I'm teaching a lot of debate classes, these days: more, by almost an order of magnitude, relative to previous terms at Karma. And I make video of all my students' speeches. And I evaluate the speeches and give scores. This is a laborious process, and part of why I'm feeling overwhelmed with work. But I have decided it's a really great way to get middle schoolers actually talking in English class. The combination of natural adolescent reticence on the one hand combined with the horrifying discomfort of speaking a foreign language they don't feel confident with, on the other, means that getting middle school English students to actually talk is about as easy as pulling teeth from a chicken. But if you turn on a video camera and tell them it's a test, they'll stand up at the podium, shaking and quaking, and give their damnedest. It's a bit coercive, relative to my most preferred methods, but overall I'm pleased with how well it works.
Here's one of my favorite classes, giving some speeches on the debate proposition: "Immigration to South Korea should be encouraged." They complained that this topic was difficult, but they all said it was interesting, too.
As a bonus, this video has a complex connection to an earlier blog post: I'll have to give a door prize if anyone actually identifies the connection. I don't know if I have any blog readers loyal or attentive enough to do this. So this is a kind of stealth-test.
You did the same debate a bit over a year ago:
https://caveatdumptruck.com/index.php/2011/12/06/caveat-immigration-debate/
This is not a “complex connection”, though. More an obvious and overt one. So I guess that’s not it.
After watching more of the video, I think it must be:
https://caveatdumptruck.com/index.php/2012/12/01/caveat-birthrates-and-immigration/
The students raised the same issues you did in that post. The problem is that this connection is still not particularly complex, I think!
My third and final guess, which I’m sure is right:
https://caveatdumptruck.com/index.php/2013/01/30/caveat-the-drama-of-the-white-down-feather/
Timeframes in the Video
17:20-21:20 — “Shy But Intelligent Girl” is speaking with lots of pausing and hesitation [due to what’s happening off-camera(?)]. The speech is hard to follow and leads one’s mind to wander, even in the case when one is paid to pay attention, resulting in:
17:20-21:20 — [Off-camera] — The ‘White Down Feather Drama’ is occurring (I speculate), leading the naturally-hesitant speaker to hesitate even more, and make a two of three minute speech into a four-minute speech.
21:20-21:30 — You quoted yourself in the other blogpost as saying “Put the scissors away, please”. Whether you said this off-camera, I don’t know. We -do- hear you say this in the video: “Please be quiet and stop playing with the scissors”. That is 21:20-21:25. (That is also what hit me as the “complex connection”). An unseen girl meekly but quickly replies, “okay”. We hear some unidentified noise that sounds perhaps like a “North Face” jackets being rubbed. We hear you say “thank you”.
Further proof: the off-camera story is in a blogpost dated January 30th, presumably the day it happened. The video title includes the same date!
Therefore: This must be it.
The only question remaining is as to the identities of Oblivious Boy, Fashionable Girl, and Confident-and-Sociable Girl. I guess the boy must be the first speaker, who does look like a young prototype of a K-Pop idol. I won’t hazard to guess on the others.
My friend Peter J. is hereby declared the winner (and sole participant) in this little contest! We’ll go out to lunch tomorrow maybe. Thanks Peter. Happy Lunar New Year.