The Value of Practicing Debate

Are dogs better than cats? (Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash)

We had a discussion time in other class with other topics, but it was the first time going the actual debate. Debate is a good place to share information and thought, and also a great experience to think from both pro and con side. You would have a wider view of the topic because we don’t know which side we are going to talk about…. It was a great experience to have a debate, and I would like to do another with a different topic. --student reflection after debate

I recently dusted off my debate know-how—accumulated during one crash course season of coaching a debate team 7 years ago (see these blog posts for how that came to be and took shape). The class was an advanced high school EFL class, and as I prepared I was mildly surprised to find quite a few resources for using debate for language learners. Without even doing the protracted research for a multi-step debate, Larry Ferlazzo (The ELL Teacher’s Toolbox) recommends it for all level language learners to teach sentence stems for expressing opinion, agreeing, and disagreeing just in everyday conversation. (He also suggests searching online for debate sentence frames or debate language examples.)

My students spent a week’s worth of focused work researching, writing, and talking in English without me doing anything but a daily mini-lesson. At the end, they lit up when I suggested we could take an extra day so they could swap sides and have a chance at a second debate so all the preparation they’d done for the side they hadn’t drawn wouldn’t go to waste.

Here’s what my process included:

• I modeled the whole process with a light-hearted topic. I chose "Dogs are better pets than cats." As a class we brainstormed a list of pros and a list cons. That night I wrote up the whose debate with 3 speakers and a rebuttal for each side. They read the parts the next day and critiqued the arguments. 
• I used the website ProCon.org to choose a topic that listed pros and cons. We jigsawed them, just to understand how you could actually have a list of credible pros AND cons—examining how  data, logic, and quotations from authorities were used.
• We did a quick, light-hearted team debate in one class period. I gave them a list and they chose “Happiness is more important than money.” They had to prepare both sides in 30 minutes and flip for a side to debate at the end of the period.

The class chose the topic for their serious debate. During the days they researched, we did mini-lessons on debate language, using support, or a speed debate for the first 5-10 minutes of each class. For the speed debates, the topics were "Basketball is better than volleyball" and "People are becoming too dependent on computers." Teams had 1 minute to brainstorm, then presented 2 arguments. After that, there was 1 minute to construct rebuttals.

I won't have the time to do another debate like the student at the beginning was asking for, but these responses motivate me to implement debate in all of my classes:

In the process of debate, I learned that knowing both sides is important to having a clear and consistent opinion. It takes time and energy to look at both sides of the claim; however, that process will support your opinion. I learned in order to build your opinion for debate, you first have to understand the other side.

I learned that the opinion with information is much harder to rebut. And sometimes there are very strong arguments which are hard to rebut.

Resources:

• Ferlazzo, Larry. "Strategy #32: Debate," The ELL Teacher’s Toolbox. (book)
• Kreiger, Daniel. "Teaching Debate to ESL Students: A Six-Class Unit" (free online resource)  
• ProCon.org (Amazing website)
• "Speed Debating in the ELA Classroom,"  Write On with Miss G (hat-tip for the idea from this educator's blog)