Achievement Standard English 90725 (3.6) version 2
Construct and deliver an oral presentation
Level: 3 Credits: 4 Assessment: Internal
This achievement standard requires construction and delivery of an oral presentation using a range of appropriate presentation techniques.
Achievement / Achievement with Merit / Achievement with Excellence /· Construct and deliver a presentation that communicates with an audience.
· Develop and support idea(s).
· Use a range of appropriate presentation techniques for a specific audience and purpose. / · Construct and deliver a presentation that communicates effectively with an audience.
· Develop and support detailed idea(s).
· Combine a range of appropriate presentation techniques for a specific audience and purpose. / · Construct and deliver an effective presentation that convinces and/or challenges an audience.
· Develop and support detailed idea(s), showing insight and/or originality.
· Integrate a range of appropriate presentation techniques for a specific audience and purpose.
In order to meet the presentation criterion for this Level 3 Achievement standard please:
□ Create a presentation that is about 7 – 10 minutes long.
□ Stand when presenting your speech.
□ Use a range of oral language techniques e.g. rhetorical question; direct address to the audience; defining key words; quoting an expert; listing…
□ Use body language and gesture.
□ Make a link to modern life/ personal contexts to show your own thinking about your topic.
□ Practice using cue cards so that you have no/ only minor hesitations during your speech
□ Show sophisticated thinking and complex ideas
English for Contemporary Issues – Debate
We make decisions every day – some are simple and relatively unimportant, like what to wear. Other decisions are more complex and have a lot at stake, like who to marry or whether a law should be changed. Being able to consider all aspects prior to making a decision improves our lives, our communities and leads to better decision making.
Some people think that debate training is only for those who wish to become lawyers or politicians, but learning to debate is good training for everyone’s everyday life. The skills you obtain by learning to debate – critical thinking, listening closely, research, information processing, creative thinking, communication and persuasion – will serve you well regardless of your career choice, or role in life.
Debating also teaches you how to advocate. You can use these skills as a means to improve your school, community and country. This is important as we are constantly engaged in issues, whether we choose to get involved or not. Expressing our opinion on important issues helps define who we are.
The issue we are going to debate rests on legal and illegal drugs: alcohol and illicit drugs. We’ll debate the legalisation of drugs, particularly soft drugs like cannabis (or marijuana). This issue is capable of being characterised as one which pits the concept of freedom of the individual against the concept of a paternalistic State. Advocates of legalisation argue, amongst other things, that cannabis is not only less harmful than legal substances like alcohol and tobacco, but as a matter of fact has been proven to possess certain medicinal properties. In stark contrast, those opposed to legalisation argue that the legalisation of cannabis will act as a precursor to increased addiction to hard drugs, and will necessarily lead to an increase in the crime rate itself.
Moots
This house believes that cannabis should be legalised
This house supports the legalisation of drugs
This house advocates change in our present drugs policy
PROS CONS
Although cannabis does indeed have some harmful effects, it is no more harmful than legal substances like alcohol and tobacco. As a matter of fact, research by the British Medical Association shows that nicotine is far more addictive than cannabis. Furthermore, the consumption of alcohol and the smoking of cigarettes cause more deaths per year than does the use of cannabis (e.g. through lung cancer, stomach ulcers, accidents caused by drink driving etc.). The legalisation of cannabis will remove an anomaly in the law whereby substances that are more dangerous than cannabis are legal whilst the possession and use of cannabis remains unlawful. / Unlike alcohol and tobacco, cannabis has a hallucinatory effect on the mind. This is inherently dangerous in itself. Furthermore, just like other drugs, there are many individuals addicted to cannabis who will resort to crime in order to fund their addiction. The legalisation of cannabis will lead to the drug becoming more readily available, which in turn will mean that many more people will gain access to it. This will subsequently lead to an increase in the crime rate. Initial statistics from the Netherlands shows that the decriminalisation and eventual legalisation of cannabis did led to an increase in crime in Dutch society.In recent years, scientists and medical researchers have discovered that cannabis possesses certain medicinal qualities that are beneficial. For instance, it is now acknowledged that the use of cannabis helps to relieve the suffering of patients afflicted with multiple sclerosis (MS). The latest research that was conducted by the Complutense University in Madrid indicates that cannabis has the potential to kill cancerous ‘glioma’ cells. Governments should acknowledge such findings and legalise cannabis in order to alleviate the pain of patients who are afflicted with such diseases. / The US and the UK governments have been at the forefront in supporting scientific researches into the utility of cannabis as a medical product. However, even though evidence may show that the legalisation of cannabis will bring about relief for sufferers of, amongst others, MS, we should exercise caution against legalising it because the use of cannabis itself also brings about harmful side-effects. More importantly, it is submitted that the legalisation of cannabis will give rise to a host of social problems. The detriments of legalisation far outweighs its benefits. We can thus safely say that the present approach represents the most proportionate response to the issue at hand.
Individuals should be given the freedom to lead their lives as they choose. Of course, such freedom is not absolute and laws should intervene to limit this freedom, especially when the rights of others are infringed. In the case of the use of cannabis, it is a victimless crime, insofar as nobody other than the user him/herself experiences the effects of the use of the substance. Hence, the State should not act in a paternalistic fashion by legislating against something which harms only the actual user. / The State is justified in introducing legislation to prevent individuals from causing harm to themselves. For instance, in many countries, there are laws requiring the wearing of seatbelts in cars. Moreover, as this has article has pointed out, the use of cannabis does lead to medically and socially harmful effects which affect the other members of society.
There is no empirical evidence to suggest that the use of cannabis will necessarily lead users onto more dangerous narcotic substances. It is undeniable that there are a large number of people who use the drug despite it being unlawful to do so. Rather than turn away from this problem, the government should instead face up to reality. The legalisation of cannabis will enable the government to regulate its use thereby protecting its many users from harmful abuse of the substance. / The legalisation of cannabis will lead to users moving on to using harder drugs like morphine and cocaine. This would ultimately lead to an increase in social ills in the community as well as the need to spend more State funds on rehabilitation programmes.
Presently, cannabis is sold by dealers who have connections with the underworld. The legalisation of cannabis will help facilitate the sale of the drug in establishments like Amsterdam’s "coffee houses". This will shift the sale of cannabis away from the criminal underworld. The severance of this ‘criminal link’ will ensure that the users of the drug no longer need to come into contact with organised crime. / It is not inconceivable that the same criminal elements who now sell cannabis will, when the drug is legalised, diversify its business and set up "coffee houses" themselves. In effect this will do nothing to separate the sale of cannabis from the criminal underworld. Conversely, it will give them a legitimate base from which to operate their activities.
/ Legalise Cannabis Alliance
/ IDMU (Independent Drug Monitoring Unit - UK)
/ Transform (The Campaign for Effective Drug Policy)
/ The Drug Refrom Coordination Network
/ Reducing the Harms of Cannabis Use (The policy debate in Australia
/ CNN article on the situation in California
/ NORML - National Organisation for Reform of Marijuana Laws
/ Report on the debate in Morocco
/ LA Times debate in US Federal responses to changing state policies on drug use
/ CATO Institute: The Politics and Science of Medical Marijuana
/ Cannabis Culture – a Journey through Disputed Territory
By: Pattrick Matthews
/ Cannabis – the Genus Cannabis
By: David Brown
/ The 2004 cannabis law reforms in Western Australia and the United Kingdom:: A case of too much caution?
By: Greg Swensen
/ Cannabis And Young People: Reviewing the Evidence
By: Richard Jenkins
/ Opposing Viewpoints Series - Marijuana
By:
Editor: Jamuna Carroll
/ Marijuana (At Issue Series)
Alcohol - Should the sale and consumption of alcohol – the world’s favourite drug – be further restricted, or even banned?
In almost all countries in the world, adults are allowed to buy and consume alcohol with very little restriction (although there are often laws about the exact hours that bars and shops are allowed to sell alcohol, and laws against drinking and driving). This is in marked contrast to the legal situation with regard to other mind-altering (or ‘psycho-active’) drugs such as cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy, acid, and heroin. However, the experience of ‘Prohibition’ in the USA in the 1920s and 1930s, when there was a huge black market in alcohol run by a powerful criminal underworld, makes most people very wary of trying that solution again. In this debate the proposition can argue either for tighter restrictions or for complete prohibition. This debate is one that boils down to a debate about what balance should be struck between the need to protect society on the one hand and the need to preserve individual liberties on the other.
Moots: That alcohol is as harmful as illicit drugs and should be banned.
This house believes that alcohol is the root of all evil
Alcohol is just as potentially addictive as many illegal drugs. Those who do become addicted to alcohol often lose their marriages, jobs, families, even their lives. A large proportion of homeless people find themselves in that position as a result of their alcoholism. Any drug this addictive and destructive should be illegal. / If one were sitting down to design the perfect society from scratch, one might be tempted not to allow the production and sale of alcohol, However, the main reason why the case of alcohol is different from that of other drugs is a social one rather than an empirical fact about the nature of the drug. Alcohol, unlike other drugs, is socially entrenched. It is an integral part of the social life and culture of most countries and to try to ban it is completely impractical. To criminalise billions of people around the world over night and create the biggest black market the world has ever seen (for the benefit of the criminal underworld) would be crazy.
Alcohol is a contributory factor to a huge proportion of crimes. Exact figures vary from country to country, but in many countries alcohol is a contributory factor in 60-70% of violent crimes, including child abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault, and murder. Alcohol is far and away the leading cause of public disorder, street fights, etc. In short, alcohol is one of the prime causes of violence and crime in modern society, and its banning would reduce the incidence of these crimes at a strike. / Human beings are naturally inclined towards violence and conflict. Sex and violence are primal parts of our genetic make-up and we do not need alcohol to bring them to the surface. At worst, alcohol may slightly exaggerate these tendencies - but that makes it the occasion not the underlying cause of violent crimes. The underlying causes are biological and social. Making rape and murder illegal does not eradicate rape and murder, so it is unlikely that making drinking alcohol illegal will do so either.
Despite the fact that advertising campaigns such as those run in the UK over the past 30 years have been successful in reducing the incidence of drink driving, this success has not been mirrored in all countries. And even where it has, deaths and serious injuries caused by drunk drivers still run to the thousands each year. This is an unacceptable situation - alcohol should simply be banned. / The progress made against drink driving in recent decades has been very encouraging. We should continue to campaign against it and have every reason to hope that the current trend towards its eradication by a process of attitude-change and stigmatisation will continue. The fact that there are still some injuries and deaths is not a good enough reason to take away the civil liberties of the vast majority of law-abiding citizens by depriving them of the pleasure of drinking alcohol.
We need consistency in our drug laws. If cannabis, which is not very addictive and which results in virtually no violent crime or public disorder, needs to be banned because of its mind-altering effects, then how much more so should alcohol be banned. / Yes, we should have consistent drug laws, which is why it is absurd for cannabis to be illegal. Cannabis and alcohol should both be legal drugs since the vast majority of people know how to use them safely and responsibly.
It is true that currently thousands of people are employed by the alcoholic drinks industry. However the fact that an immoral industry employs a lot of people is never a good argument to keep that immoral industry going (similar arguments apply to the cases of prostitution, arms dealing, fox hunting, battery farming, etc.) Instead, a gradual process would have to be implemented, which would include governments providing funding for training for alternative careers. / Not only would banning alcohol infringe people’s civil liberties to an unacceptable degree, it would also put thousands of people out of work. The drinks industry is an enormous global industry. There are not good enough reasons for wreaking this havoc on the world economy.
It is also true that tax revenues would be lost if alcohol were banned. However, again, this is not a principled reason to reject the proposition, simply a practical problem. It should be pointed out that governments would save a huge amount of money on police and health spending (through the reduction in crime and alcohol-related illness) which would go at least some of the way to offsetting the decreased tax revenues. / Currently governments raise large amounts of revenue from taxes and duties payable on alcoholic drinks. To ban alcohol would take away a major source of funding for public services. In addition, the effect of banning alcohol would call for additional policing on a huge scale, if the prohibition were to be enforced effectively. If would create a new class of illegal drug-users, traffickers, and dealers on an unprecedented scale.
Useful Sites
/ Alcoholics Anonymous
/ Alcohol Concern UK
/ The National Clearing House for Alcohol and Drug Information
/ The Portman Group (Speaks for the UK Alcoholic Drinks Industry)
/ Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)
/ Wikipedia article
/ BBC Online article with links about Australia's recent ban on alcohol in some Aborigine areas
/ Health Service Journal: top doctors call for more restrictions on alcohol
/ Joseph Rowntree Foundation article on the temperance movement
/ Islamic perspective
/ Amythest Initiative
Useful Books
/ Alcohol and Young People: What They Know, Think and Do
By: The Health Education Authority
/ Issues in Alcohol (Contemporary Issues)
By: Lisa Wolff
/ The Alcohol Report
By: Martin Plant
/ Paying the Tab: The Costs and Benefits of Alcohol Control
By: Philip J. Cook
http://www.idebate.org/debatabase/topic_details.php?topicID=101