【Teaching Practice Report】

Why Should Students Reflect on the Purpose of Debate?
Heather Woodward
Abstract
Debate teachers at Rikkyo University present the rationale for learning how to debate on a slide show, or they reada paragraph from the syllabus to justify the course’s requirement status. For the remaining lessons, they addressquestions concerning “what” and “how.” For example, “What is a rebuttal?” and “How do you create a proposition?”
In addition to addressing these types of questions, they also ask students to write self-reflections post-debate.
Although essential for improving debate performance, these questions and self-reflection activities can fail to help
students connect content and activities to the overall course goals and real-world contexts where they can use theirdebate skills. To make connections, students need tasks that treat debate as a means to an end. In this paper, I
explain the rationale for facilitating student reflection on debate course goals based on Japanese cultural norms andcognitive learning theory. Second, I define the twin sins of course design by Wiggins and McTighe (2008) andmaintain that teachers can avoid committing the twin sins by implementing activities that allow students to reflect
upon debate course goals. Third, I define and explain practicing- connections hypothesis by Fries et al. (2020). After,
I share classroom activities based on the hypothesis, and last, I discuss ideas for potential research studies.
Keywords: debate, practicing-connections, course design

Japanese Cultural Norms and Debate Tactics
Reasons for learning how to debate might be less apparent to Japanese students than foreignteachers realize. In The Japan Times article titled, ‘Ditch the debate tactics when it comes topersuading Japanese colleagues on a course of action,’ Kopp (2019) explains that most Japanese
students are not taught to debate in school, and in Japanese culture, debate tactics are seen as overly
aggressive. Kopp advises foreign expatriates, who work for or work with Japanese companies, towrite a report or create a slideshow with data and then let the data “do the talking” to persuadecolleagues of a specific course of action. This method is implicit and indirect—qualities compatible
with Japanese culture, language, and workplace. The method also has the additional benefit ofacknowledging the agency of fellow colleagues as it respects their ability to interpret the data andarrive at conclusions for themselves. In Japanese culture, showing this level of respect especially tosenior employers and colleagues is important for maintaining good relations.
In contrast to the method of allowing the data to speak for itself, one debate tactic called Label,
Explain, Evidence, and Tieback (LEET) entails presenting and explaining the position, interpreting
evidence for listeners, and discussing its importance (Saskatchewan Elocution and Debate
Association, 2019). Debate tactics such as LEET are widely accepted in Western cultures; however,their explicit and direct nature makes them inappropriate for certain formal Japanese situations (e.g.,presentations with senior colleagues). Additionally, debate tactics’ structured and organized nature
can make them awkward for informal contexts (e.g., dinner table conversations with family). Students
might realize that there are aspects of debate that they cannot transfer outside of the classroom
without the consequence of being ostracized by their colleagues or being given awkward side glancesfrom their family members. Consequently, they might wonder why they are learning such debate
tactics as some students do not envision themselves living or working abroad for an international53

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company. So, they answer “Why LEET?” by replying, “The other team can understand my ideas moreclearly” or they say, “I can get a higher debate score.” These answers are correct, but they fail toconnect to the course goals or to real-world use cases outside of the debate classroom.
The Japanese cultural disposition for implicitness and indirectness stems in part from theconcept of saving face (mentsu wo tamotsu) and losing face (mentsu wo ushinau). Matsumoto (2018)
writes that the term “face” most closely translates to the consideration for the feelings of otherpeople. To save face means to avoid words or actions in public that might cause humiliation orembarrassment to others. For instance, disagreeing with or criticizing others publicly can cause
embarrassment, which in turn, causes a loss of face. An example that Kopp (2006) provides is an
American employee working for a Japanese company who challenges her boss in front of othercolleagues when she disagrees with him. For another example, Kopp (2006) writes that in businesssituations, Japanese expatriates working overseas often “avoid criticizing the parent company even
when, in the eyes of American employees, such criticism is clearly deserved.” The concepts of saving
face and losing face are difficult for westerners to understand because the feelings of others are notconsidered a priority in western business culture (Matsumoto, 2018). Japanese people are concernedwith the feelings of others (omoiyari) whereas western business culture instead prioritizes truth andfacts (Matsumoto, 2018).
Japanese students might associate certain debate tasks with feelings of discomfort orapprehension as their own cultural values of saving face and losing face can create conflict between
caring for their classmates’ feelings and fulfilling their debate course obligations. Debate teams
openly state opposing arguments (i.e., disagree), and summarize weaknesses of the other team’s
argument (i.e., criticize), and ask cross examination questions (i.e., challenge). Students might
privately question why they need these tasks for the future as they seem disconnected from realities
of Japanese etiquette. Some debate teachers might counter that their students can reflect on thequestions of “why openly disagree with others” or “why directly challenge others” by themselves.
These teachers might conclude that students are speaking in English so they should become
accustomed to Western cultural norms of explicitness and directness, and therefore, debate tactics
do not require any additional justification than the justification given at the beginning of the course.
As such, the “what” and “how” of debate are covered more extensively than the “why.” In defense ofthis approach, addressing “what” and “how” questions do improve students’ debate performancesand exposes them to western cultural norms, but addressing “why” questions can shift students’perspectives from viewing debate as the end goal to viewing debate as a tool that enables the
manifestation of their teamwork, critical thinking, and research skills, which are relevant to realworld contexts in Japan. Teachers can design activities and content that helps students make thisperspective shift.

Twin Sins of Design
Wiggins and McTighe (2008) state that the twin sins of course design are activity-focusedteaching and coverage-focused teaching. For activity-focused teaching, teachers give too many
activities and for coverage-focused teaching, teachers cover too much content. Both teaching focusescommit sin because they fail to make big picture ideas explicit to students (Wiggins & McTighe,2008). In other words, teachers tend to have what Wiggins and McTighe (2008) refer to as expert
blind spots, and so they assume that students can connect the many discrete activities and lectures(i.e., content) to the main ideas. To build a defense against expert blind spots and thus, the twin sins54

WHY SHOULD STUDENTS REFLECT ON THE PURPOSE OF DEBATE?

of course design, teachers can help students to connect activities and content to debate course goals.
To do so, teachers should encourage students to (a) reflect on the three core debate skills of criticalthinking, research, and team-building, (b) connect these three core debate skills to debate preparation
stages and debate performance stages, and lastly, (c) identify real-world contexts where students
need to use the three core skills. Teachers can determine the extent to which students have achieved
a level of expertise in critical thinking, research, and team-building when students have not only
performed well in debate, but have also made explicit connections between (a) – (c).

Practicing-Connections Hypothesis
To help student transfer knowledge, they must make connections between core domain
concepts, key representations, and real-world contexts (Fries et al., 2020). Fries et al. (2020) statethat core domain concepts are important skills or ideas that are central to the domain (e.g., in termsof debate, these are critical thinking, research, and team- building). Debate Committee (2020) cites
the goal of the debate course as the development of these three skills. Fries et al. (2020) write thatkey representations refer to relational domain structures (e.g., stages of debate preparation anddebate performance). Lastly, real-world contexts are situations that students can use the core domain
concepts (Fries et al., 2020). Students can make explicit connections between core domain concepts,
key representations and real-world contexts to deepen their understanding, and by doing so, thebelief is that their knowledge becomes flexible and transferable (Fries, et al., 2020). Transferringknowledge from one context to another similar, but different context, entails the ability to use
knowledge “creatively, flexibly, fluently in different settings or problems” (Wiggins & McTighe,2008).
For example, students can answer the question, “Why use LEET?” by explaining LEET’s connection
to critical thinking and research skills. They can also answer, “Why openly disagree with others?” or“Why openly challenge others?” by explaining their relationship to course goals. As debate tactics inJapan are rarely found outside of the classroom, teachers who use these practicing-connection
activities help students to transfer the three core debate skills to other contexts in Japan that do
require use of such skills. For instance, many professions require varying degrees of the debate
course goals so students can investigate the roles and responsibilities of a career that interests themto determine the extent to which these skills are necessary. In short, this hypothesis implies thatdebate performance, and self-reflection of debate performance, might not provide teachers with
sufficient evidence of students’ ability to transfer their critical thinking, research, and team-building
to other contexts because these skills are contextualized throughout the course in relation to debate,but debate is not such a common activity outside the classroom so teachers are assuming thatstudents can transfer these skills to other contexts without the need for assistance or guidance.
In addition, the core domain concepts of debate are complex skills as they comprise multiple
sub-skills. Practicing-connection activities deconstruct the core debate skills to help students connect
their different aspects to relevant key representations and real-world contexts. In other words, thesepracticing-coracticing-connection activities deconstruct the core debate skills to help students
connect their different aspects to relevant key representations and real-world contexts. In otherwords, these practicing-connections activities do not assume that students already know what good
research, critical thinking, and team building skills entail nor do they assume that students will, on
their own accord, connect all three skills, or relevant sub-skills, to their post-debate performancereflections. From my experience, without these activities, students forget to reflect on one or more of55

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the core domain skills post-debate performances. They might reflect that they need to work with
their teammates by communicating more often and do more research on the topic, but they do notmention critical thinking skills. To avoid this issue, practicing-connections activities can help students
intentionally make explicit connections from their debate preparation and performance to all threecore domain skills by having students first reflect on the core debate use.

Practicing-Connections Activities’ Descriptions
The following activities below are based on the practicing-connections hypothesis. In thissection, I give a short description of each of the following practicing-connections activities presented.
For Activity I, students circle true or false about key assumptions of the debate course. In the next
activity, they match the debate skills (i.e., core domain concepts) to their definitions. Explicit
definitions of the three core debate skills can help students to connect the concepts to key
representations and real-world contexts. For Activities III, IV, and V students reflect on the qualitiesof good teamwork, then connect the qualities to their debate experiences (i.e., key representations)and real-world contexts. The concept of teamwork is deconstructed into its sub-skills, so that students
learn about different aspects that entail good teamwork. For Activities VI, VII, and VIII, students
reflect on the qualities and characteristics of good research skills, then connect them to debate
stages and activities (i.e., key representations) as well as real-world contexts1 These activities help
students to deconstruct core domain concepts to have students connect their different aspects
to their corresponding key debate representations and real-world contexts.
For Activities IX, X, and XI, students read a list of qualities, abilities, and knowledge that businessowners want from university graduates from a 2018 study by the Keidanren, a Japanese businessassociation (i.e., real-world context). Students circle the ones that relate to debate, and then discuss
their rationale with a partner. After, they connect these to the core domain concepts of debate. These
activities relate to real-world contexts as many students plan to work after graduation. For Activities
XII and XIII, students connect core domain concepts and key representations to their career
aspirations (i.e., real-world contexts). I give an example by Mintzberg (1973) regarding a possible
career as a manager. For Activities XIV, XV, XVI, and XVII, students complete these activities after adebate performance. They rank the debate skills according to their difficulty, discuss why the skills
they list are challenging, then search the debate textbook for activities that are designed to developthese skills (i.e., key representations). Students write a plan to help them to improve their weak
points, and in the last activity, they think of real-world contexts that they can use these skills (i.e.,
real-world contexts). Teachers can decide which lessons to give these types of activities. Some
activities might be more appropriate at the beginning of the course whereas others are more
appropriate after their mid-term debate.

1

Here is the link for the critical thinking activities not included in this paper. Research and team-building activities have also
been included: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qi62lkA9DDo9d3EWnf0A4hfPsJhnPFz9u2s6dU5om_4/edit?usp=sharing

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Practicing-Connections Activities
I. Read the sentence and circle true or false.2
1. The purpose of this course is to develop the skills of critical thinking, research,and team-building.

T/F

2. People usually participate in formal debates outside of the classroom.

T/F

3. People can use the skills of critical thinking, research, and team-building inmany real-world situations.

T/F

4. “Up for Debate” textbook activities by Mishima et al., (2021) are designed todevelop skills of critical thinking, research, and team-building.3

T/F

234

II. Match the debate skills to the correct definition.4
1. Researcha. To work effectively with group of people to reach a shared goal

2. Critical thinking

b. T o search for, find, obtain, arrange, assess, and use relevant
information

3. Team-buildingc. T
 o analyze, evaluate, synthesize, interpret, infer, question, and solve
problems

III. Read Eri’s self-reflection. Which debate skill should she practice?
My last debate performance was bad. I prepared for the wrong
section. I was supposed to prepare the cross- examination questions,but I prepared the summary, so my group did not have any questions.
My teammate asked me for help with the affirmative speech, I said,“No way! Not my responsibility.” If any of the others ask me for help, I
will just pretend that I do not know the answer. I do not want to do
more work than I already do.

234

Answers are T, F, T, T
All “Up to Debate” textbook references refer to: Mishima, M., Kita, S., Donnelly, M., Hartley, M., Iwai, K., & Vaughan, R. (2021).
Up for Debate (2nd ed.). DTP Publishing.
4
Answers are 1 b, 2 c, 3 a57

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IV. Read the qualities below of effective team players from Brady (2016). Whichqualities should Eri (Activity III) practice?
What does it mean to be a good team player?
Reliable

Good communicator

Assesses team’s strong points andweak points

Flexible

Good listenerCommits to team goals

HelpfulWilling to compromise

Solves problems

Note. From https://www.totalteambuilding.com.au

V. Using the table above (Activity IV), answer the following questions with a partner:• Think of an experience in debate class where you showed good teamwork skills. Explain theexperience to your partner.
• What steps will you take to improve these qualities?
• What situations outside of the debate classroom can you use teamwork skills?

VI. Read Aki’s self-reflection. Which debate skill should she practice?
My last debate performance was bad. When I searched for evidence
for the affirmative speech, I could not find anything. I tried using
keywords in Google; then I gave up. I was so frustrated. I could notthink of what to do. So, I just decided to write my opinion without
providing evidence because I feel like my idea is common sense, butthen during the debate, the other team cited evidence from a study
that contradicted my idea, so we lost the debate.

VII. Read the qualities below of good researchers from Study Lecture Notes(2013). Which qualities should Aki (Activity VI) practice?
What does it mean to be a good researcher?
Brainstorms relevant keywords

Articulates ideas

Open-minded to different
viewpoints

Patient when searching for
information

Evaluates sources of information
for reliability

Avoids plagiarism by citing
sources and paraphrasing

Searches for multiple sources of
information

Attends to small details of research

Defines terminology to be clear toothersNote. From http://studylecturenotes.com/qualities-of-a-good-researcher/.

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VIII. Using the table above (Activity VII), answer the following questions with apartner:• Think of an experience in debate class where you showed good research skills. Explain theexperience to your partner.
• Which qualities of a good researcher do you want to improve?
• What steps will you take to improve these qualities?
• What situations outside of the debate classroom can you use research skills?

IX. In 2018, the Japanese Business Federation (Keidanren) sur veyed 443
companies on the qualities, abilities, and knowledge that business owners
expect from university students. Below are the most popular responses frombusiness owners. Circle those qualities that you develop from learning how todebate.
Initiative

Execution skills

Solve / Set problems

Teamwork

主体性

実行力

課題設定・解決能力

チームワークSocial skills

Cultural understanding

Creativity

Ethics

社会性

異文化理解力創造力

倫理観

Work ethic

Communication

Open-mindedness

職業観

自分の意見を発信する力 他人の意見を聴く力

Logical thinking
論理的思考力X. Discuss the reasons you circled these skills in Activity IX with a partner.

XI. List the qualities, abilities, and knowledge from Activity IX that relate to teambuilding, research, and critical thinking. You can use the same quality, ability,or knowledge more than once.
Team-building

Research

Teamwork

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Critical Thinking

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XII. Read Rena’s career goal. Does Rena need the skills of research, criticalthinking, or team-building for her career?

My career goal is to be a manager at a large company. I conducted
research, and according to Mintzberg (1973), a business professor in
Canada, there are three main managerial roles: interpersonal,
informational, and decisional. For interpersonal, I need tohave good communication skills to share information with employees.
I need to teach others good teamwork skills to help others work
cooperatively. For informational, I also need to do research andlearn a lot so that I can help employees if they have any questions. For
decisional, I need to solve problems and identify employees’
strengths and weaknesses to allocate work based on their abilities.

XIII. Think of a career that you would like to pursue post-graduation. How would
developing debate skills of critical thinking, research, and team-building help
you with your future career? You can do online research about the roles andresponsibilities of a potential future career.

XIV. W hen reflecting on your last debate performance, rank the debate skills of
research, critical thinking, and team-building from 1 the hardest for you to 3
the easiest for you.
1.
2.
3.

XV. W
 ith a partner, discuss the reasons for your answers to XIII, then write down
pages in the textbook that can help you. Write the page number and activity
name below.
Debate Skills
Research

Textbook Page / Activity Name
Example: page 20 / Where do we find sources?

Critical thinking
Team-building60

WHY SHOULD STUDENTS REFLECT ON THE PURPOSE OF DEBATE?

XVI. W rite your weak point, and then, create a plan to follow so that you can
improve these skills.
Example: I need to work on research skills because my sources of evidence were too old and so,
newer sources of information contradicted my evidence. This info is on Page 20 in the textbook. So,
I should review the textbook; then, I also need to… 

XVII. List two real-world contexts that you will be able to use the improved skills.
Example: If I improve my research skills, I can write better papers for other classes because mysources of information will not be contradicted by more recent studies… 





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Potential Research Studies
Researchers who are interested in the practicing-connections hypothesis can test assumptions.
For example, they can collect students’ self-reflections after debate performances to investigate theextent to which students connect core domain concepts, key representations, and real-world contexts.
The study can compare debate students who have been given these types of practicing-connection
activities to students who have not been given them. Students who have completed practicingconnections activities should show more evidence of treating debate as a means to an end. For
example, they would cite the three core domain skills and real-world contexts more often thanstudents who have not been given these types of activities. Researchers can also investigate theassumption that Japanese students feel uncomfortable with the aspects of debate that entail openly
criticizing and disagreeing. They can create a survey that can determine to what extent students feel
comfortable, then compare a pre-survey and post-survey results of students who have practiced
connections and those who students who have not. The survey might show that students who havepracticed connections might feel more comfortable with debate tactics than those who have not.
Alternatively, at the end of the semester, students can rate the effectiveness of classroom
activities for developing the core debate skills and then recommend ways to improve the activities.
Researchers can compare recommendations of students who have practiced connections to therecommendations of students who have not. The group who has practiced connections might be able
to show evidence of using knowledge of core domain skills more creatively and flexibly with theirrecommendations than the group who has not by stating more real-world contexts and key
representations in their recommendations. Additionally, researchers can collect student selfreflections throughout the semester on experiences using debate skills outside of the classroom.
Students can share the real-world contexts that students find useful for these debate skills. Lastly,
teachers of content-based language courses might contend that there should be two goals—contentbased goals and language-based goals (e.g., use of present perfect tense). As this paper only
discusses the treatment of content-based goals, teachers might want to investigate how to integrate
and assess language-based goals.

Conclusion
Some debate tactics are not appropriate for certain real-world contexts in Japan such as openly
disagreeing and openly challenging, but learning to debate can develop students’ critical thinking,research, and team-building skills as well as provide evidence of core debate skill development. On
the other hand, if transfer is an important process, then teachers need more evidence than debate
performance alone to assess students’ core domain skills because debate is one context to assess
such core domain concepts; yet, not such a popular or common activity outside of the classroom inJapan so debate performance should not be treated as an end in itself. One way to evaluate students’ability to transfer these core domain skills is to determine the extent to which students can makeconnections between core domain concepts, key representations, and real-world contexts. To do this,teachers can deconstruct core domain concepts into corresponding sub-skills to help students
understand what being effective researchers, team players, and critical thinkers entail. Additionally,teachers can help students to make explicit connections from core debate concepts to aspects ofdebate preparation and performance stages. Lastly, they can help students to reflect on the core
domain concept use in real-world contexts in relation to students’ goals and aspirations. By doing so,62

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teachers can collect evidence of students’ expertise as well as help students understand thejustification for the debate course’s requirement status, which might help some students feel more atease with western debate tactics. During practicing-connection activities, teachers can address issues
such as “why openly disagree” and “why openly challenge others” to help students understand how
they connect to the overall course goals of improving their critical thinking, team-building, andresearch skills. I hope that teachers test Fries et al.’s (2020) hypothesis and consider creating similartasks for other their courses.

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