以台灣高中為主的多面向英語論辯推廣計劃

A three-year research project aiming to promote English debate in various forms and multiple facets (i.e., ’debate as a formal competition,’ ’debate as a discourse genre in regular English curriculum’ and ’debate as civil training in everyday life’) in Taiwanese high schools was first implemented in 2011 with 35 English teachers from all over the country currently participating in the project. Currently this English debate promotion project has completed its initial ’planning’ stage, where vision sharing, teacher development, curriculum/program design, information providing, and network building were set as the major promotion strategies. The report here delineates the tasks planned under those promotion strategies and the task accomplishments from the first year of the project. The tasks that were implemented include 1) holding a one-day workshop to assist the participants envision the whole project and elevate their knowledge about English debate and argumentation, 2) setting up an online learning platform (called Moodle) to facilitate information dissemination and network building, 3) devising three ’focal gardener projects,’ one from each facet, to model curriculum and material design and further strengthen participants’ expertise, 4) providing advice and consultation for ’individual gardener projects,’ and 5) soliciting feedback from the participants on the project. Judging from the fact that three ready-to-be used manuals have been produced from the focal gardener projects and some individual projects also won the awards in K-12 action research and teaching plan contests, the project, in its first year, has had bountiful concrete accomplishments. The feedback survey results also indicated that the majority of the participants were satisfied with the content of the workshop, found Moodle a helpful online platform (though suggesting the way it was operated could be improved), and endorsed the whole project and what it ultimately aims to accomplish. It was also found that the participants who were involved in the focal gardener projects, due to their personal contributions to the manuals and thus a chance to further develop their ability to teach English debate and argumentation, deemed the project in a particularly positive light. All in all, the project has been off to a good start.