Lesson video

Hello and welcome, my name is Mr. Santhanam and this is lesson three of 10 from our discussion unit.

Today's learning objective is to give reasons for and against for a discussion.

If you remember, I had some friends help me with my discussion.

I had Arnold and I had Fiona.

Arnold is always against the argument and he disagrees with the argument, but Fiona always agrees and she's always for the argument.

Today they had a little discussion about whether or not children should be allowed to have chocolate for their dinner.

Let's see what they thought.

I'm definitely against eating chocolate for dinner, because it is very unhealthy and it will rot your teeth.

No, no, no.

You need something to healthy and nutritious for your dinner not chocolate.

Actually, I believe that we should have chocolate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

It is yummy! And if children like what they're eating, they will want to take more and more of it.

So they will always finish their dinner.

Chocolate is so delicious, I wish I had some right now.

Wow, some really great reasons for why chocolate should be allowed for dinner.

Let's get started with our lesson now.

For this lesson, you are going to need some paper, a pencil, and your brilliant brain.

Pause the video now while you go and get those things.

Wow, speedy, speedy Gonzalez.

I'm so impressed, now we can get started.

So in today's lesson, we are going to do our spelling activity first, we're then going to do our grammar focus and you'll need your pencil cause we'll be doing some writing for this part.

We're then going to work on how we can develop our opinions.

And then finally, we get to do some roleplay with our discussion.

You might want to dress up for this part, we'll develop your own characters like I have with Arnold and Fiona.

First of all let's do our spelling.

This week we've been really working hard on our tricky words.

These are common exception words, which are very, very sneaky and tricky because you cannot just sound them out using your phonics.

You need to be able to see them, recognise them and lock them in your brains that you can always remember them.

Let's have a look at some now.

One.

I would like one lollipop please.

Love.

I love my new trainers.

Your.

I want to be your best friend.

Once.

Once upon a time.

Be.

I would like to be your friend.

Pause the video now, while you write down those words as quickly as you can.

I know that a great strategy check is to look at the word, say it in a sentence so that it really makes sense to me, write the word and then check my spelling to make sure I've got the spelling correct.

Why not give that a go right now? Are there any of these a bit tricky that you're having trouble remembering? Don't worry I know that you're going to get there really soon.

Okay, it's now time for our grammar focus.

And this week we've been really, really focusing on question marks, exclamation marks and fullstops.

Can you point to the question mark? That's right it's that one on the end over there.

And we use that when we're asking questions, like, do you have a cat? Which one is your favourite? And would you like a chocolate bar? Can you point to the exclamation Mark? Amazing, that's right, it's the one in the middle.

And we use that when we are exclaiming things, saying things in a powerful way, like, "What a mess!" Or "How beautiful!" Can you spot the full stop? Point to it on your screen.

That's right it's the one just down there.

We use this when we are making statements.

Statements are simple facts that we are stating.

We don't say them in a particularly powerful way and they definitely are not questions.

Like, "My shirt is blue.

"My hair is black.

"My eyes are green." Now it's time to think about how we can write one sentence to match each of these punctuation marks.

Why not give it a go now.

Pause your video while you write some sentences that can match each of these punctuation marks.

Write one sentence with a question mark on the end.

Write one with an exclamation mark on the end and write one with a full stop on the end.

Off you go.

Wow, I saw some great examples there.

One was, "Do you like dogs or cats better?" It's a question.

It's got a question word at the beginning and it's got a question mark at the end.

It's asking a question.

"How exciting!" It's an exclamation.

It's someone commenting on something in a powerful way.

And it's got an exclamation mark on the end to show that I'm saying it in a powerful way.

"I have a remote control car." Again, that's a statement.

It's a simple fact that we are stating.

So it just needs a full stop at the end.

What were your sentences that you wrote? Fantastic.

Okay we're now going to think really deeply about how we can develop our opinions during a discussion.

What exactly is an opinion? If I asked you, "Do you like chocolate?" You could either say "Yes" or "No." That is your opinion.

Whether you like it or whether you don't.

So it's kind of like having a thought about something.

You either like something or you don't like something, you either agree with something or you disagree with something.

But when we explain our opinions, we have to explain the reasons why.

Why do you like chocolate? Why don't you like chocolate? So if I said, "Yes, I do like chocolate." I might say, "Because it is delicious." And that is my opinion.

And I'm allowed to have my opinion and I must respect that other people might have a different opinion.

So my opinion is, "Yes, it is delicious." But someone else might say, "No, if you have too much of it, it can rot to your teeth." Out of my two friends, Arnold and Fiona, who do you think would say "Yes, it is delicious." And who do you think would say "No, if you have too much of it, it will rot your teeth." Another question I might ask is, "Should children have to go to school? Should we have to go to school?" What do you think? Do you think "Yes" or "No"? What's your opinion? If you want to really challenge yourself, you could think of a reason why you think this.

So not just "Yes" or not just "No" but "Why"? Let's first think, you might say "Yes, because it helps us to learn obviously," that's why we go because we want to learn and be with our friends and it prepares us for when we get older and get a job.

But you might say, "No.

No, I think going to school's a waste of time.

We should have more time to play." And if you think that that's okay as well.

In other countries, some children don't go to school until they're seven or eight and they have more time to play.

And actually some people think that is the right thing to do.

So you are 100% entitled to your opinion, your opinion is something that no one can take away from you.

It belongs to you, not your mom, not Bob down the road, you.

Let's have a look at another one.

"Should we have more PE lessons in school?" What do you think? Would you like to have more PE lessons in school? You can say "Yes" or "No." And to challenge yourself, you can think of a reason "Why".

Why should we have more PE lessons? Why should we not have more PE lessons.

You might say, "Yes, I think we need more PE lessons because we need to be active in order to be healthy, we need to have exercise to be healthy." Or you might say, "No, we should learn more important things." You might have another idea about what's more important.

I'm not sure.

So again, we've given a reason "Yes" and we've given a reason "No." But how exactly do we develop these ideas? It's great to say "Yes" or "No" but we must be able to give reasons "Why".

If you agree with something, you've got to think about what is good about it.

And if you think, "No," you've got to think about what's the negative side, what's bad about it.

Are there any dangers or any consequences? Here's another question that I've modelled for you.

And I've thought about some reasons to really back up my point.

"Should we welcome aliens to earth?" On one hand I thought, "Yes, I think we should welcome aliens to earth, "because we could learn from them.

"They might have so much that they can teach us.

"And also they might be really friendly.

"They might want to be our friends." But on the other hand, I thought, "No, they might want to take over our planet." Oh, that might be dangerous and very scary.

And also, "We might not be able to talk to each other because they might not speak English or any language at all.

They might not know how to communicate with us.

And that might be dangerous as well." Can you see how I thought about reasons for "Yes" and "No"? I didn't just say what my opinion was.

I thought about both sides of the argument and that's what you're going to be doing when you come to write your argument.

You're going to thinking about, "Yes, I think it's okay for this reason." But also on the other side, "I'm really thinking critically about my question," which means I'm thinking about both sides.

I've thought about what is good about it and I've also thought about what's bad about it, I'm not just being one-sided.

Okay, it's now time for you to have a go at doing your discussion roleplay.

So I'm going to model to you how I would do this with my characters.

And then you get to play both characters of your discussion.

First, I will give you a talking point, that's something for you to discuss.

And remember, you've got to think about reasons for and reasons against.

So not just one-sided, you need to be thinking critically and thinking about both of those.

What's good about it, and what's bad about it.

If you really strongly believe in something that is okay, but it's up to you to really think about both sides.

Then you will have one minute to think of one reason for that argument.

So what is the reason that you think it's good? What's good about it? Then you will have one minute to think of a reason against that argument.

What is bad about it? Okay, so you're talking point is "Homework should be banned." So that means that in school, you never have to do any homework on the weekends or after school.

You get that all that time to be free.

That's your talking point.

So remember we're not just thinking about what we believe and what we agree with, but we have to think about both sides of the argument.

"Yes, I agree with this because," and "No, I disagree with this because," We're thinking about both sides of the argument.

Okay children, it is now time to think about why homework should be banned.

We are for this argument.

We think homework should be banned.

What are the good things about homework being banned? You have one minute to think about this now.

Pause your video while you think about one reason why homework should be banned.

Well okay, now it is time to think about reasons why homework should not be banned.

We disagree with this.

We are against this idea, no, no, no.

What are the reasons why homework should not be banned? Pause your video now while you think about that answer.

Okay, now that you've got your reason for, and you've got your reason against it's now time for you to roleplay your discussion.

So all you have to do is pretend to be those two characters and argue both sides.

Pause your video now while you roleplay the discussion, you can even put on different voices if you like, if it helps you.

Now that you've had a go at roleplaying, your discussion about homework.

I want to bring us back to our original discussion.

I want you to think really deeply about the reasons why Zoos are good and why some people think that Zoos are bad.

What is so good about Zoos? And what is not so good about Zoos? We've seen both sides of it.

And now I want you to make up your mind.

"I think that Zoos," and what's your opinion.

At the end of our discussion, we're going to finish with a conclusion, which is where you get to share your opinion.

Do you think they are good or do you think they are bad and why.

Pause your video now while you decide.

Pause your video now, while you decide, do you agree? Or do you disagree? Wow, I saw so much great thinking today, great discussion, great roleplay.

I am so blown away by how well you've done.

You're really starting to think about these issues in a really deep, thoughtful way, and that is going to make you great when you come to do your own discussions.

I'd love to see what you've done say.

So please share with me on Oak National.

If you'd like to, ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

I'll see you next time, bye bye.