Teaching English as a Foreign Language in China: A Unit Plan for Educators

The ultimate goal of English learning is to enable students to communicate in English. However, English education in China ignores the importance of English communicative ability. The problem lies in the teaching method, that is, solely adopting the Grammar Translation Method; the teaching model, only the “teacher-centered” teaching model is adopted for teaching, thus students do not have enough opportunities to practice spoken English; moreover, the teaching materials lack authenticity, practicality and content of target culture. These three problems were explored as three themes in this field project and provided a unit plan on how to improve these problems. This unit uses the Communicative Language Teaching approach as the teaching method and adopts the student-centered teaching model. The content of the unit is related to the cultural topics of English-speaking countries, while providing a lot of interesting and meaningful classroom activities. When implementing this unit plan, it is recommended that teachers act as bystanders or observers, and students act as the main body in the classroom, giving students as many opportunities as possible to improve their communicative ability. This project provides English educators, English educational institutions, schools, course material editors, course material developers with a unit plan on how to practically apply the theories of the Communicative Language Teaching to English language education

Arguing Conductively or Arguing Strategically?

The topic of conductive argument has attracted much attention in recent argumentation studies, but most of the existing discussions are centered on a logical or epistemological perspective. This paper is to argue that conductive arguments could also be understood from a rhetorical perspective, and to offer a Pragma-dialectical point of view regarding to the likelihood and importance of conductive arguments. In particular, it is contended that the mentioning of counter-considerations in a conductive argument is mainly for some rhetorical concerns in order to achieve better persuasiveness in audience. On that basis, it is argued that conductive arguments can be theorized as a particular mode of strategic maneuvering, rather than a new type of argument. Then it demonstrates that the use of conductive arguments can be analyzed and evaluated in an adequate way by adopting the theoretical tools and the normative standards pertinent to strategic maneuvering

Commentary on Constructing a Periodic Table of Arguments

This is the Commentary on Wagemans\u27 paper Constructing a Periodic Table of Arguments