Lecture - Speaking & Argument in Qatar National Curriculum - Abdul Gabbar Al-Sharif - 3rd Better World Conference 2010

Lecture - Speaking & Argument in Qatar National Curriculum - Abdul Gabbar Al-Sharif - 3rd Better World Conference 2010 from Alfred Snider on Vimeo.

Debating and argumentation skills in the speaking strand of Qatari National English and Arabic Curriculum Standards: A critical review, Abdul Gabbar Al – Sharif, Qatar Debate

The importance of speaking for debate and argumentation is more than crucial. This paper provides a critical review of the set of curriculum standards under the SPEAKING strand of the English and Arabic curriculum standards in the State of Qatar to investigate the opportunities that these standards provide for Qatari students to develop debating and argumentation skills. The paper proposes a multi-level developmental model of argumentation and maps this model on the debating and argumentation skills provided in these curriculum standards to decide on what level of argumentation the Qatari national curriculum standards in language arts aim to place learners by the end of each grade and by the end of school education. The aim of the paper is to assess the educational environment in which QatarDebate is working and suggest appropriate recommendations for QD and for Qatari schools on how to foster these important skills in classroom pedagogy and translate them into actual classroom activities. The findings of this critical review will significantly help QD to draw future policies regarding cooperation and coordination with Qatari schools and educational authorities. It will also provide QD with benchmarks that clearly specify where Qatari students stand in relation to this multi-level developmental model of argumentation and what needs to be supplemented to students in the form of extracurricular training on debating and argumentation.

3rd International Conference on Argumentation, Rhetoric, Debate and the Pedagogy of Empowerment, October 2010, Maribor, Slovenia.

Further details can be found at the conference websites:
Basic information at debate.uvm.edu/​debateblog/​better/​Welcome.html
News blog at betterworldconference.blogspot.com/

The conference was organized by the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor in Slovenia uni-mb.si/ , ZIP, Za in proti, zavod za kulturo dialoga/Pro et contra, institute for culture of dialogue zainproti.com/ , and the World Debate Institute of the University of Vermont debate.uvm.edu/​debateblog/​wdi/​Welcome.html .

The organizers are grateful for the support of our sponsor QatarDebate qatardebate.org/ .

Thanks to organizers Boris Vezjak, Alfred Snider and Bojana Skrt. Special thanks to Peter Mesarec, Monica Sobocan and Aljoša Polšak.