RULES FOR A DEBATE

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.

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.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."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 multiple-choice 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 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 exampleWhenever 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." 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. A Student's Debate Speech )

•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.