Monday, May 2, 2011

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Level 3 Charity Contest



For the past few years of teaching Advanced Listening/Speaking, our semester project has been the "Charity Contest." After a listening activity on George Soros, the philanthropist (from our textbook, Consider the Issues, from NPR), I assign my students to create their own idea for a charity organization. Turning it into a contest to compete for a $10 million grant from the Soros Foundation makes it especially exciting for the students.

*I must give the credit to my colleague, Pamela Martin, for coming up with this idea and first implementing it in her classes.

Here are excerpts from my worksheets, which outline the project:

STEP 1: Which groups of people need help from charities? What else in our world needs to be fixed? Consider people, social institutions, animals, and the environment. Brainstorm in groups of 4. Write your ideas below.


STEP 2: With a partner—Now, design a charity with your group. Answer the following questions:
  1. What is the problem that your charity would help solve?
  2. Why would your charity be important or special?
  3. What specific services would your charity provide?
  4. What people would you need to provide these services? (Eg, volunteers, paid employees?) What kind of training would you to do?
  5. What materials and supplies would your charity need?
  6. How much money would your charity need for one year?

STEP 3: Presenting Your Ideas.
Homework Assignment-Due in class, Wednesday, March 24 Individually, create an outline for your presentation. Type your outline and bring it to class. (You will compare your outline with your partner(s) outline in class and combine them.)

Step 4: Get feedback from your classmates. In pairs, ask your partner about his/her project.
  • What problem are you focusing on?
  • Why did you choose this problem to solve? + Follow-up questions
  • Why is this problem more of a priority than others? + Follow-up questions
  • How important is this problem to other people/groups like George Soros? + Follow-up questions
  • How would your organization go about solving this problem?
  • What services would your organization provide?
  • Where would your organization get people/workers from?
  • Where would your organization get materials from?
  • How would your organization manage the money ($10,000,000)?
  • How long would your organization take to get results?
  • How practical is your plan?

After your discussion, get back with your group and talk about areas you identified that need further planning.

Step 5: Finish your outline and create your powerpoint
Compare your outline with your partner(s). Decide together how to combine your ideas into one amazing outline.

Step 6: Presentation Skills Day

Give a Lecture Plan

• First we’re going to talk about…
• Then, we’ll go on to…
• And then we’ll move on to….
• We’ll
• tell you about…
• explain..
• discuss…
• show…
• After that…
• Finally, we’ll tell you…

Transitioning Between Speakers

Choose one transition.

____ Okay, now Johnny is going to tell you about…
____ I’ll take us through…. (the goals and objectives of our charity)…
____ Thanks, Jill. Let’s move now to….
____ Now that we’ve talked about….. I’ll explain…..
____ Okay, I’m going to let Jack tell you about….

Dealing with Q&A

1. Inviting Questions at the end of the presentation:

• Okay, we have about ___________ minutes for questions.
• We’ll take your questions now.
• Who has the first question?
• Now, what questions do you have?

2. Answering Questions

to a good question
• That’s a very good question. [+ Answer]

to a difficult question
• I don’t know that off the top of my head.
• That’s a really good question. I’m not sure I can answer that…
• I’m sorry… I’m afraid I don’t have that information with me.
• Can I get back to you on that?
• I’m afraid I can’t answer that.

to an unnecessary question
• I think we answered that question earlier.
• Well, as we mentioned earlier,….[repeat answer]

to an irrelevant/confusing question
• I’m afraid I don’t see the connection.
• Sorry, I don’t follow you.
• I’m sorry, I don’t understand your question.

3. Moving to another question:
• Okay, let’s move on to the next question.
• Who has the next question?
• Let’s move on to the next question.

4. Near the end of your Q&A time:
• We’re almost out of time.
• We’ll take 1 more question.
• We have time for 1 more question.

At the end of your Q&A time:
• Thanks for all of your questions and attention.

Contest Day!!!
This semester, we only had two sections of Advanced Listening/Speaking, so I had to find two different audiences for the presentations.
Section 1 - Panel of judges consisting of 2 other teachers and staff workers from the International Programs Office. To make it nice, I reserved a conference/board room for the presentations. The change of scenery was rather effective.
Section 2 - One of our Intermediate Listening/Speaking classes served as the audience and selection committee.