• Hint for the facilitator! The excitement and emotion of a discussion causes people to forget about their inhibitions and to try to use a language in which they are not perfectly comfortable. Take opportunities to hold discussions in Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun or whichever language the group wants to develop. As facilitator, you should not correct people while they are speaking; let them speak freely to express their ideas – even if they are not speaking correctly. Help them only if others don’t understand what they are trying to say. But make a note of vocabulary and grammar mistakes that come up during discussions and teach these points as mini-lessons later.
• Idea! Encourage group members to keep vocabulary lists of unfamiliar words that come up during discussions. You can use them later in personal dictionaries or mini-lessons on vocabulary or spelling.

Resources

Dominion Institute’s Great Canadian Questions Online – www.greatquestions.com

Creative Controversy: Intellectual Challenge in the Classroom by David Johnson and Roger T. Johnson. Interaction Book Company, 1995. ISBN:0939603233

How to Construct an Argument, “A Writing Centre Handout”, from Wilfred Laurier University Writing Centre. www.wlu.ca/writing/handouts/argument.htm

The Basic Principles of Persuasive Writing, from University of British Columbia WritingCentre’s Writers’ Workshop. www.writingcentre.ubc.ca/workshop/tools/argument.htm