Humanising Language Teaching
Year 4; Issue 6; November 02

Sometimes Against the Grain

Seth Lindstromberg

Formats for discussion of public affairs in language classes, a preamble

In the countries I know best, Britain and the USA, few people, in daily life, discuss 'public affairs' (which is the label I'll use for such issues of importance to the wider community as what should be done with criminals and why, where freedom of speech ought to have limits if any, and so on).

There are reasons why this could be so, though I'm not sure which of them might be the most potent—

• political apathy
• fear of saying something that somebody else might disagree with
• disinclination to hear ideas that one disagrees with oneself
• sheer lack of experience at participating in discussing
• lack of familiarity with formats that help discussions to be fruitful.

As to the latter, you might think that lack of familiarity could hardly be a factor, what with all the radio and TV that people soak up. But optimistic expectations are unlikely to be borne out for here are some of the discussion formats that are common on British channels—

Format 1: Interviewing a single authority There is one authority whom an interviewer questions but relentlessly interrupts. In this format, the interviewer adopts one or both of the following personae:

• Devil's advocate. In this role, an interviewer mechanically counters each of the interviewee's points with its opposite, no matter how preposterous or tiresome it might be to do so at any particular juncture in the dialog.
• Tribune of the people. If in this role, the interviewer hectors the victim in tones of righteous indignation.

Format 2: Interviewing a panel of authorities. Here the interviewer questions two or more authorities at once, ostensibly to explore an issue especially thoroughly and in a balanced way. But what typically happens is that the interviewer—
1. poses a question to one expert but quickly interrupts and otherwise obstructs the delivery of the reply
2. abruptly poses a completely different question to the other expert whose response is also sabotaged through interruption And so on until the interviewer suddenly closes the discussion.

In both formats, the interviewer operates with a determination not to draw out at any length for the benefit of listeners what an interviewee knows or believes. The difference between what interviewees could tell us and what the interviewer allows them to tell us is often immensely wide.

A justification that some might offer for such interviewer behavior might be this:

• Any assertion that can be challenged should be challenged, and challenged immediately, as a species of quality control for the benefit of the listener.

I speculate too British interviewers operate as they do for one of the two following reasons.

• Normally, if the interviewer supposes that a particular interviewee holds an opinion contrary to that held by the majority of listeners, the interviewer will obstruct the interviewee's delivery of that opinion in order to curry favor with the audience.
• But if the interviewee wishes to voice an opinion such 'the death penalty is in some cases justifiable' or 'mass immigration is largely a bad idea'…opinions which most people share (if we can believe relevant polls) but which the educated establishment opposes…then the interviewer will harass interviewer as part of an on-going establishment campaign to enlighten a populace which is deemed to misguided but reformable.

Whatever its motive, what is wrong with such interviewer obstruction is this: We can learn from people that we neither agree with nor like…only, though, if we are able to hear what they have to say, and this is unlikely when interviewers work in the ways that…in Britain and the USA…they love to do.

Happily—or so one might at first think—there is an additional, albeit less common, format.

Format 3: The moderated panel discussion
Instead of an interviewer, there is a 'moderator' whose job it is to interrupt the speakers (called 'panelists') less often than interviewers do. Unhappily, broadcasters (British ones, anyway) choose panelists precisely for their lively propensity to mercilessly interrupt one another and, into the bargain, flit from topic to topic with extreme fickleness. If a panelist does attempt to voice a complete chain of ideas, it only gets broken off by the moderator or another panelist…and we never hear the end. The fundamental problem is that the participants plainly want most of all to display their fluency and command of light wit. Any wish to communicate information about public affairs comes well down the list of things to do.

Of course, there are formats which are much worse—
Format 4: The radio talkshow
In the USA, especially, one may hear talk shows which work as follows. A man (usually) talks phone calls (which are broadcast on air) and emails (which he may read out). The man praises the callers/writers who he agrees with and dismisses or even insults the rest. (There are variations for TV but they either avoid public issues or else the moderator draws heavily on formats 1 and 2.)

Format 5: The American presidential debate
The USA is also the home of the intellectually dismal 'presidential debates'. These unspeakable pre-election performances are choreographed into utter rigidity by backstage ghost writers and public relations specialists.

Thankfully, the art of fruitful public discussion is not everywhere travestied and moribund, a fact due in part to the existence of other formats than the ones I have characterized so far. One such format seems, on the surface, to be quite unstructured—when two or three people have an instructive discussion over a glass or two of beer or some other fine beverage.

But what's really at the back of my mind is formats we can use to give students in our foreign language classes better, fuller experience of discussions that can involve the whole class at once. If this interests you too, I recommend the websites listed below. They can lead you to masses of information about discussion formats which you can either directly use or adapt and use in order to bring into your lessons more civic education and more of life at large.

1 http://www.idebate.org

2 See also the University of Vermont site on debating, http://debate.uvm.edu

3 Another superb site was www.debatecentral.com, but…alas…the last time I looked it was up for sale.