3.2.2. Presenting evidence

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From the course by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

English for Teaching Purposes

166 ratings

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

English for Teaching Purposes

166 ratings

Thinking about teaching your university subject in English but it’s not the Language you normally use? Then, English for teaching purposes is the course for you. A course on English and teaching methodology that aims to help university lecturers do their teaching in English, in line with university internationalisation policies. The course structure is the same for all learners and there are opportunities for them to link up with colleagues from universities all over the world who share the same discipline and discourse community, to ask questions and exchange ideas. This MOOC targets lecturers who wish to begin using English in their teaching. A priori, this means university lecturers from countries where English is not the L1 or a widely-used language (Romance language-speaking countries, for example), though in fact the course is open to teachers from all educational stages who want to teach through English, following the principles of EMI (English Medium Instruction). On completing the course, you should be able to do the following. a) Teach a university subject in English, having gained the necessary confidence and skills. b) Integrate all aspects of CLIL (methodological, pedagogical, strategic, attitudinal, motivational, linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic) to put together their own English-medium course on their particular subject. c) Describe the characteristics of the university lecture discourse genre (planning, agents, channels, phases, dynamics, and current flexibility of the genre). d) Understand and perform the basic linguistic macro-functions within English teaching discourse. e) Understand and perform, using the appropriate linguistic exponents (vocabulary, structures, and phraseology), the main micro-functions in English teaching discourse: metalinguistic, informative, evaluative, inductive, and social. f) Consolidate their oral expression and interaction skills, and their grammar and vocabulary, at English levels C1 and C2 as defined by the Council of Europe. English for Teaching Purposes is a course provided by the Language Service at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB).

From the lesson

Unit 3. Functions related to delivering courses through English (2)

Functions related to information management: describing processes, expressing cause and effect, describing graphs, helping learners to manage new information. Functions related to evaluation: expressing certainty, presenting evidence, giving one’s opinions. Functions related to induction: giving instructions, motivating learners. Functions related to socialisation: handling classroom interactions and questions in the learning environment.

3. Third week introduction2:38

3.1. Managing information4:34

3.1.1. Describing a process9:23

3.1.2. Expressing cause and effect7:29

3.1.3. Describing graphs8:46

3.1.4. Helping students process new information7:45

3.2. Managing subjectivity4:13

3.2.1. Expressing certainty7:59

3.2.2. Presenting evidence8:19

3.2.3. Giving opinions5:49

3.3. Influencing the audience3:46

3.3.1. Giving instructions14:42

3.3.2. Motivating students5:40

3.4. Managing interaction5:02

3.4.1. Classroom interaction10:00

3.4.2. Question management11:31

Meet the Instructors

Silvia Solá Viñals
Teacher
Servei de Llengües
Jose Ygoa-Bayer
Teacher
Servei de Llengües
Ian James
Teacher
Servei de Llengües

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English for teaching purposes.

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Presenting evidence.

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>> When student's faces start screaming, show me the evidence,

it may be time to start proving your point.

And to prove a point, you need evidence.

Let's examine what evidence is.

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Evidence.

Scientific evidence that is, is what we obtain when we either observe or

experiment to gain knowledge about a particular phenomenon.

The presentation of evidence is a verb matter.

That means that the verbs we use to present it

will almost magically encode what our position about such information is.

Let's examine an example.

When we say, we suppose that energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.

It's different from saying,

we have proved that energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.

Of course, these two sentences are out of context.

For the sake of argument, imagine they share one.

We're in a physics class, and

you're examining the work that led to the formula.

In the first sentence, the speaker is only stating that she either assumes that

everyone would naturally accept what's stated by the formula to be true.

Or she feels skeptical about the statement.

The second sentence though, indicates that

the process used to verify the truth of the formula has been performed and worked.

And so, what it states isn't questionable.

Making conscious and

intentional verb choices is really important when presenting evidence.

Oh, and by the way, the classification of verbs we

will be working with is only loosely based on Halliday.

It's only intended to help you choose your words carefully.

When you report results using verbs of saying, you're merely repeating

someone else's words if you use subjects like he, she, or they, as in.

Sheldon Cooper said that the universe started with a big bang.

Add a reduced passive form, and

you will be clearly establishing that rather than endorsing a notion,

you're just uttering an idea with which you're not necessarily committed.

It has been reported that the Moon is the Earth's satellite.

We will now present some verbs of saying.

Say, tell, report, explain, express,

suggest, argue, allege, stress,

emphasize, state, deny, and question.

You won't see the next category in any book, but

I think it helps to see these verbs as a separate group.

What's unique about them, is that they seem to help us draw attention toward

something in much the same way we do it if we could physically point at it.

These verbs of pointing establish a comfortable distance between

the speaker and

the finding that she's referring to when used with subject other than I, or we.

Laura Ingalls indicated that many trees blossom in spring.

When we get involved in the action like in,

we pointed out that electricity is needed to run a lab.

We take responsibility for

drawing our students' attention towards something, but only that.

These verbs allow you to take a safe stand and describe any phenomenon from it.

Here is the short list of verbs.

Indicate, show, illustrate, identify,

point out, pinpoint, present, represent,

describe, depict, discover, reveal and unveil.

Verbs of thinking are also reporting verbs.

But they are trickier than the verbs of saying because they also encode beliefs.

We tend to express stronger conviction about both

someone else's ideas and ours when using verbs of thinking.

Hermione Granger thinks that Harry Potter is a hero.

I know that four is the sum of three plus one, or two plus two.

The following are a few of the most common common verbs of thinking.

Think, believe, acknowledge, assume,

consider, analyze, evaluate, know, understand,

assess, reject, imply, interpret, and justify.

These verbs are also a practical category, but by no means a formal one.

They highlight the quest accomplished.

They also state with little doubt that whatever evidence you're

presenting stands as proof.

As in all the previous cases, the degree of responsibility and

your own commitment with the information being presented depend also on who you

identify as the doer of the action.

I have just demonstrated that water is made of Oxygen and Hydrogen.

Mark Darcy proved that all men are the same.

Next is a list of verbs approving.

Obtain, get, equal, tackle, conclude,

verify, certify, prove, disprove, refute.

It takes more than verbs to express how certain you are about

the evidence you're presenting.

There's a whole system that expresses,

how sure you are about the things you're saying.

We will explore that on our video expressing certainty.

Stay tuned.

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