Debate	  for	  the	  EFL/ESL	  Student	  A	  Six-­‐Class	  Unit	  	  	  Class One: Introduction to Debate
1. Basic Terms••••••Debate: a game in which two opposing teams make speeches to support their arguments anddisagree 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: people who decide the winner.

2. Opinions and Reasons••A resolution is an opinion about which there can be valid disagreement. The students either agree ordisagree with the resolution regardless of what they personally believe. An opinion can be introducedby an opinion indicator:o "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:o "...because/since secondhand smoke is harmful for nonsmokers."

3. Strong Reasons Versus Weak Reasons:••••

A strong reason has the following qualities:o it logically supports the opinion.
o it is specific and states the idea clearly.
o it is convincing to a majority of people.
To give examples of strong reasons versus weak reasons, the teacher can develop a multiple-choice
exercise such as the following:o 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 begenerated by the students (as the four resolutions listed below) or the teacher.
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 areStronger 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.

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 becontroversial: the death penalty should be banned; or less divisive: love is more important thanmoney.
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 thestudents hand in their list of resolutions and the teacher selects the most suitable ones which thestudents 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 usefulfor this purpose and can be used multiple times simply by changing the resolutions. Another good kind ofactivity for giving reasons is any prioritization task in which the students rank items on a list, giving reasonsfor their choices.

2. Giving Support for Your Reasons
Support consists of evidence. The four kinds of evidence 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 3,000lung cancer deaths in nonsmokers each year."

3. Practice
Have the students practice making examples/common sense support. They can develop these from reasonsthat 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. Instructstudents 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 thenpick sides-affirmative or negative.

5. Formal Debate Structure
Give students the following debate structure. 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 firstargument.
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
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 theirarguments. 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 thentranslate 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 ..."o State the argument that you are about to refute so that the judges can follow easily. Takenotes 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..."o "That may be true, but I think that if nonsmokers want to avoid cigarette smoke, they canwalk away from it."
STEP 3: "Because ..."o "Because nonsmokers should look out for their own health."
STEP 4: "Therefore..."o "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 toquestion their reasoning.

Class Five: Judging and Final Practice
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..
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? ____/1	  Is 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, fillin the form, and then compare results.

4. Final PracticeThe 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 additionalclass before the debate to provide training in essentials such as: eye contact, pacing, pausing, gesture.

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 andannounces 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 frommy class, see appendix 3.

Conclusion
The six-class unit described in this paper contains an outline, principles and materials for conducting adebate. Because there are few published debate materials for non-native speakers, the teacher needs todevelop and adapt materials to suit their situational needs. It is hoped that this article provides teachers whoare interested in debate with enough to get started. The rest can be learned through trial and error andsharing with other teachers in order to discover the variety of ways that debate can be creatively applied toteaching 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. Affirmative team: argument 1
2. Negative team's rebuttal
3. Affirmative team's response to rebuttal and open discussion
4. Negative team: argument 1
5. Affirmative team's rebuttal
6. Negative team's response to rebuttal and open discussion
7. Affirmative team: argument 2
8. Negative team's rebuttal
9. Affirmative team's response to rebuttal and open discussion
10. Negative team: argument 2
11. Affirmative team's rebuttal
12. Negative team's response to rebuttal and open discussion
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 agood personality and living with them always makes us feel pleasant.
Support:o Example§ For example, my friendly neighbor in China has twin brothers. The elder brothermarried 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

oo	  housework. And she always went out on dates with many boyfriends. Finally hedivorced 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 havea lovely 3 year old baby now.
Common sense§ In China it is said, "Don't choose beautiful person to be your wife." Because thebeautiful wife spends more time dressing herself up without doing housework or childcare 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 thanthe 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 wasthat men who had a wife who scored 1-12 points lived 12 years longer than men
whose wife scored 13-20 points.