Natives: Partnering for Real Learning (California: A Sage Company, 2010), p. Ii.
[3] Kidd, Chan, Wired for Learning: An Educator’s Guide to Web 2.0, p. 295.7
4. NCCA, Key Skills of Junior Cycle: Communicating  (accessed 18-11-15)< http://www.juniorcycle.ie/ncca_juniorcycle/media/ncca/documents/key/communicatingtoolkit_sept2013.pdf>
9. NCCA, Key Skills of Junior Cycle:Working with Others  (accessed 2-12-15) < http://www.juniorcycle.ie/NCCA_JuniorCycle/media/NCCA/Documents/test/Working-with-others_Toolkit_Feb2013.pdf>
   
 
 
 
    
  
   
 
 
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