In the ideas and organisation domain there are two important areas that apply to both individual presentation and group interaction:
- Expressing information and ideas
- Elaborating on appropriate aspects of the topic
- Organisation
- Questioning and responding to questions
Expressing information and ideas
An exciting aspect of the HKCE English SBA is that it provides contexts where students can come together to learn from each other. As the SBA is based on independent and extensive reading/viewing, students will not have all read or viewed the same material. Sometimes students will have read different books or viewed different films; sometimes they will have started from the same material, but they will have explored it and responded to it in different ways. When individuals make presentations or interact with a group many of the other students will not know much about the topic of the talk at all. This creates a genuine information gap, and puts the responsibility on each speaker to have something to say, and to say it clearly.
Elaborating on appropriate aspects of the topic
Students obviously vary considerably in their command of English. One of the most important differences between such students is the amount of detail they add to their main points and the clarity and interest with which they do it. The difference between, for example, "I like it" and "I like it because it's nice" is the small elaboration in the second sentence. But the student who can say, for example, "I like it because it is about a boy around my age and I can imagine that such a situation might happen to me" is providing strong and appropriate detail that sustains an interaction or leads into another main idea in an individual presentation.
Organisation
Organisation works differently in individual presentations and in group interactions. In a group interaction students have to share the responsibility for providing enough ideas and information to carry the dialogue forward. Each one has to pay attention so that they stay focused on the topic and say something at the right time to move the conversation forward. They can do this by elaborating in a relevant way on a point another group member has made, or by bringing up a new but relevant point. This kind of organizing is much harder to do in spoken than in written language, so in F4 and F5 group interactions we do not stress it very much. However, in individual presentations the speaker has sole responsibility for planning what s/he will say and how, so we do expect each student to have thought about the best way to organize what they will say to the audience.
Questioning and responding to questions
In a group interaction, one of the important roles a student must play is that of an attentive listener. Asking questions and responding to them is an important tool for encouraging all group members to contribute ideas, express their views and provide details about a point. Students can be prepared for the questioning role during the teaching/learning process (see Appendix VI, Framework of Guiding Questions on the Introductory DVD). As can be seen in the level descriptors, in a group interaction each student is expected to both ask questions and answer them: this will vary by the topic and focus of the interaction and by the ability level of the student. In an individual presentation, more able and more confident students may encourage their audience to ask them questions (at whichever of the levels they can handle). However, interactive question-and-response is not an obligatory part of individual presentations.
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