shinyfruit [at] yahoo.com
Siebold University of Nagasaki (Nagasaki, Japan)
Introduction
Debate is an excellent activity for language learning because itengages students in a variety of cognitive and linguistic ways. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate upon this point by providinga step-by-step guide that will give teachers everything they need toknow for conducting debate in an English class.
So, why debate? In addition to providing meaningful listening, speakingand writing practice, debate is also highly effective for developingargumentation skills for persuasive speech and writing. Davidson (1996)wrote that "with practice, many students show obvious progress in theirability to express and defend ideas in debate [and] they often quicklyrecognize the flaws in each other's arguments." Nisbett (2003)declares: "Debate is an important educational tool for learninganalytic thinking skills and for forcing self-conscious reflection onthe validity of one's ideas (210)." Fukuda (2003), in a debate studyconducted with Japanese students, found that "before the debates only30.8% of the students were not afraid of expressing their opinions whenthey were not the same as others'. After the debate this figurerose to 56.7%." He went on to say that "the knowledge or skills whichcame from the practice in the debates led the students to become moreaccustomed to expressing opinions." This suggests that, although debateis quite challenging, non-native speakers can develop the debatingskills which are described in this paper.
Six-Class Unit Plan
The following six-class unit can be adapted to suit a variety ofteaching contexts. I have been refining it while teaching aweekly 90 minute debate class.
Class One: Introduction to Debate
1. Basic Terms
- Debate: a game in whichtwo opposing teams make speeches to support their arguments anddisagree with those of the other team.
- Resolution: the opinionabout which two teams argue.
- Affirmative team: agreeswith the resolution.
- Negative team: disagreeswith the resolution.
- Rebuttal: explains whyone team disagrees with the other team.
- Judges: decide the winner.
2. Opinions and Reasons
- A resolution is an opinion about which there can be validdisagreement. The students either agree or disagree with the resolutionregardless of what they personally believe. An opinion can beintroduced by an opinion indicator:
- "I think/believe thatsmoking should be banned in public places..."
- A reason explains why that opinion is held and can be introducedby a reason indicator:
- "...because/sincesecondhand smoke is harmful for nonsmokers."
3. Strong Reasons Versus Weak Reasons:
- According to LeBeau, Harrington, Lubetsky (2000), a strong reasonhas the following qualities:
- it logically supports the opinion.
- it is specific and states the idea clearly.
- it is convincing to a majority of people.
- To give examples of strong reasons versus weak reasons, theteacher can develop a multiple-choice exercise such as the following:
- Smoking should be banned in public places because:
- it is bad.
- it gives people bad breath and makes their teeth yellow.
- secondhand smoke is harmful for nonsmokers.
- The students ought to explain why some reasons are strong andothers are weak based on the above criteria.
- In pairs, have students practice generating reasons foropinions. The resolutions/opinions can be generated by thestudents (as the four resolutions listed below), the teacher, or takenfrom the following online debate resource, which offers resolutions,reasons and debating tips:
Part 1: With Your Partner, Think of at Least One Strong Reason forEach Resolution
1. Women should quit their job after they get married.
REASON:
2. Love is more important than money.
REASON:
3. It is better to be married than single.
REASON:
4. Writing by hand is better than writing by computer.
REASON:
Part 2: Now Compare Your Reasons with Another Pair and Decide WhoseReasons are Stronger and Why
4. Ways to State Reasons: Review the Following for LinguisticScaffolding
- Comparison: X is _____ er than Y. OR: X is more _____than Y.
- Cause-and-effect: X causes Y. OR: If you do X, then Y willhappen.
5. Generating Resolutions: The Students Generate Their OwnResolutions
- Explain that issues about which people are likely to disagreework best for debate. They can be controversial: the deathpenalty should be banned; or less divisive: love is more important thanmoney.
- For homework or in class, the students brainstorm a list ofresolutions. Students can get their ideas from topics discussedor read about in class or topics which interest them personally. Then the students hand in their list of resolutions and the teacherselects the most suitable ones which the students later choose from.
Class Two: Supporting Your Opinion
1. Warm-up
Begin each lesson with a fun practice activity which gets the studentsgenerating reasons for opinions. An argumentation exercise likeone that I developed called "The Devil's Advocate" (see appendix 1) isuseful for this purpose and can be used multiple times simply bychanging the resolutions. Another good kind of activity for givingreasons is any prioritization task in which the students rankitems on a list, giving reasons for their choices.
2. Giving Support for Your Reasons
Support consists of evidence. The four kinds of evidence, adaptedfrom LeBeau, Harrington, Lubetsky (2000), are:
- Example: from your ownexperience or from what you heard or read.
- Common Sense: things thatyou believe everybody knows.
- Expert Opinion: theopinions of experts -- this comes from research.
- Statistics: numbers --thisalso comes from research.
Smoking should be banned in all public places.
- Example: Forexample/for instance / let me give an example
- Whenever I go to a restaurant or bar and there are people smokingnearme, I feel that I am breathing their smoke. This makes me asmoker even though I don't want to be.
- Common Sense: Everyoneknows /if...then / it's commonknowledge that
- Secondhandsmoke is very unhealthy for nonsmokers.
- Statistics:
- Secondhand smoke causes about 250,000 respiratory infections ininfantsand children every year, resulting in about 15,000 hospitalizationseach year.
- Expert Opinion: Accordingto.../to quote.../ the book _____ says...
- According to the Environmental Protection Agency, "secondhandsmokecauses approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths in nonsmokers each year."
3. Practice
Have the students practice making examples/common sense support. Theycan develop these from reasons that they came up with in the priorclass (see third activity).
Class Three: Debate Structure
1. Warm-up
Do argumentation exercise (see class two warm up).
2. Form Teams
Two or three students form a team.
3. Considering Resolutions
Give each team the resolutions culled by the teacher from the onesgenerated by the students. Instruct students to mark the resolutionswhich interest them.
4. Selecting Resolutions and Sides
Pair up two teams and have them compare their lists and decide on aresolution for their debate. They then pick sides-affirmative ornegative.
5. Formal Debate Structure
Give students the following debate structure, adapted from LeBeau,Harrington, Lubetsky (2000). See appendix 2 for an additionalformat option which I developed for a less formal, more conversationaldebate.
Speech 1: The first affirmative speaker introducesthe topic and states the affirmative team's first argument.
Speech 2: The first negative speaker states theirfirst argument.
Speech 3: The second affirmative speaker statestheir second argument.
Speech 4: The second negative speaker states theirsecond argument.
Give a 5-10 minute break for eachteamto prepare their rebuttal speech.
Speech 5: The negative team states two rebuttalsfor the affirmative team's two arguments and summarizes their own tworeasons.
Speech 6: The affirmative team states tworebuttals for the negative team's two arguments and summarizes theirown two reasons.
6. Brainstorming Arguments
Clarify for the students that each argument consists of a stated reasonfollowed by ample support. Get students to brainstorm reasons for theirresolution and then select the best two which will be used for theirarguments. The teacher should model brainstorming on the board with asimple resolution to demonstrate how the brainstorming process works.
7. Homework
Have the students complete two arguments. Note: it is not acceptable to write thearguments in L1 and then translate into English. Arguments shouldbe written in clear and simple English that can be easily understood bypeers.
Class Four: Predicting and Refuting the Other Team's Arguments
1. Warm-up
Do argumentation exercise (see class two warm up).
2. Predicting the Other Team's Arguments
Each team brainstorms a list of strong reasons that their opponentscould use.
3. Four Step Rebuttal
- STEP 1: "Theysay ..."
- State the argument that you are about to refute sothat the judges can follow easily. Take notes during your opponent'sspeeches so you will be clear about what they argued.
- "The other teamsaid that smoking is harmful for nonsmokers."
- STEP 2: "But Idisagree..." Or "That may be true, but..."
- "That may betrue,but I think that if nonsmokers want to avoid cigarette smoke,they can walk away from it."
- STEP 3: "Because..."
- "Becausenonsmokers should look out for their own health."
- STEP 4: "Therefore..."
- "Thereforeit is not the responsibility of smokers to protect nonsmokers."
4. Writing Rebuttals
The students compose short rebuttals for the strongest three opposingteam's arguments that they predicted.
5. Giving Feedback
The teacher meets with each group and reviews their arguments andrebuttals, challenging students to question their reasoning.
Class Five: Judging and Final Practice
1. Warm-up
Do argumentation exercise (see class 2 warm up).
2. Judging
The students will be the judges. In the judging form below which Ideveloped, the students must show evidence that they have listenedcarefully. The teacher can evaluate the judging forms to give studentsan incentive to put effort into judging. A different type of judgingform and guidelines can be found in LeBeau, Harrington, Lubetsky (2000).
Speech 1: The Affirmative Team'sFirstArgument
Note: the same format is used for speech 1-4
Summarize the REASON here:
Is this reason clear? ____/1 Is this reason strong? ____/1
Summarize the SUPPORT here:
Is the support clear? ____/1 Good examples/commonsense: ____/1
Expert opinion/statistics: ____/1
Speech 5: The Negative Team'sRebuttal
Note: the same format is used for speech 5-6 (four rebuttals)
REBUTTAL for the first argument:
They disagree because...
Therefore...
Is this rebuttal clear? ____/1
Did they use a strong because and therefore? ____/1
3. Judging Practice
To give the students practice in judging, the teacher performs speechesof a mock debate. Students listen, fill in the form, and thencompare results.
4. Final Practice
The students practice delivering their argument speeches and doingrebuttals against their own arguments.
Note: if students have no experience or are shaky in public speaking,the teacher could devote an additional class before the debate toprovide training in essentials such as: eye contact, pacing, pausing,gesture.
Class Six: The Debate
- During the debate: the students fill in the judging formduringthe debate and students can consult with a partner for help withclarification after each debate.
- Following the debate: the students submit the judging forms,theteacher adds up the scores and announces the winners.
- Also, the students hand in their argument and rebuttalspeechesfor which the teacher provides feedback on strong points and things towork on. For an example of a student's debate speech from my class, seeappendix 3.
Conclusion
The six-class unit described in this paper contains an outline,principles andmaterials for conducting a debate. Because there are few publisheddebate materials for non-native speakers, the teacher needs to developand adapt materials to suit their situational needs. It is hopedthat this article provides teachers who are interested in debate withenough to get started. The rest can be learned throughtrial and error and sharing with other teachers in order to discoverthe variety of ways that debate can be creatively applied to teachingEnglish.
Appendix 1: The Devil's Advocate
- You have two minutes to argue one side of eachresolution. When you hear "SWITCH," you will have two minutes to argue theopposite side of the resolution.
- Then move on to the next one.
- All Japanese writing should be in Roman letters.
- It is better to be single than married.
- Women should stop working when they get married and havebabies.
- Women should not change their family name when they getmarried.
Appendix 2: Format for Interactive Debate
Seating Arrangement: studentsfacing each other. Two or threestudents per team.
- Affirmative team: argument 1
- Negative team's rebuttal
- Affirmative team's response to rebuttal and opendiscussion
- Negative team: argument 1
- Affirmative team's rebuttal
- Negative team's response to rebuttal and open discussion
- Affirmative team: argument 2
- Negative team's rebuttal
- Affirmative team's response to rebuttal and open discussion
- Negative team: argument 2
- Affirmative team's rebuttal
- Negative team's response to rebuttal and open discussion
- Affirmative team's closing comments
- Negative team's closing comments
Appendix 3: A Student's Debate Speech (edited)
- Resolution: Personalityis more important than looks.(Affirmativeargument)
- Reason: People never loseinterest in looking at a person who hasa
good personality and living with them always makes us feel pleasant. - Support:
- Example
- For example, my friendly neighbor in China has twin brothers.The elder brother married a very beautiful girl. But after the firstmonth, he had a quarrel with her because the beautiful wife spent allof her time dressing herself up without doing any housework. And shealways went out on dates with many boyfriends. Finally he divorced hisbeautiful wife last year. But the younger brother who married anordinary looking girl with a good personality has a very happy marriedlife now and they have a lovely 3 year old baby now.
- Common sense
- In China it is said, "Don't choose beautiful person to beyour wife." Because the beautiful wife spends more time dressingherself up without doing housework or child care than the not beautifulwife. And the beautiful wife always spends a lot of money on clothingand cosmetics.
- Expert opinion & Statistics
- Psychologists at Yale University investigated 3,519 marriedmen's life spans. According to the report,the men who married a beautiful wife had a shorter life than the menwho married an not beautiful wife. The degree of beauty was in directproportion to the husbands' life-spans. In the study, there was a scaleof 1-20 points: 20 points is the most beautiful wife and 1 pointthe least beautiful wife. The result was that men who had a wife whoscored 1-12 points lived 12 years longer than men whose wife scored13-20 points.
References
- Davidson, Bruce (1995) Critical thinking education faces thechallenge of Japan. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines.XIV (3)
- Fukuda, Shinji (2003) Attitudes toward argumentation incollegeEFL classes in Japan. Proceedings of the First Asia TEFLInternational Conference. Pusan, Korea. pp. 417-418
- LeBeau, Charles & Harrington, David & Lubetsky,Michael(2000) Discover debate: basic skills for supporting and refutingopinions. Language Solutions
- Nesbett, Richard E. (2003) The geography of thought. TheFree Press
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