DISCUSSION TEXTS

READING

DISCUSSION

Communicative Purpose:

to present information and opinions about issues in more than one side of an issue (‘For/Pros’ and ‘Against/Cons’)

 Generic Structure:

1. Issue
2. Arguments for and against
3. Conclusion

Text One

Due to the facts of how teenagers drive a car or ride a motorcyle, it is suggested that all citizens under the age of 21 should be required to pass a driving or riding education course before receiving a license to drive or to ride.

People who agree to this suggestion consider that teenager’s part of the brain which controls emotion and behaviour hasn’t developed well. This influences how they drive or ride. They are not able to decide fast the right thing to do when a problem appears at a sudden on the road. Besides, their labile emotion still leads their ego to satisfy themselves by ignoring others’ safety. It will look cool for them to be the fastest on the road though it can endanger others. Therefore, by having a course, they will be trained to control the emotion and behaviour and learn to obey the traffic rules for their and others’ safety. Having a certificate after the course, they are assumed to have more understanding on how to drive or to ride.

However, other argument that opposes the issue says that having a course is a waste of time. This statement is due to the weak control from the government on any policy. This weakness opens the chance to certain officers to get more money by persuading people to get the certificate instantly. It is not a secret anymore that the difficulty to pass the test leads the people to bribe the officer in charge to get the certificate without an appropriate procedure. By paying more money, people don’t have to spend a lot of time to get the license.

In conclusion, this regulation is good for people’s safety on the road, but the government has to control strictly on the enforcement of the regulation.

(written by Hedwig)

Read the text well, then write the issue and the for and against arguments  you can get from the text! You may add with your own argument.

Text Two

Many students complain about how difficult Math is. They feel uncomfortable during the lesson. Is that because of the incapable teacher, the wrong method of teaching, or the material that is hard? No matter what it is, there is always a controversion whether learning Math is a must or not.

People who support that Math must be taught tell that it is one of the important subjects because it teaches more on how to think logically and systematically than on merely how to calculate numbers. When students get used to thinking logically and systematically, they will feel it easy to learn all the subjects. Principally, learning everything needs the logical thinking to get the concept – in reading a text, for example.  The information in a text can be got from not only the explicit but also the implicit message. The implicit message is found only by connecting one case to another case. Surely, this requires logic.  In the real life, logical thinking enables us to analyze the situation in order that we can decide what to do appropriately.

However, some people disagree that Math is the required lesson. It causes the students stressed because they have to understand abstract things, count complex numbers, or memorize formulae.  Those are useless because they won’t be used in their job.  It will be more annoying when students are required to pass the minimum score which is high enough to be promoted to the higher level.  Due to this requirement, parents whose children aren’t clever are afraid that their children will fail academically; they won’t graduate.  Is it so frightening that children and parents may get stressed? As far as Match teachers don’t connect Math concepts to the real life, students will never understand the importance of Math for them, and it will become the haunting lesson for the whole life. Imagine, they will learn it for 13 years.

From the two sides, we can conclude that teaching Math is not only about calculating numbers but more about training the students to think logically and systematically. If Math teachers understand this, they won’t force their students to memorize formulae or calculate large numbers. They will  guide them to apply Math in the real life, so no student will say that Math sucks.

(by Hedwig Maria)

Write the main idea of each paragraph.

1. From those main ideas, tell the difference between the exposition and the discussion texts.
2. Write your command on each reason or argument.
3. Write other possible reasons for each text.

VOCABULARY

PUT THE UNDERLINED WORDS ON THE TWO TEXTS INTO THE PROPER PART OF SPEECH IN THE TABLE BELOW! (One has been done for you)

No	VERB	ADJECTIVE	NOUN	ADVERB
1		logical	logic	logically
2
3

WHEN ALL THE WORDS ARE ON THE RIGHT COLUMN, WRITE THE OTHER PARTS OF SPEECH!  (You may consult your dictionary)

READING PRACTICES