Complications arose into scheduling the debates since we found that once a week gave too little time for the student to prepare and particularly once the project evolved into website design and leaflet production -- all of which necessarily took up classroom time -- we decided to schedule it once a month. Organizing the event so that it coalesced with parent's and other staff member's schedule too was time-consuming and gave us initial problems. In the end, we simply implemented conditions on who was, and was not, to attend (since it seemed at oen point as though entire families were starting to turn up and that this would turn into a fiesta). We also involved other teachers into the control and organization of the event, and we imposed a consistent date for the event to occur. In this way, we discovered, we did not have to plan, and alter, the date in advance, nether did we have to constantly concerns ourselves...
There was simply a short monthly notice on the website with the name of the presenter and a brief description of the topic. The presenter's address was followed by another short description of her topic followed by synopsis of the debate and comments, all again on the website. In this way, our attention could be focused on helping the ESL student script and prepare her presentation as well as helping her review it following the event,
As seen, the project was successful and went far beyond the intended benefits with advantages also to families and to the school in general as well as developing student's writing skills (and unintended consequence).
In short, ESL Debates was a very successful project based on a simple idea that grew and made a significant impact on those who took part. As it widened, its benefits widened too, and we all learned something in the process.
