Bigger & Better Speaking Debate Extension Activity, ELL SPED GATE Friendly

Speaking and debate practice can be fun!

This activity can be used as a warm-up or wrap-up to help motivate students to create meaningful sentences. This game is appropriate for ELL, GATE, and SPED students, as well as typical students. Each round offers the chance to amplify the discussion to include a debate about whose object is truly better.

This game includes four rounds with increasingly challenging objects. Language support is provided in the form of sentence frames.

This game is most appropriate for students in grades 1-5 (approx ages 5-11) but is adaptable for middle and high school students.

Adult ELLs will also enjoy the scaffolding and fun nature of this activity.

Objective:

Students will use precise language to describe objects and people in terms of their value (both monetary and intrinsic) as well as size.

Students will use precise language to convey comparative measurements.

Suggested use:

- Warm-up activity for speaking, debate, and critical thinking

- Wrap-up activity

- ELL, GATE, SPED support

- Group collaboration exercises to encourage debate and discussion

- This activity can be used in various ways to meet the needs of diverse learners. Connecting 21st Century Skills with fun elements of competition, students will enjoy the challenge set before them whether in the classroom or online!

- While this may begin as a discussion activity, it may also double as a writing prompt when students reach the final reflection questions.

- GATE, ELL and neurodiverse learners will appreciate the opportunity for choice and linguistic support.

- Built-in differentiation with choice and flexibility for response length and complexity.