Debate Tips

"I think debating in high school and college is most valuable training whether for politics, the law, business, or for service on community committees such as the PTA and the League of Women Voters. A good debater must not only study material in support of his own case, but he must also, of course, thoroughly analyze the expected argument of his opponent. The give and take of debating, the testing of ideas, is essential to democracy. I wish we had a good deal more debating in our educational institutions than we do now." John F. Kennedy, August 22, 1960

Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension

Comprehension strategies are conscious plans — sets of steps that good readers use to make sense of text. Comprehension strategy instruction helps students become purposeful, active readers who are in control of their own reading comprehension. The seven strategies here appear to have a firm scientific basis for improving text comprehension

1. Monitoring comprehension

Students who are good at monitoring their comprehension know when they understand what they read and when they do not. They have strategies to "fix" problems in their understanding as the problems arise. Research shows that instruction, even in the early grades, can help students become better at monitoring their comprehension.

More Public Speaking Tips

Public speaking is an important topic in everyday life. And it's become more and more important each day.

Every one of us has spoken in public at least once. And most of the feel anxious when they need to speak in front of other people. So how do you get rid of that anxiety?

In this article I want to teach you how you can become a better speaker through managing your anxiety.

Practice is Everything
To get rid of your anxiety you need to practice. Practice is what ultimately makes you a lot more comfortable while speaking in public.

To begin with you should start slow and just try to speak as often as possible in front of friends or people you are familiar with. Once you feel comfortable holding a speech in front of your friends you then move on to speaking in an unfamiliar environment. Once you have managed to master that you move on to a more difficult setting.

That way you will improve each time you speak in front of people because you challenge yourself.

How to Be a Good Speaker

Being a good speaker requires planning, clarity of thought and a well constructed beginning, middle and end to your speech. It is important to avoid creating confusion or leaving your listeners feeling that you have wasted their time. Follow these steps and people will appreciate what you have to say.

Steps

1. Have a point and stick to it.

In some settings you must speak on a certain subject. Even in casual conversation, though, it is important to focus on a limited set of related ideas. If you drift from one tangentially related idea to the next your speech becomes a sort of bad poetry or misplaced filibuster that may quickly bore the listener.

Public Speaking Sklills

Public speaking skills are valuable both in your personal life and career. Even if you don't regularly engage in public speaking, developing skills in this area will increase your confidence and reduce anxiety about situations in which you may be called upon to speak in public. Below are some key skills held by good public speakers.

Public speaking skill #1: Stage Presence

Good public speakers appear confident, friendly, enthusiastic and energetic. Confidence comes from choosing a topic you like and researching it well. Friendliness can be conveyed simply by smiling at your audience. Enthusiasm and energy will naturally follow when you enjoy your topic

3 Styles of reading

There are three styles of reading which we use in different situations:

Scanning: for a specific focus

The technique you use when you're looking up a name in the phone book: you move your eye quickly over the page to find particular words or phrases that are relevant to the task you're doing.

It's useful to scan parts of texts to see if they're going to be useful to you:

• the introduction or preface of a book
• the first or last paragraphs of chapters
• the concluding chapter of a book.

Skimming: for getting the gist of something

The technique you use when you're going through a newspaper or magazine: you read quickly to get the main points, and skip over the detail. It's useful to skim:

Tips for Learning Grammar

Lots of people even those who love learning foreign languages claim they hate studying grammar. They associate grammar study with tedious gap-fill exercises, boring rote memorization and the frustration of getting it “wrong” again and again.

While you will, at some point need focused work on grammar, there’s no reason grammar drills should take up the bulk of your study time. To get communicative fast and save your sanity, focus on what you need for communication and then learn the rules of why you’re supposed to say something a certain way.

How to Write a Process Essay

Process essays are essays that explain to the audience how to do something or how to complete a task. This may involve explaining how to put items or ingredients together to make a finished product, such as in a recipe. These essays can also explain how to accomplish a goal. For example, a process essay could detail the steps that must be taken in order to graduate from a particular college. Regardless of the subject, all process essays must clearly explain in detail how to complete or perform a task.

Instructions

1.      Plan the essay. It is helpful to use an outline format in order to map out the necessary background information about the chosen topic, to compile a list of needed supplies, to determine the steps that should be followed,