The First Steps to Debate in English

--Aiming at Cultivating Practical Ability--

(in Japanese)

1. Introduction

Debate class is fun. Doing debate in English is not so difficult. Having your own opinion and expressing it in class is enjoyable. This is one of those abilities which Japanese lack most. If Japanese are to play a leading part in the world, we must cultivate the abilities which are needed in debate. You don't need to take things too seriously. Let's begin step by step. This is a report about when I let my students debate in English for the first time.

2. Why I Began Debate Lesson

Several years ago, Japan's Ministry of Education, Science and Culture introduced three courses to choose from in English education: Oral Communication (A) (situational conversation), Oral Communication(B) (aural competence), Oral Communication (C) (discussion and debate).
We officially chose OC(B) and we had two lessons a week for each class of first-year-students. One lesson was an aural-competence-oriented lesson taught by a Japanese teacher. The other lesson was the one I taught with a Canadian assistant-teacher.
At first we had the students make speeches, four students per class, but some of them only read their manuscript or spoke to the wall of the room without looking at other students.
I would like to improve these results. After the Great Hanshin Earthquake people of Japan have realized the need to cope with the critical conditions quickly. In the field of English education the same is the case. We must teach the students how to make themselves understood properly when they speak English.
To develop such skill I think debate is effective, thus I began debate class in the following semester.

3. Actual Procedure in Debate Class

a. Choice of the Proposition (I called Topic in the class.)

In choosing the topic of the debate, it is recommendable to choose one which is familiar to the students, and on which the students are divided evenly in their opinions. And we need to take care that easier topics come first. In my class, we chose these topics.

The first time : Dogs are better than cats.
The second time : Students of our school should wear school uniforms. (By the way our students wear plain clothes.)
The third time : Students should have to go to high school in their neighborhood.

b. Separating the class into Affirmative and Negative

I divided each class into six groups, seven or eight students in each group, and made three pro groups and three con groups. Sometimes I asked the leader of each group which side they wanted to choose, and I had the group which wanted to take the pro side take the opposite side and vice versa. We must have the students realize that in debate which side they take has nothing to do with their personal opinions.

c. Brainstorming

After I decided which side the students are going to take, I had them think of the strong points for their side and also those of their opponents. This was done not only so they could gather the reasons behind an affirmative or negative position, but also they could predict the speeches of the other side. Note: In doing this, don't let the students worry about the strength of their opinions. Let them think of as many points as possible. This is really brainstorming.
When there were enough strong points for the members of their group, I had the students put the points in order according to the degree of their strength, and had them decide who would say which point and think about how they would rebut the speeches of the other side. These activities I did in the first period.
In the next period, we did the actual debate.

d. Actual Debate

Though there are many ways of doing debate, I chose the most traditional one. The students spoke in the following order;

1) Constructive Speech of the pro side. (I called this "Build" in the class.)
2) Rebuttal Speech of the con side. (I called this "Attack" in the class.)
3) Constructive Speech of the con side.
4) Rebuttal Speech of the pro side.

This is one cycle. We repeated this cycle six or seven times until all the members said their opinions. Please be sure to have the different persons say the four speeches above. The students had to decide their speaking order.
In the first period, I gave them 30 seconds for the constructive speech and 15 seconds for the rebuttal . In the second period I gave 1 minute, 30 seconds respectively and in the third period, 2 minutes, 1 minute. You may feel that 30 seconds is really long. You must prepare a lot when you are going to give a 2-minute speech.

The fundamental form of speeches.

1) Introduction (Student's opinion.)
2) Body (Students must say why they think so. It is preferable they say it in connection with their own experience.)
3) Conclusion (Student's opinion, again in connection with the proposition of their side.)

I decided which two groups would start the debate first by doing some quizzes. Our ALT asked some questions of the chief students of each group. The groups who could answer the question correctly didn't have to do the debate at that time. The last two groups had to do the debate on the spot.
The rest of the class should write the points of each speech on the record sheet (chart 1) while listening to the speeches.

e. Evaluation of the Debate

When the debate is over, the rest of the class should decide which group was more persuasive and write it on the record sheet. At the same time I asked the students to raise their hand to show which side they thought won. The ALT and I also evaluate the students' speeches on a scale of 5. Chart 2 is the record sheet on which our ALT evaluated the students' speeches and wrote some comments. We evaluated the students' speeches not so strictly because they were doing debate for the first time.

4. Some Difficult Points

The point the con side should realize is they don't have to prove the opposite of the proposition. All they have to do is prove the proposition is not correct. For example, in the first debate, the con side could say, "Both dogs and cats are animals. We can't say which is better." They didn't have to prove "Cats are better than dogs." In this sense, the pro side is harder than the con side. They must prove the proposition is correct.

5. Conclusion

In this way, we finished one cycle of the debate in 4 periods.

a. The announcement of the proposition, deciding the sides, brainstorming --- 1 period
b. The actual debate --- 3 periods

What I found in the debate lesson was we could always see things from both sides. We could say something reasonable from both sides. When we took the side regardless of our own opinion, we realized that all the more. Debate is an intellectual game in which you must think of what you should say to persuade others and how you could rebut the other's opinion. While I was doing the model debate with the ALT, I felt I was experiencing the ways of thinking of native speakers of English. I'd like to do debate lessons in my classes as often as possible from now on.

6. References

* Matsumoto, S., (1996). Debate Makes Your Brain Better. Kodansha.
* Jinnbo, S., (1995). Hello, there! Oral Communication C. Tokyo Shoseki.
* Monbusho (The Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture) (1993).

The Guidelines for Study in Senior High School. Kyoiku Shuppan.

* Ishii, S., & Bowers, J.R. (1994).

Speak out. Oral Communication C. Kirihara Shoten.

Back to my Home Page