Korean Job Discussion Forums

[suzhou2010]

Any advice about solid ways to hold debates with advanced adult/university students??

Any good topic ideas?

My goals are not to teach the students any particular point of view but rather for them to interact as much as possible and explore issues they may have to deal with in their careers, private lives, or experiences in an English speaking country.


Thanks

[denverdeath]

The topic of manners might be a good one. Get one side to present, argue, defend, and sum the Korean side and have the other side do the same for the NA, or whatever, side. Another could be the differences in the bar scene between the two regions. House parties might be another. The topic drugs is always good. I recommend telling them that alcohol is a drug. Marriage. Domestic violence. Interviews/Getting a job: Korea vs. America.

You could set things up like this(I believe you mentioned in another post that your classes are two hours):

Day 1: Introduction of what a formal debate is. Introduction of topic and open discussion to try to get lots of ideas generated. Picking of teams through drawing Xs and Ys/1s and 2s/whatever out of a hat. Naming of teams(something cute and pretty or wild and crazy). Have teams choose the "for" or "against" side or just flip a coin if time's running out. Tell them your expectations. Tell them they have one week to prepare

Day 2: You act as MC. Roll a die to determine who goes first. Have both sides do their thing. Get everyone back together to discuss the strong/weak points of each team's points, what they thought of the activity, and whether they'd like to try it another time. State your opinion with regards to the topic. You don't have to force anybody to change their way of thinking. I think that most students are actually interested in what their teacher thinks too.

Problems: As this is a group activity and many people have to play a role, if someone fails to do what they're supposed to do, you're screwed. Have something to fall back on on Day 2.

Recommendation: If your Monday class is usually painful, you might want to choose this day to try and get them a bit more excited. You also might want to try it on Friday to have a nice close to the week.

[Ya-ta Boy]

Some topics that popped into my mind:

-Is Korea westernizing too much/too fast?

-Should the government move to Kongju?

-The best way to spend a vacation is to stay home and rest.

-Women have achieved real equality in Korea.

-Too many Koreans are going overseas on vacations and spending too much money.

-Koreans put too much emphasis on learning English.



Panel Discussion topics:
- What needs to be done to make Korea the Hub of Asia?
- What is the best way to make Korea more famous?

[pest2]

When I taught debate at my last job, the biggest challenge was in getting the students to understand the concept of 'argument.' They were really good a making a 'value statement' such as 'North Korea should unify with South Korea' or 'Bushee is bad' or 'Dokdo Island should belong to Korea'.... but rarely could they provide reasons for those statements. So, first foremost, teaching the definition of argument: "a claim and reasons to support that claim". was helpful. This way, the student cannot simply raise his or her hand and say, "I think Japan is bad." Instead, they have to at least say, "I think Japan is bad because they stole our island."

This is very difficult for them because thier society is used to dogmatic dialogues in which 1 person says, "I hate x" and then another person in the same group says, "yeah, x is bad"...


Once they get past this, you can introduce a limited socratic method to thier class... So, "Japan is bad becasue they stole our island" is followed by "how can one country know what land belongs to it and what land belongs to another country?" or "why shouldn't countries steal eachothers islands?"

Finally, the students learn to actually debate... so they are able to make arguments so they are then required to put the claims and arguments into formalized, timed 2-5 minute speeches for which they are give 10-20 minutes to prepare and use thier research (the research was done prior to the class because the topic was given at the end of the preceding class). It could go something like: Opening speech affirmative, Opening Speech negative, 1st cross exam negative, 1st cross exam affirmative... so on... until each side gives a closing speech.. if the students work in teams of 4 or 5 it seems to work well....

Yeah, alot of the topics people have been posting here are ones we used.. the students seem to do much better with ones that are KOREAN in nature rather than general or global.

[Ya-ta Boy]

The soldier who killed 8 made me think of another topic:

Korea should have a volunteer army.


And pest2 is right. Before the debates, do a lot of 'statement + support' work.

[matthews_world]

Students will need to hone their debate skills, this will take a lot of time and practice. You should scaffold these.

Start simple. Think of simple topics like school uniforms, etc. and build gradually. Of course, you must teach topic vocabulary and technique along the way.

At the first stage, use your topic and put the students into an even number of teams. Have them brainstorm 2 or 3 pros and the cons related to the topic in the beginning. The teacher puts these on the board as this allows the class to discuss each.

Next, you would want to explore counter argumentative skills, using their brainstorming abilities with more advanced topics. Once their brainstorming techniques and vocabularies have developed over a few weeks or more of this activity, work on this skill.

Of course, after awhile, you'll finally to be able to put teams into pro teams and con teams where they will be allowed to discuss and counter-argue.

Finally, try full fledged debates.

Debate is an overlooked and very needed skill amongst ESL speakers from all walks of life.

[Grotto]

Whenever you do debates you have to make sure that there are not too many people involved in the debate process.

The last thing you want is mass debating in class

[Vic Mackey]

There are no books about debate for the most part. There is a text I used before from Japan that worked well. About 20 topics and some thoughts about them to get students thinking. Can't remember the book title though.

[desultude]

I like the advice here. I would really like to see a book on teaching debate. I have found little information even online. I hope this discussion continues.

I've tried to teach debate, and the biggest problem I had was getting the students to make well supported arguments. I think next time we will devote at least a couple of class periods to developing grounded arguments. This is just so useful for so many things!

[suzhou2010]

All of the ideas posted here will help me and other readers develop debates in class , I'm wondering if anyone knows of any good texts or internet sites where we could find readings to use as preparation/support for debates, or simply to become more aware of some of the topics posted here . . .

[deessell]

It's a bit silly but the students like it....do a debate on abstract things.

I have a cup containing pieces of paper with random words like rainbows, beer, smiles, fish, water, computers. The teams pull a topic out of the cup and have to reason why ____________ is more important to human existance than ___________. Yes, I know it's not high brow but the level of students here in Korea is generally quite low.

[matthews_world]

Nice idea. Comparing two topics would seem to be a bit abstract.

Use a single, more contraversial topic and explore pros and cons. I usually have groups of students come up with 2 negative and 2 positive issues concerning the topic, then we put the issues on the board.

Divide the class into seperate groups exploring one of the issues.

[deessell]

Sorry my explanation was a little unclear regarding the game. Each team has one topic and they are debating against each other i.e Fish are more important to human existance. They other team is arguing the topic on their paper.

Sorry for the confusion

[suzhou2010]

Deessell - - -

when you do abstract debates, do you force one team into arguing that

one thing is more important than the other . . .???

Your idea sounds quite practical . . .

[deessell]

Each team selects a piece of paper from the cup. On the paper is written a topic eg. Rice. The opposition debating team chooses another topic ie water.

They then debate that their topic is more important to human existance.

I write on the board

_______________________ is more important to human existance than________.

Away you go. I am the judge and I award a point to the team that has convinced me of their argument.