Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Finishy!]

Hello all!! I am trying to put together a debate class for some very advanced students. They are in their second to last year in high school and their English is fantastic. I will have about 10 students total. I've never done debates before except on an individual basis. Has anyone had experience doing this in a group setting? Do you have some good advice? I was thinking of having them read articles and then discuss them afterwards. Also, I'm on the lookout for some good articles. Any thoughts on where I can find some???

Thanks

Heather

[the_beaver]

http://www.idebate.org/debatabase/

[Qinella]

I've done debates with a couple of classes. One essential element is preparedness. Unless the students can really think on their toes, they absolutely must prepare beforehand. You should give them the topic and which side of it they'll be on. To prepare, they should list three arguments in favor of their position, expected rebuttals of their arguments, defenses for possible rebuttals, expected arguments from the other position, and possible rebuttals for the other team's arguments. They should also do research.

To start the debate, a representative from either team should 'frame the debate', and then begin with the first argument. I suggest giving each person a time limit of ~2 minutes for making an argument, and ~1 minute each for rebuttal and defense. Otherwise, you will find yourself running out of time (in a 1-hour session).

I do not know how to actually judge a debate, but what I've done in the past is act as the judge myself, and award a point after each round for the following:

- argument that could not be properly rebutted
- rebuttal that could not be defended
- effective defense of a rebuttal

An important factor in the process is relevance. A lot of times you will see an irrelevant rebuttal. This kind of response would not earn a point. For example, if the argument is 'nuclear energy should be preferred over other energy sources because it is cheap and sustainable', an irrelevant rebuttal would be 'however, it carries latent disposal problems'. A relevant rebuttal would've been 'however, the cost of other energy sources is not so high that implementing new and expensive technology would be justified'. The former, and irrelevant, rebuttal, would be better off as its own argument.

Also keep in mind it will be necessary for you to research the debate topic beforehand, as well.

[Finishy!]

These are great suggestions. Thank you so much for for taking the time to reply!!

Heather

[plutodog18]

http://www.nflonline.org/CoachingResources/Debate#Sample


Go to this site. there are lesson plans, hand-outs, format discussions and various how-to's.

This should get you up and going in no time.

[Cerriowen]

Came across a book in a store the other day just called "Argue!"

[pest2]

I had to coach some debate teams that were planning to compete in a nation-wide competition to determine placement in Korea's "MINSA" foreign high school.

They had a very formal structure, with an opening speaker, rebuttals, closing speaker, etc, and it was all timed.

As someone else alluded to, there are 2 seperate basic problems students have. First, using the language to reason is difficult for some students. They haven't experienced this, often, even if they are advanced speakers. Also, students have trouble making sound and relevant arguments and/or staying on topic. Ironically, often the students who have the best ability to speak are the ones who have the most trouble with substantive arguments.

To coach it, we first explained, "what is an argument"? Its a claim/statement with reasons to support that claim/statement. "Korea's soccer team is the best" is not an argument. "Korea's soccer teams is the best BECAUSE the players have the most experience and talent" is an argument. Students, especially in the dogmatic, ritualistic land of Korea, have alot of trouble assigning reason and cause to thier beliefs. I think this is probably due to how they are socialized, but anyway, you will probably have to go over this again and again... even for the brightest of your students. ("Korea's soccer teams is the best because my dad said so and he is older than me so it must be true" they would say...)

After this, we broke the students up into teams (these were mostly determined by the mothers, however, who wanted thier kids to go to MINSA, then to a USA University, then become rich and send the money back home later hehe.). At first, we had the teams practice debating really simple things like "which color is better? Red or blue?" Starting simple gets them to face that "why" question right away because otherwise, the debate is pretty empty... Red is not just better, its better BECAUSE it gives you a strong emotion or whatever.

Later, we had more complicated issues, such as "Should Korea have a Free Trade Agreement?".

During the practice debates, we had one teacher evaluate the language usage and another teacher evaluating the coherence and soundness of the arguments being made by either side. We had classes, in the meanwhile, to discuss formal (like false syllogisms) and informal (like red herring arguments) fallacies.... if you dont know these by name, you can find information about them online.

Hope that helps.