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Krieger - Teaching Debate to ESL Students: A Six-Class Unit (TESL/TEFL)

The Internet TESL Journal

Teaching Debate to ESL Students: A Six-Class Unit

Daniel Krieger
shinyfruit [at] yahoo.com
Siebold University of Nagasaki (Nagasaki, Japan)

Introduction
Debate is an excellent activity for language learning because it engages students in a variety of
cognitive and linguistic ways. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate upon this point by providing a
step-by-step guide that will give teachers everything they need to know for conducting debate in an
English class.
So, why debate? In addition to providing meaningful listening, speaking and writing practice, debate
is also highly effective for developing argumentation skills for persuasive speech and writing.
Davidson (1996) wrote that "with practice, many students show obvious progress in their ability to
express and defend ideas in debate [and] they often quickly recognize the flaws in each other's
arguments." Nisbett (2003) declares: "Debate is an important educational tool for learning analytic
thinking skills and for forcing self-conscious reflection on the validity of one's ideas (210)." Fukuda
(2003), in a debate study conducted with Japanese students, found that "before the debates only
30.8% of the students were not afraid of expressing their opinions when they were not the same as
others'. After the debate this figure rose to 56.7%." He went on to say that "the knowledge or skills
which came from the practice in the debates led the students to become more accustomed to
expressing opinions." This suggests that, although debate is quite challenging, non-native speakers
can develop the debating skills which are described in this paper.

Six-Class Unit Plan

The following six-class unit can be adapted to suit a variety of teaching contexts. I have been refining
it while teaching a weekly 90 minute debate class.

Class One: Introduction to Debate

1. Basic Terms
Debate: a game in which two opposing teams make speeches to support their arguments and
disagree with those of the other team.
Resolution: the opinion about which two teams argue.
Affirmative team: agrees with the resolution.
Negative team: disagrees with the resolution.
Rebuttal: explains why one team disagrees with the other team.
Judges: decide the winner.
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2. Opinions and Reasons

A resolution is an opinion about which there can be valid disagreement. The students either
agree or disagree with the resolution regardless of what they personally believe. An opinion can
be introduced by an opinion indicator:
"I think/believe that smoking should be banned in public places..."
A reason explains why that opinion is held and can be introduced by a reason indicator:
"...because/since secondhand smoke is harmful for nonsmokers."

3. Strong Reasons Versus Weak Reasons:

According to LeBeau, Harrington, Lubetsky (2000), a strong reason has 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, the teacher can develop a multiplechoice 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 and others are weak based on the
above criteria.
In pairs, have students practice generating reasons for opinions. The resolutions/opinions can be
generated by the students (as the four resolutions listed below), the teacher, or taken from the
following online debate resource, which offers resolutions, reasons and debating tips:
http://www.paulnoll.com/China/Teach/English-debate.html
Part 1: With Your Partner, Think of at Least One Strong Reason for Each 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 Whose Reasons are
Stronger and Why

4. Ways to State Reasons: Review the Following for Linguistic Scaffolding

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 will happen.
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5. Generating Resolutions: The Students Generate Their Own Resolutions

Explain that issues about which people are likely to disagree work best for debate. They can be
controversial: the death penalty should be banned; or less divisive: love is more important than
money.
For homework or in class, the students brainstorm a list of resolutions. Students can get their
ideas from topics discussed or read about in class or topics which interest them personally.
Then the students hand in their list of resolutions and the teacher selects 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 students generating reasons for
opinions. An argumentation exercise like one that I developed called "The Devil's Advocate" (see
appendix 1) is useful for this purpose and can be used multiple times simply by changing the
resolutions. Another good kind of activity for giving reasons is any prioritization task in which the
students rank items on a list, giving reasons for their choices.

2. Giving Support for Your Reasons

Support consists of evidence. The four kinds of evidence, adapted from LeBeau, Harrington,
Lubetsky (2000), are:
Example: from your own experience or from what you heard or read.
Common Sense: things that you believe everybody knows.
Expert Opinion: the opinions of experts -- this comes from research.
Statistics: numbers -- this also comes from research.
Smoking should be banned in all public places.
Example: For example / for instance / let me give an example
Whenever I go to a restaurant or bar and there are people smoking near me, I feel that I am
breathing their smoke. This makes me a smoker even though I don't want to be.
Common Sense: Everyone knows / if...then / it's common knowledge that
Secondhand smoke is very unhealthy for nonsmokers.
Statistics:
Secondhand smoke causes about 250,000 respiratory infections in infants and children
every year, resulting in about 15,000 hospitalizations each year.
Expert Opinion: According to.../ to quote.../ the book _____ says...
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, "secondhand smoke causes
approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths in nonsmokers each year."

3. Practice
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Have the students practice making examples/common sense support. They can develop these from
reasons that they came up with in the prior class (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 ones generated by the students.
Instruct students to mark the resolutions which interest them.

4. Selecting Resolutions and Sides

Pair up two teams and have them compare their lists and decide on a resolution for their debate.
They then pick sides-affirmative or negative.

5. Formal Debate Structure

Give students the following debate structure, adapted from LeBeau, Harrington, Lubetsky (2000).
See appendix 2 for an additional format option which I developed for a less formal, more
conversational debate.
Speech 1: The first affirmative speaker introduces the topic and states the affirmative team's first
argument.
Speech 2: The first negative speaker states their first argument.
Speech 3: The second affirmative speaker states their second argument.
Speech 4: The second negative speaker states their second argument.
Give a 5-10 minute break for each team to prepare their rebuttal speech.
Speech 5: The negative team states two rebuttals for the affirmative team's two arguments and
summarizes their own two reasons.
Speech 6: The affirmative team states two rebuttals for the negative team's two arguments and
summarizes their own two reasons.

6. Brainstorming Arguments
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Clarify for the students that each argument consists of a stated reason followed by ample support.
Get students to brainstorm reasons for their resolution and then select the best two which will be used
for their arguments. The teacher should model brainstorming on the board with a simple resolution to
demonstrate how the brainstorming process works.

7. Homework
Have the students complete two arguments. Note: it is not acceptable to write the arguments in L1
and then translate into English. Arguments should be written in clear and simple English that can be
easily understood by peers.

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 opponents could use.

3. Four Step Rebuttal

STEP 1: "They say ..."
State the argument that you are about to refute so that the judges can follow easily. Take
notes during your opponent's speeches so you will be clear about what they argued.
"The other team said that smoking is harmful for nonsmokers."
STEP 2: "But I disagree..." Or "That may be true, but..."
"That may be true, but I think that if nonsmokers want to avoid cigarette smoke, they can
walk away from it."
STEP 3: "Because ..."
"Because nonsmokers should look out for their own health."
STEP 4: "Therefore..."
"Therefore it is not the responsibility of smokers to protect nonsmokers."

4. Writing Rebuttals
The students compose short rebuttals for the strongest three opposing team's arguments that they
predicted.

5. Giving Feedback
The teacher meets with each group and reviews their arguments and rebuttals, challenging students
to question their reasoning.

Class Five: Judging and Final Practice

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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 I developed, the students must show
evidence that they have listened carefully. The teacher can evaluate the judging forms to give
students an incentive to put effort into judging. A different type of judging form and guidelines can be
found in LeBeau, Harrington, Lubetsky (2000).
Speech 1: The Affirmative Team's First Argument
Note: the same format is used for speech 1-4
Summarize the REASON here:
Is this reason clear? ____/1Is this reason strong? ____/1
Summarize the SUPPORT here:
Is the support clear? ____/1 Good examples/common sense: ____/1
Expert opinion/statistics: ____/1
Speech 5:The Negative Team's Rebuttal
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 speeches of a mock debate. Students
listen, fill in the form, and then compare results.

4. Final Practice
The students practice delivering their argument speeches and doing rebuttals 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 to provide training in essentials such as: eye contact, pacing,
pausing, gesture.
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Class Six: The Debate

During the debate: the students fill in the judging form during the debate and students can consult
with a partner for help with clarification after each debate.
Following the debate: the students submit the judging forms, the teacher adds up the scores and
announces the winners.
Also, the students hand in their argument and rebuttal speeches for which the teacher provides
feedback on strong points and things to work on. For an example of a student's debate speech
from my class, see appendix 3.

Conclusion
The six-class unit described in this paper contains an outline, principles and materials for conducting
a debate. Because there are few published debate materials for non-native speakers, the teacher
needs to develop and adapt materials to suit their situational needs. It is hoped that this article
provides teachers who are interested in debate with enough to get started. The rest can be learned
through trial and error and sharing with other teachers in order to discover the variety of ways that
debate can be creatively applied to teaching English.

Appendix 1: The Devil's Advocate

You have two minutes to argue one side of each resolution. When you hear "SWITCH," you will
have two minutes to argue the opposite side of the resolution.
Then move on to the next one.
1.
2.
3.
4.

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 have babies.
Women should not change their family name when they get married.

Appendix 2: Format for Interactive Debate

Seating Arrangement: students facing each other. Two or three students per team.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

Affirmative team: argument 1

Negative team's rebuttal
Affirmative team's response to rebuttal and open discussion
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

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13. Affirmative team's closing comments

14. Negative team's closing comments

Appendix 3: A Student's Debate Speech (edited)

Resolution: Personality is more important than looks. (Affirmative argument)
Reason: People never lose interest in looking at a person who has a
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 first month, he had a quarrel with her because the
beautiful wife spent all of her time dressing herself up without doing any housework. And
she always went out on dates with many boyfriends. Finally he divorced his beautiful
wife last year. But the younger brother who married an ordinary looking girl with a good
personality has a very happy married life now and they have a lovely 3 year old baby
now.
Common sense
In China it is said, "Don't choose beautiful person to be your wife." Because the
beautiful wife spends more time dressing herself up without doing housework or child
care than the not beautiful wife. And the beautiful wife always spends a lot of money on
clothing and cosmetics.
Expert opinion & Statistics
Psychologists at Yale University investigated 3,519 married men's life spans. According
to the report, the men who married a beautiful wife had a shorter life than the men who
married an not beautiful wife. The degree of beauty was in direct proportion to the
husbands' life-spans. In the study, there was a scale of 1-20 points: 20 points is the
most beautiful wife and 1 point the least beautiful wife. The result was that men who had
a wife who scored 1-12 points lived 12 years longer than men whose wife scored 13-20
points.

References
Davidson, Bruce (1995) Critical thinking education faces the challenge of Japan. Inquiry: Critical
Thinking Across the Disciplines. XIV (3)
Fukuda, Shinji (2003) Attitudes toward argumentation in college EFL classes in Japan.
Proceedings of the First Asia TEFL International Conference. Pusan, Korea. pp. 417-418
LeBeau, Charles & Harrington, David & Lubetsky, Michael (2000) Discover debate: basic skills
for supporting and refuting opinions. Language Solutions
Nesbett, Richard E. (2003) The geography of thought. The Free Press
The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. XI, No. 2, February 2005
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