Debating as a New Approach to Learning

Primary and Middle School Guide

Debating as a New Approach to Learning: A Comprehensive Guide to Implementing Debate in Education

This book, resulting from an Erasmus+ KA2 project, presents a collaborative effort by esteemed organizations including Società Nazionale Debate Italia, Za in proti, zavod za kulturo dialoga, and Fundación Educativa Activa-t. Published in 2023, it offers a comprehensive guide to implementing debate as an innovative educational approach.

Contributors: Bojana Skrt, Nuša Stamejčič, Rok Hafner, Javier Pagán Castaño, Amparo Cuñat del Olmo, Ana Maria Diez De Fex, Manuele De Conti, Rosa Carnevale, Gianluca Presutti, and Francesco Sfredda.

Chapter Attribution:

Chapter 1: What is Debate, Why Debate, Planning the Classroom Debate Lesson, Formats, Balance between Classroom and Competitive Debating (Bojana Skrt); Implementing debate in Educational Environment, Planning the Classroom Debate Lesson, Classroom Debate Formats (Nuša Stamejčič)

Chapter 2: Motions (Bojana Skrt, Rok Hafner); Motions, Argumentation, Building a Proposition and Opposition Case, Refutation, Questions, Comparisons, Clashes and Summaries, Style, Research, Adjudication, Key Terms (Rok Hafner)

Chapter 3: A short Debate History (Manuele De Conti)

Chapter 4: Debate and Education (Manuele De Conti)

Chapter 5: Debate and Ethics (Manuele De Conti)

Chapter 6: Jean Piaget Cognitive Stages and The Concept of “competence” as a Complex Structure of Values, Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes (Manuele De Conti); Lev Vygotsky proximal development, Jerome Bruner’s theory of development, Educational implications (Rosa Carnevale); Democratic framework rubric for debate practice and evaluation (II cycle of education), Bloom’s taxonomy, Merging Bloom’s taxonomy and democratic culture framework (Gianluca Presutti, Francesco Sfredda)

Chapter 7: Debate Skills (Javier Pagán Castaño)

Chapter Exercises: (Nuša Stamejčič, Amparo Cuñat del Olmo, Ana Maria Diez De Fex)

Organizations:

Applicant organization: Società Nazionale Debate Italia

Partner organizations: Fundación Educativa Activa-t (Spain), Za in proti, zavod za kulturo dialoga (Slovenia), Moletu gimnazija (Lithuania), Colegio Miralmonte SCOOP (Spain), Englantilainen koulu (Finland), OŠ Rada Robiča Limbuš (Slovenia), Danes je nov dan, Inštitut za druga vprašanja (Slovenia)

Distributed under the CC BY-NC-SA – Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike License

Debating as a New Approach to Learning project is funded with support from the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. This publication reflects the views only of the authors and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Contents

Introduction

What is Debate?

Debate Elements

Definition

Debate motion

Number of speakers and teams

Length of the speeches

Main debate processes and roles of the speakers

Role of the speaker

Questions

Judges

Why debate

Implementing Debate In Educational Environment

Knowing the students

Identifying the goals

Planning The Classroom Debate Lesson

Choosing the motion

Cooperation with other teachers, multidisciplinary approach

Support from other teachers and what students already know

Staging

Things to keep in mind

Teachers’ preparation

Students’ preparation

Evaluation

Classroom Debate Formats

Factors in adapting

Formats

Spar formats

Short debate formats

Long debate formats

An example of long debate format involving all students in the class

Debate Theory

Debate Motions

Types of debate motions

Creating Motions

Argumentation

Structure of an argument

A thesis of an argument, sometimes understood also as a title of an argument

Analysis

Evidence

Impacts

Building A Proposition And Opposition Case

Motion type specifics

Setting up a debate case

Finding the relevance of the motion

Stakeholder analysis

Thinking of the clashes

Refutation

Disputing the relevance of the argument.

Disputing the mechanisation of the argument

Mitigating the impacts of an argument

Addressing the examples in the argument

Questions

Comparisons, Clashes And Summaries

Style

Research

Competitive debating

Classroom debating

Adjudication

Debate Pedagogy

A Short Debate History

Debate as a teaching method in ancient Greece

The method of the middle age universities: the disputation

Ante litteram cooperative learning with debate in the ratio studiorum

Debating during modern era in USA and England

The limited use of debate as a didactic method today

Debate And Education

Education as formation of identity, as social process and as professional training

Debate as mediator among conflicting instructional goals

Some empirical evidence for debate

Debate And Ethics

The Ethical Paradigm To Complete Education

Developmental Stages Of The Learner And The Reference Framework For Democratic Culture

Jean Piaget cognitive stages

Lev Vygotsky proximal development

Jerome Bruner’s theory of development

The Concept Of “Competence” As A Complex Structure Of Values, Knowledge, Skills And Attitudes

The reference framework for democratic culture

Democratic framework rubric for debate practice and evaluation (II cycle of education)

Debate Skills

Thought And Language

Exercises

Questions Older

Questions Younger

Note-Taking Older

Note-Taking Younger

Refutation

Argumentation Older

Argumentation Younger

Resolution Older

Stakeholders Younger

Context Younger

Context Older

Case Younger

Case Older

Style Younger

Motion Database

Primary School

Middle School

REFERENCES

Introduction

In today's society, highly educated and competent individuals are crucial for the development and progress of our societies and economies. Skills such as creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving are essential in navigating the complexities and changes of the modern world. The Reflection Paper on Harnessing Globalisation acknowledges the need for new learning methods and flexible education models in an increasingly mobile and digital society.

The European Skills Panorama emphasizes the importance of transversal knowledge, collaboration, and information sharing as foundational elements for developing the competences necessary for success in the labor market. However, data from OECD PISA reveals that a significant number of pupils in the EU lack proficiency in reading, writing, and communication skills.

The ERI-Net study conducted by UNESCO in 2018 identifies a lack of integration of transversal competencies in school curricula and a scarcity of detailed guidelines to support teachers in teaching these skills. There is also a need for pedagogical practices that prioritize student-centered tasks, along with a lack of teacher training to support such practices.

To address these complex challenges, the Debating as a New Approach to Learning guide for High School students proposes the introduction of a debate approach in schools providing teachers with educational resources and guidelines to develop soft skills within the curriculum.

Debate has immense value for students in high schools. It boosts self-confidence, accelerates learning across various subjects, improves critical thinking, enhances research and argumentation skills, promotes teamwork, and provides opportunities to engage with topics related to politics, economy, and finance.

The Teacher's Guide provided ensures a research-based approach to the effectiveness of the debate methodology in secondary school curricula. The guide offers a pedagogical framework, methodological guidance, good practice examples, and collaborative learning activities tailored to meet diverse student needs and interests.

What is Debate?

Formal educational debate is a part of school programs all over the world. Almost every European country has it included in one or other form, some having adopted it recently, some experiencing it for decades. The World Schools Debating Championship is an annual event that brings together national high school debate teams – one per country – to debate against each other every year. During the 2021 edition, there were almost 70 countries that sent their national teams. University debate brings together debaters from hundreds of universities at European University Debating Championships and/or Worlds University Debating Championships. Debate is highly valued in the most prestigious universities’ admission process and the skills that debate develops are the skills employers are the most interested in.

Debate is used in different educational settings. It can be used as an extracurricular competitive activity where debate teams compete against each other at debate tournaments or it can be used in the classroom as one of the active methods when teaching different subjects. It can also be used as a form of public debate when trying to present different arguments for an important topic of public concern. It can be a great starting point for further discussion, for example, in a school setting: a debate for parents about one of the controversial issues connected with school guidelines or students’ behaviour. It also transcends the school setting, and can be used in youth work, in non-governmental organisations as an advocacy method, in adult education or in different communities’ programs.

Debate Elements

In order for the readers to get a basic understanding of what debate is we must very briefly present some basic debate elements. More in-depth explanation a reader can find in chapters on debate theory.

Definition

Educational debate is a formal equitably structured event on a specific topic where two sides try to persuade the audience/judges.

Speeches alternate from one side to another, starting with the proposition team, which is defending the topic. Equitably structured means that teams on both sides have equal conditions – the same number of speakers on both sides, same lengths of speeches and same roles and responsibilities of each speaker on both sides. This guarantees fairness and equal opportunity for both sides to persuade judges or the audience.

Debate motion

Debate motion or topic is a statement that the debate revolves around: one of the teams has to defend, while the other team needs to oppose it. Motions should be balanced to allow strong arguments for both sides. It should be interesting and important. In competitive debate it usually reflects current events and societal phenomena and in classroom debate it should be connected with the subject area.

Number of speakers and teams

In formal debate we usually have two teams debating, one team advocating for the motion. That team is called proposition, affirmative, or government team. The other team – the opposition team – is against the motion. There are different types of debate formats used in competitive debate (debate format describes how many speakers are in a team, speaking time, roles of the speakers). Some of them have only one speaker in a team (Lincoln Douglas debate format), but there can also be two speakers per team (Policy or British parliamentary debate), or even three speakers in a team (Karl Popper or Worlds Schools Debate Format). The same formats can be used in the classroom as well, however, classroom setting offers more flexibility and allows adaptation of competitive formats, depending on the needs of the students, so a teacher should consider shorter speeches or more speakers, if need be.

Length of the speeches

Formats also prescribe the length of speeches. Speeches in competitive debate formats can be from 4 to 8 minutes long, depending on the format. In classroom debate, they are usually shorter due to class time constraints and the age, ability and experience of students.

Main debate processes and roles of the speakers

There are four main processes which should happen in a full-length competitive debate.

1. Presenting a constructive case for or against the motion.

2. Refuting the opposing team’s case.

3. Rebuilding and extending their own case.

4. Presenting main clashes, summarising the debate in a way which explains why their team wins the debate.

Role of the speaker

Roles of the speakers are defined by the main debate processes. In first speeches, especially the proposition, one of the speakers has the dutyHow about broadening this point by adding a paragraph on team burdens? It is also true that we are not just talking about WSD here ... To be evaluated. to set the debate, define the motion, present the framing and main constructive arguments for the motion. In the first opposition speech two things need to happen: the opposition constructive case should be presented and the refutation to the proposition constructive case needs to be made.

The second speeches on both sides have similar functions: responding to the other side’s constructive case, rebuilding their own constructive case and responding to the refutation of the opposing team to their own constructive case. They also need to extend the case by presenting new arguments for their side.

In the third (and potentially fourth) speech this should happen: responding to parts of the constructive case from the other side which has not been answered yet. The speaker should identify the main clashes and weigh their importance, presenting the reasons for the decision in favour of the side they are advocating for.

Questions

One of the essential parts of debate formats are questions. There are two types of questioning. Some debate formats use cross-examination, and some points of information. Cross-examination happens between the speeches after a speaker finishes their speech. There is a set period of time assigned for the member of the other team to ask questions. Points of information are asked during the speeches. For the purpose of classroom debating, we recommend cross-examination because students can ask more questions and they do not interrupt the speaker during their speeches. Additional benefit is also the inclusion of more students in questioning.

Judges

The purpose of debate is not to persuade the opposing team, but the audience. In competitive debate that is the judges and in classroom debate that should be the teachers and other students in the class. In public debates the debaters want to convince everybody who is listening. Judges and teachers evaluate debaters’ performance, declare the winning team by giving the reasons for decision and feedback to debaters about their performance.

Why debate

In recent years, much has been said in terms of prioritising active learning methods because they lead to better knowledge retention and help students take active control over their learning processes. Debate is only one of such activities, but it is without a doubt one of the ones which combines most skills students will need in their future career paths and life overall.

Debate allows students to explore issues more in depth than they would have otherwise during a normal school lecture. It allows the ones who are interested in the subject to delve deeper into the most intriguing parts of the school content and explore both pros and cons. Even the students who are not especially interested will be activated more than during a lesson or even a discussion. Students will have to present their arguments and actively engage with the content of the opposite team, so the depth of their knowledge will be greater and because they will have memories of a game to relate it to, also easier to retain.

Debate is in its essence a competition and that often gives the students the motivation to really do well. Students generally like participating in activities of a competitive nature and sometimes they might not even realise that they are actually learning when they are preparing their arguments because their main motivation is to win. The students also do a lot of work in terms of preparation, for which they need to do a lot of research, which also means they take charge of and responsibility for their own learning process. Debate is then also an activity which teaches how to learn, as well as how to use that knowledge.

The answer each debate seeks is the “why” behind each statement, each proclamation. This is exactly how we get from lower levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, to the higher ones. Debate is an activity where all levels of taxonomy in the cognitive domain can get tested. The students absolutely need to remember (1) information to be able to use it productively. There is no argument without understanding (2), as each statement needs to be clarified and interpreted to act as a valid contribution to a debate. Applying (3) this knowledge to actual examples goes without saying, as the arguments need to be presented and used in connection with the rest of the material.

Now we enter into the more complex levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, where debate becomes uniquely relevant. Analysing (4) is an especially relevant process of debate because the students have to organise and structure their material in a coherent manner, focusing on the most important elements. Judges often say that an organisation of the speech is of the utmost importance.

So far, all these levels can be achieved by other means, such as an argumentative essay or a really detailed, structured presentation, but debate doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The point of a debate is weighing the arguments, weighing the contributions of each team, evaluating (5) the information brought up by everyone. Judges can see two excellent teams debating with extraordinary arguments, but if there is little to no engagement with the material of the opposite side, they have a hard time deciding on the winner of the debate, because they are not allowed to use their opinions, and evaluation from the side of the student debaters becomes absolutely crucial. Creating (6) brings together the entire process of the debate, as the students have to use both prepared material but also be able to create points on the spot, either in the form of negations, comments or indeed, questions.

There is a lot of anecdotal information about the value of debating, however, there has not been a lot of serious research done, especially not outside the English-speaking world. The study Debating the evidence, an international review of current situation and perceptions, English Speaking Union, 2011, analysed some of the existing research. They found out that the benefit of debating can be recognized in four areas where the difference between debaters and non-debaters is most indicative: academic attainment, critical thinking, communication and argumentation skills, and personal and social impacts and benefits. Here are their key findings.

→ Findings from ESU 2011 research, page 16

Student perception data indicates that engaging in debate activities increases engagement and motivation in a subject, improves subject knowledge and helps students apply their learning to real-world situations.

→ Academic attainment

About general benefits, page 11

Debate activities have a practical and meaningful influence on the attainment of young people from diverse backgrounds and, in particular, on the development of literacy skills. For example: Debaters in urban American high schools were 25% more likely to complete school than non-debaters; African American males who took part in debate were 70% more likely to complete school than their peers. High school participants in debate activities did significantly better than their peers in tests of English and reading, in a number of studies.

→ About benefits in specific subject areas,

page 14

Evidence exists for a link between debate activities in the classroom and improved subject knowledge in science (biology), history, art and English as a foreign language. For example: Using debate as a teaching tool in history can deliver a depth of learning through enabling pupils to delve further than usual into historical events, and to understand historical contexts and differences between viewpoints from the past.

→ Critical thinking, page 18

Both qualitative and quantitative research suggests that participation in debate activities improves critical thinking. In particular a meta-analysis argues that participation in communication skills classes can increase critical thinking skills by as much as 44%. Students’ own perceptions add weight to the argument that participation in debate activities leads to improvements in critical thinking. Competitive debaters reported better critical thinking among the top five benefits of taking part in debate.

→ Communication and argumentation skills,

page 22

Students’ perceptions provide strong evidence that taking part in debate activities leads to improvements in their communication and argumentation skills, including improved English when it is not their first language.

From presented research and testimonies it seems to be pretty obvious why debate can be an excellent addition to the already used contemporary methods and why schools should embrace debate as an essential component of the educational process, especially if they want to prepare students for the 21st century challenges. Skills which debate develops are the key skills for the 21st century and also the key skills employers are looking for: critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication, leadership and literacy skills in processing of information, media, and digital. These skills will benefit students not only during their school years by making them better and more engaged students, but also in their adult life.

Of course, the intensity of debate activities reflects in skills development, more work clearly leading to better skills. That is why we recommend a comprehensive model when integrating debate in regular school activities. Introducing debate technique as a methodological tool for the majority of subjects and as an extracurricular activity in the form of debate clubs, where debaters can engage in competitive debate. This is of course an ideal situation, the main benefits being that more students are involved in debate activities and have the chance to develop the skills we discussed earlier. From a teacher’s perspective it is easier if there are more teachers involved, because they can explore a new method together, learning and overcoming the challenges together, sharing the burden and joy.

However, usually only an individual teacher decides to start using debate techniques in their classes or decides to establish a debate club. In the majority of cases when that happens, we can observe one of the two possible scenarios. Sometimes, a few other teachers follow, sometimes debate remains only a matter of a few committed teachers. Both scenarios are valuable and, as an individual teacher in a time of fast changes and an urgent need for students being active participants in their learning processes, that teacher should not be stopped if they are the only one in school interested in debate.

So far, we have discussed a lot about why debate is good in general, for every student and which skills it develops. Now, we should also look from the perspective of specific subjects taught in schools. Why is debate, in addition to developing so many skills essential for students’ academic progress, also important for learning different content areas.

Although we understand that some subjects are more suitable for debate than others, teachers are already using debate when teaching a variety of subjects: languages, literature, history, geography, economics, law, computer science, environment, science, philosophy, sociology, art, just to name a few. Especially teachers teaching natural sciences often think that debate doesn’t belong in their classrooms because they deal mainly with facts. While it is true that fact debates are usually not the most interesting and thought provoking, the field of natural sciences is still full of promising topics to consider – think about the ethics which come into play whenever we discover something new. Think of how many different scientific methods can be employed in one problem – surely there are pros and cons to each; why not have students debate about that? Even within a fact debate, students can still learn the underlying reasons behind these widely accepted facts (Taylor), which will help students’ ability to critically access and process different information they encounter.

We have taken aims from high school curricula for different subjects, to demonstrate just how debate could be utilised in a way to achieve them. For example, one of the main aims of Slovene high school Biology class is as follows: “developing the competence to solve complex problems based on systematic, analytical, and rational thinking, searching for information from different sources and critically evaluating it for its credibility and judgement of consistency of the evidence and arguments (scientific way of thinking)”. This chapter of the manual holistically proves that debate is a perfect vehicle for achieving this goal, as students have to find and evaluate information, and judge and weigh arguments of the opposing team.

One of the main aims of Slovene high school Sociology class is “the ability for students to reflect on their own social standing and how they form their opinions, beliefs, prejudices, and actions as a building block for participating in social life and being a tolerant and responsible in their own actions” – debate nurtures the ability to understand and analyse your own opinions in a way where a student understands the social connotations of their actions.

In History, one of the aims is “explaining and comparing lifestyles, reasoning and scientific achievements and their effect on the economy, society and the environment of different historical periods” and what better way of achieving that aim than through a role play debate where students have to put themselves into the skin of someone living in that period. Nothing will really make them understand their point of view better than that.

When it comes to foreign languages, communicative competence is the ultimate goal, and debate makes students really react naturally and relatively spontaneously to the task that they are given, which makes their language production that much more valuable, as it is used in context.

We even searched through catalogues of expected knowledge of vocational schools and found an interesting example in the subject of Natural Science, where students need to “understand environmental problems, and develop responsible attitude towards the environment and nature and to maintain diversity in living species”. A debate on a more environmentally friendly topic would be an excellent tool for checking this understanding.

Implementing Debate In Educational Environment

Regardless if used in a debate class, debate club or in any classroom, debate should be introduced following a step-by-step approach, going from smaller tasks and formats towards more complex ones, from shorter speeches to longer ones. Students are not expected to speak for 8 minutes, developing sophisticated arguments, and answering the arguments of the other side the very first time they are introduced to debate. Furthermore, the main goal of using debate is different if you use it in a classroom or in a debate club. In a debate club, it is expected the coach spends some time explaining debate theory first, for classroom debating teachers need to limit the time they spend explaining main debate principles as their main focus is their subject material. Because there is limited time when and how often a teacher can use debate in the classroom it is more likely that formats used in the classroom will be simpler, shorter, more accessible than the complex competitive debate formats.

At this point, a clarification needs to be given. When we say debate for debate club, it is expected that the main goal of that club is to prepare students for competitive debate formats. At high school level in Europe, that means Worlds Schools Debate Format which is the most popular high school debate format on the global level. For competitive debate, it is expected that coaches must prepare debaters for the prescribed debate format. They cannot change the format by shortening the speeches, adding more debaters to each team, and using different types of questioning. However, coaches are of course free to choose the methods they use to prepare students for tournaments.

When we say debate for the classroom setting, that does not necessarily mean full length competitive debate formats. Of course, it might be different in cases where a school already has an established debate club culture with a lot of debaters or even maybe has a debate class as a mandatory elective class, as it is the case in a lot of schools in the USA and Asia, which consequently means that a lot of students at that school are familiar with debate. However, in European schools this is not the status quo and that is exactly why the approach must be more gradual. The term debate in the classroom, for us, means a lot of methods and exercises which are part of the debate process, but not necessarily a full-length debate. Here are a few examples.

Preparation for full length debate in debate clubs can be broken into different elements: analysing the motion and stakeholders in the debate, presenting arguments for and against the motion, presenting extensions of their own arguments and refutation for the other side, and asking questions. Each of these steps can be used as an individual method in the class and can lead to longer debate at the end of semester, or not. A teacher can modify existing debate formats to their needs, such as by adding extra students to each side of the debate, shortening the speeches, dividing the role of first proposition speaker in Worlds Schools Debate Format among two or three speakers, or by not using points of information but cross-examination, for example.

There are numerous ways including debate in your classroom can be done. Teachers can be creative when adapting the format, however, they should be aware that the principle of fairness and equity – balanced motion, both sides having the same length of the speeches and numbers of speakers – should be respected.

Here are some guidelines to follow when introducing debate in the classroom or debate club settings:

Knowing the students

Classroom debating

Debate method or format needs to be appropriate for the students the teacher is working with. Debate topics, exercises and formats used, length of the speeches, language of speaking need to be adapted to the students’ unique requirements and abilities. Middle school motions cannot be as complex as the ones used for university students. Prior exposure to debating or level of language proficiency, if debating in foreign language, are additional factors which need to be taken in consideration.

Debate club

Competitive debate formats are usually decided in advance by the organisers of the tournaments. Debate coaches do not have so much freedom when choosing debate format as a teacher in their regular classroom where they can choose the most suitable format for their students or even create their own. A debate coach still has all the freedom to plan the preparation process and methods to prepare their debaters for specific motions and tournaments.

Identifying the goals

Classroom debating

A teacher needs to decide when and why they want to use debate. Debate can be used for revising knowledge gained in previous classes, or as a preparation for a new chapter. For example, in science class, when the students start learning about robots or space exploration. Debate can also be used at the end of a specific chapter, for example in literature class after class about modern African literature, debate can be offered to students as a replacement for writing an essay, the students could debate the importance of specific authors. Debate can be even used to present a new subject content as a replacement for a teacher lecture, or a student presentation.

Debate club

Coaching strategy depends on both the goals debaters have and the type of debaters. Unless the club is only at the beginning and has only just been established, which makes everybody a beginner, debate clubs usually have a mixture of more or less experienced debaters and novices. Training needs to adapt to that. Training methods are different for novices who still need training of basic debate theory concepts. Experienced debaters who are already familiar with theory and speaker roles are mainly able to prepare by themselves, but they still need assistance with depth of analyses and strategic choices.

Planning The Classroom Debate Lesson

The first and main question a teacher should answer before even starting to plan a debate centred lesson should be what their main goal is and why is debate the best vehicle to achieve it. Debate is a valuable methodology, and it does lead to better understanding of the subject matter by the students, but it does take quite a bit of time, at least initially, to set up, so teachers must be certain they are willing to put in the work.

Debate can be an intimidating activity for students as well, so a teacher should be able to reassure the students of their capability of making arguments. We believe that students are able to make solid arguments even without knowing all about argumentation theory, because they tend to make arguments in day-to-day life regardless.

Conversely, most curricula for the majority of the subjects present in modern schools also demand a certain level of critical thinking promotion, which is a skill honed by debate, so students already have a good foundation. It is surprising to see just how much knowledge of argumentation the students already have – most of them already know how to form arguments, a teacher’s job is only to clarify some terms and make sure all students are on the same page.

The teachers should not go into too much detail immediately, because that is redundant for classroom debate and comes more into play in competitive debate. Too many details might only serve to intimidate and dissuade the students from thinking they will be able to debate, when they absolutely are.

After making sure the students are able to form basic arguments, a teacher should start considering how much classroom time they are willing to dedicate to preparation. The research for examples and evidence is definitely something that can be set as homework or home projects, but a teacher should still guide students in the right direction, otherwise the debate might go in a different direction than imagined. Some guidelines on how students can approach research can be found on later pages. Checking in with students about the progress of their arguments is also important so that a teacher can check that their understanding of the topic is sufficient.

While negation and refutation of arguments is definitely an important skill which students will gain through active debate, this might be the most intimidating part of debate for students just starting out. This is why it might be a good idea to discuss potential arguments for both (or all) sides together first, just so everyone has a general idea what arguments might happen in said debate. This makes students more likely to participate and engage with material offered by their opposing team, rather than just focus on their own.

All in all we would recommend dedicating at least parts of two school hours before an actual debate takes place. In the first session a teacher should set and discuss the topic and the format. Students should be given their roles (remember that they should be randomly assigned) and be able to ask questions if they have any. If debating in teams, this is also the time to let teams discuss and settle on a strategy they want to take up in said debate. Then the teacher should guide the students to relevant areas of research.

The next session can have only a part of it dedicated to the debate, just so everyone can touch base and see where they stand. The teacher can check what the students have done in terms of research and strategy and the students will be able to ask questions that they might have had while conducting research. This is not an absolutely crucial step, but it is a recommended one, especially for beginners. It depends, again, on the teacher’s goals and the subject that they teach: for example, if they teach foreign languages their ultimate goal might be just the use of language in a different context, for which they care a bit less about the content. If a teacher is, however, using debate to cover a specific content in history class, they might want to hear at least a bit of what the students will present, to see that they are keeping to the point.

The final session is the most important one, the actual debate. If the teacher sees that the students are nervous, they should try calming them down a bit by offering an opportunity to ask questions again. The teacher should explain the format again briefly and listen to the debate. If the students are judging, a teacher should monitor that they are taking good notes, which is what they should be doing as well. After the debate the teacher should offer feedback, making sure to praise students’ good work. Constructive feedback should still be given in a more encouraging manner and as opposed to competitive debate; the focus should not be on it.

Choosing the motion

Teachers often struggle with choosing the topics they should have their students debate. They fear the topics will be either too controversial or not controversial enough. The topic should be interesting to the point where the students will be willing to spend time researching the problem so that they discover new arguments but not obscene to the point where students would have to be defending morally reprehensible positions. A teacher should never set a debate topic that they wouldn’t be comfortable debating as well. Knowing the students is essential, as some groups will feel more comfortable debating things that some would not touch at all, but it is important to remember and also remind students that the sides in a debate are randomly assigned, which means that what the students say might not be what they actually believe.

It is important that the topic of debate is balanced enough that both sides can find valid arguments, which means that it will have to be at least somewhat broad, but teachers should still be careful to make them specific enough that the students will actually be discussing what was the teacher’s aim. Very often even a single word change in a topic can change the entire field of debate – consider conferring with some colleagues, if unsure of the wording. More on debate topics can be found in the continuation of this part, under debate theory.

It is a potentially good idea to also encourage students to participate in the topic selection – be it by offering their own ideas or voting on the topic they want to debate from a list of the teacher’s own ideas. This way students will feel both included and more invested in the process and the debate as such will be more interesting.

Cooperation with other teachers, multidisciplinary approach

Debate is a perfect model for a multidisciplinary approach to learning as teachers teaching different subjects can work together combining their content areas and prepare debates including knowledge from different subjects. There are numerous combinations possible.

For example, learning about migration in the EU can engage teachers of geography, economics, law, geography, history and environmental studies, sociology, geography and they can always happen in any foreign language that the students are learning. The possibilities of cross-curricular potential are great.

Support from other teachers and what students already know

Especially when new in debating, teachers often worry how they will be able to teach students how to debate. This worry is even more common among teachers using debate in the classroom setting because there is not so much time they have at their disposal as they would in debate clubs for debate theory explanation and training. However, teachers should realise that support is all around, and students are learning different skills which are essential for debating in different school subjects already. Speech structure and argument building is a part of language instructions, research and information finding of computer science and/or library classes; some educational systems still have philosophy or even logic classes where students can learn about argumentation theory more in depth. At the end of the day we should not forget that we speak, make arguments, and discuss things all the time; debating is just teaching students how to do it better to become more knowledgeable, better structured and more persuasive speakers.

Staging

Debate is a speaking activity, where a speaker addresses the audience – judges at debate tournaments, other students in the classroom, general public if in a public debate. It prepares students for being able to be effective public speakers and for being able to present their thoughts in an organised, concise and persuasive way. That is why it is of vital importance that even in a classroom, if debate techniques are used, the following protocols are also respected:

Students should always speak to the audience, standing in front of the class.

Students should not be reading, however, having notes with main points is highly recommended and expected.

A speaker should not be interrupted during the speech, unless points of information are used.

Furthermore, teachers should assign different active roles to as many students as possible, especially when doing more complex formats. Here are the roles you can give them: debaters giving speeches; debaters asking questions; debaters giving floor speeches after debate in support of one or the other side; students judging, or each of them getting a specific task to be responsible for, such as: master of the ceremony/chair; timekeeper; photographer; video maker; journalist preparing a report for school radio/TV, social media and/or school newspaper.

Things to keep in mind

Sides in debates are assigned randomly. Students do not choose if they debate proposition or opposition side of the motion and do not necessarily defend the side that they believe in. The side distribution is decided by flipping a coin when in the classroom, or by a tabulation system in competitive debate at tournaments. This is because there is usually a power pairing which sorts the teams every round, taking in consideration different parameters, an important one being making sure that each team has a balanced distribution of debating as proposition or opposition. This practice allows students to research, learn and understand the position which might be against their own beliefs.

Knowing and understanding both sides is an essential prerequisite for making informed decisions in this complex world we live in. Students bring better solutions to the problems and are equipped with skills essential to fully participate in the democratic processes at local, national or international levels. If they understand the complexity of the problem more in depth, they can defend their position better. If they understand the side which they do not believe in better, they can respond to those arguments more efficiently. Lastly, it also might happen that they change their beliefs about a specific topic after debating because they understand the issue better. This should be recognised and celebrated in the world where so many people are building their beliefs on lack of information or even false information and lies.

Teachers’ preparation

A teacher should be prepared for anything that happens in a debate. During the preparation phase they should guide the students without explicitly offering them arguments. Encourage good ideas and try leading them away from concepts that will derail the main question. The teacher should think about what they are trying to achieve with this debate and try setting instruction in such a way that they will get there. With younger students and complete beginners, it is not a bad idea to put together an information booklet out of which all teams will get their information. If the teacher decides to explain argumentation beforehand, this is also a useful place to offer some worksheets and examples of both good and bad arguments. It is important that the students are also exposed to bad arguments, so that they know what to avoid.

An important and often overlooked part of classroom debate preparation happens because we focus on the debate part but forget about the classroom. The teacher should think about how they want their classroom to be set up – do they want islands or rows? Do they want the opposing teams facing each other physically as well? It might seem intimidating, but it helps focus the argument and get the students in the right mood to debate. The student speaking should always be facing the judges.

A teacher should always have a plan B prepared if something comes up and the plan cannot be realised in its totality. It could very well happen that a student who was supposed to debate falls ill or is absent for any other reason and cannot participate. In such cases it is good to have an alternate student ready to take their place. This is common even in competitive debate. Such a student also helps with their team’s preparations and is actively involved in all facets of debate.

Everybody reading this manual probably already knows the following already, so it should be understood just as a reminder, but here are the elements a teacher should include when preparing the lesson plan:

the identification of the class, age of the students

subject matter

objectives of the lesson

methodology/debate exercise or format

debate topic(s)

communication with the students – how will the teacher introduce debate when will they give them the instructions, what kind of material will they prepare for them

staging

teacher instructions

students’ activities

handouts

Students’ preparation

Students being at least somewhat familiar with debate theory is pretty important when it comes to them preparing for a debate. This manual should offer enough ground to work on as either a teacher, or even a student, so make sure to study the debate theory chapters.

Why is theory important? Students when they very first start debating, often have problems immediately seeing what the debate is about. Because of that it is intimidating to start thinking about what connects all arguments and what makes some arguments stronger and more relevant than others.

When students are preparing for a debate, they should take care to prepare as an individual, but also to prepare as a team. It matters that everyone knows what everyone else will be talking about, because only that way will be able to defend the arguments after the opposing team negates them. In that way debate is also a great team-working activity.

When presented with a motion, the students should first do some basic individual research and come up with ideas for arguments for both sides. When they are put into groups, they should discuss the importance of all of their ideas and the value of each. A teacher should monitor carefully at this point, because what often happens is that the students with better leadership qualities take over and monopolise this activity, which should really be a team effort. Some moderation is of course welcome, but make sure everyone gets a chance to speak and present their ideas.

After the team decides on arguments it is time for more detailed individual research focused on finding examples and evidence for their claims. This is where knowing the arguments of the rest of the team also matters, because very often a student will find something that might not help them directly but will definitely boost their teammate’s argument – work together and share the material.

A student will probably find it pretty straightforward to prepare their own argument, especially if they do the work of research. What might be harder is preparing for negation. Quite often we spend a lot of time just thinking about our own arguments and what we will say that we end up not really engaging with the material brought up by the other team. This makes for a bad debate. Debate should teach how to tackle opponents’ arguments and it is quite surprising how much of that students can do before the debate even starts by just thinking about what the opposite side will probably say and constructing arguments that would prove otherwise.

It can also be useful to try and prepare some questions for the other team in advance – the students might not need them or will come up with better ones on the spot, but better be safe than sorry. Construction of good questions also shows a good level of understanding the content.

Evaluation

To evaluate debate, a teacher must first decide what they are evaluating. Is it the success of the lesson, achievement of goals and aim set, or is it the success of the debate itself? Both of these should be evaluated but the answer to this question will lead us into two different paths.

Evaluating the lesson

This is a step that will already be familiar to all teachers so we will not waste a lot of time here. Consider the answers to the following questions.

Were the aims of the lesson met?

Was the process of meeting them optimal or would you retrospectively reconsider?

What did the students get from a debate that they wouldn’t from a regular lesson?

Did the students enjoy the process?

Is the quality of knowledge they showed on a sufficient level?

What went well in the lesson and what could be improved?

What did you learn from this process that you will implement the next time you use debate?

Judging a debate

This is an area which might be less familiar to teachers reading this manual. When judging a debate there are a few factors the teachers need to pay special attention to. A teacher absolutely needs to check their personal bias and be very aware of it. Agreeing with one side of the debate personally is completely natural and expected, but that should not sway the judgement. This is why we very rarely judge by the criteria of who we agree with, but rather by the criteria of who did a better job convincing. This does not mean that by the end of the debate the teacher’s opinion should be changed, but only that the teacher is able to see the quality of the arguments presented and weigh those between each other.

It might be useful to have more than one judge – indeed this is how competitive debate works – so consider having some of the students judge as well. Judging a debate also helps the students see how debate actually works. By changing the perspective, they will be more able to see weak points in the arguments and really notice how often things that speakers believe are obvious and don’t have to be explained, are actually absolutely necessary for the standing of the argument. Note taking is an important skill which students also acquire while judging because they have to process inordinate amounts of information in a very short time.

Since this is a classroom debate, the teacher should also put more focus on the content of what the students are debating. Take into account all the information presented and decide if it is relevant, needed and presented in an acceptable way. Are the students perhaps misrepresenting facts to suit their arguments? This might sometimes happen and as a teacher it is your responsibility to alert everyone to this, if this is not done by the opposing team. You can use the discussion after the debate to find out why this happened and convince your students to not do that again. It might be tempting to lie, but a well balanced topic has good arguments on all sides and lying is absolutely not acceptable.

Using debate for grading students

A debate could also be used to grade students. In this case this would count almost like a group project work and a teacher has to decide if they will be grading each student individually, depending on their contribution to the debate, or are they marking the group as a whole. There are pluses and minuses to both these options that are well familiar to teachers and need not be rehashed. Our recommendation here is that a teacher should remember to grade the whole process, not just the final product. Much of the work that goes into a debate remains unseen, if we only watch the debate. Consider all the work that went into the research of arguments that were not presented for example.

A teacher should be aware that a debate is a very complex activity that can be challenging for students, as it does also showcase the complex levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, so they should not be expecting a perfect debate from the beginning. A teacher should make sure to grade the content of what was said, and the quality of the material presented by the students. Debate really shows the students’ understanding of the topic so it will be easy to see their weak points. A big minus here is that there is limited time given in a debate and the potential for a student to misspeak is big, so a teacher should give students the ability to defend their statements further if needed for a higher grade.

It is important to pre-test each grading activity, which means that the teacher should be actively checking how the progress of developing the arguments is going and offer students some guidance. Grading of a debate can also be an example of a formative assessment, if the teacher decides to grade the entire process.

Classroom Debate Formats

In our discussions with teachers who see the value of using debate methodology while teaching but don’t use it much, a fear of picking the right format was clearly present. When asked if they ever used debate while teaching, most of them said that not really, they used something akin to debate, but not a strict formal format they are used to seeing in other areas of life – be it competitive, public or televised debate. When pressed for details, the activities described were absolutely debated in nature and execution. This shows that teachers sometimes fear the restraints imposed on them by established formats.

The reasoning behind clearly established formats in competitive debates is clear, for an activity to be judged, there have to be rules present and applied equally regardless of who or even which institution is performing the activity. Classroom debate, however, is a completely different concept. Of course, some structure and rules still have to exist, but they can be limited to that classroom, adapted to wishes, needs and goals of that specific class. If a classroom has 30 students and the goal is to get all of them to speak at least a bit, it would be ridiculous to expect a stringent format with 3 speakers on each team and three 8-minute speeches and one 4-minute reply per team. Debate is an infinitely adaptable activity.

Presented below are a few ideas for formats that work best for certain situations, but every teacher is of course welcome to come up with your own, or to adapt these ones as much as they see fit, while, of course, still considering a few restrictions that make a debate fair and balanced, also explained below.

Word of warning – some of the students in a class might participate in competitive debates. This is both a great benefit for the class, but also an additional challenge, as they are used to a certain format that will probably be different to the one the teacher will be using for this classroom debate. Make sure to start by explaining that the format used is different, so that debater students will follow along with the explanation. It has happened before that debater students tried to hijack debate lessons because they perceive themselves as the experts on debate, which might be true, but they fail to understand that the teachers are using debate for a different reason than what the students are used to in a competitive environment. Make sure to prevent that, if that is the goal. A teacher should explain to them individually that classroom debate will be different than what they are used to but do tap into their wealth of knowledge – a teacher might even be inclined to give them special roles during the debate.

FORMATS:

ROLE PLAY

PARLIAMENTARY

COURT

ONE-ONE

Factors in adapting

Number of students

If the goal is for a majority of students to speak, the teacher might want to prioritise the number of students per team at the expense of the amount of time each student will be asked to speak. Too big teams are often very problematic because all students do not prepare equally, so in big groups consider either having more than one debate run simultaneously, increasing the number of teams or changing roles of the students.

Number of teams

While we might think of debate as a clash of two sides, and with those two teams, that is not always the case. Many debate formats, especially parliamentary, have four (or even more) teams, two for each side. There is even a possibility of more teams each defending their own position, if debating some more complex process with more than 2 sides – an interesting example of this would be a debate in Math class about pluses and minuses of using certain procedures to solve an equation (Boston, 20).

Role of students

If the goal is to have all students participate, it can still be hard to make all of them debate – not because they would be unwilling, but because of time restraints of a teaching hour. A teacher can always have some students be judges of debates, or have them ask questions, moderate etc. This way everyone will be included in the process, even if they are not actively debating.

Amount of time

It is important that an amount of time a speaker should speak is set, because this allows for equal footing and promotes argument creation – it hones a certain skill where the students will learn to say a lot in very little time and not just ramble until they make a resemblance of a point.

Formats

Spar formats

SPAR format – spontaneous argumentation is a great starter at the beginning of the school hour. It is spontaneous, it takes up only a very short preparation time and it is generally based on a topic which is assumed students already know a lot about. A teacher prepares different simple motions and they put them in a hat. Pairs of students pick the motion: one is assigned the proposition side the other the opposition.

The simplest version is that each of the students has 5 minutes to prepare. One is presenting one or two arguments in support of the motion, the other one or two arguments against the motion. The length of the speeches should be 1 minute. The teacher should offer brief feedback after each speech, no longer than 1 minute. Questions from the public can be added as well, so other students can ask questions.

Proposition speaker presents 1 argument in support of the motion. 1 minute

Opposition speaker presents 1 argument against the motion. 1 minute

A more complex version can add refutation and make each speaker speak twice, or it can add an additional speaker on both sides. The first part is the same as in the previous case but in the second speech speakers need to respond to the arguments of the other side. Length of the speeches should again be 1 minute. Teachers should give feedback at the end.

Proposition speaker presents 1 to 2 arguments in support of the motion. 1 minute

Opposition speaker presents 1 to 2 arguments against the motion. 1 minute

Proposition speaker refutes the opposition case. 1 minute

Opposition speaker refutes the proposition. 1 minute

Short debate formats

1 on 1, with audience asking questions, 8 minutes

Proposition speaker presents 2 to 3 arguments in support of the motion. 2 minutes

Audience ask questions. 2 minutes

Opposition speaker presents 2 to 3 arguments against the motion. 2 minutes

Audience ask questions. 2 minutes

2 on 2, with audience asking questions and making floor speeches, 18 minutes

First proposition speaker presents their constructive case (2 – 3) arguments. 2 minutes

First opposition speaker presents their constructive case (2 – 3) arguments. 2 minutes

Audience asks questions. 5 minutes

Second proposition speaker refutes arguments of the opposition speaker and extends their own constructive case. 2 minutes

Second opposition speaker refutes arguments of the previous proposition speaker and extends their own constructive case. 2 minutes

Floor speeches: selected speakers from the audience give 1-minute speeches in support of the proposition or opposition speaker. 5 minutes

3 on 3, cross examination and audience questions, 21 minutes.

First proposition speaker presents their constructive case (2 – 3) arguments. 3 minutes

Questions asked by the third member of the opposition team. 2 minutes

First opposition speaker presents their constructive case (2 – 3) arguments. 3 minutes

Questions asked by the third speaker of the proposition team. 2 minutes

Second proposition speaker refutes arguments presented by the first opposition speaker and rebuilds the proposition case. 3 minutes

Second opposition speaker refutes the previous speaker and rebuilds the opposition case. 3 minutes

Audience questions. 5 minutes

Both teams, proposition and opposition, have three members, two speakers and one person whose role is to ask questions. In addition to the audience questions the floor speeches from the members of the audience in support of one or the other team can be added as well.

Long debate formats

10 on 10, 33 minutes

First proposition speaker presents their constructive case (definition of the motion and two arguments in support of the motions). 3 minutes

Questions asked by the assigned member of the opposition team. 2 minutes

First opposition speaker presents their constructive case (usually 2 arguments against the motion). 3 minutes

Questions asked by the assigned member of the proposition team. 2 minutes

Second proposition speaker refutes arguments presented by the first opposition speaker, rebuilds and extends the proposition case presenting one new argument. 3 minutes

Second opposition speaker refutes the previous speaker, rebuilds and extends the opposition case presenting one new argument. 3 minutes

Audience questions. 5 minutes

Third proposition speaker responds to the previous opposition speaker, identifies main clashes in the debate. 3 minutes

Third opposition speaker responds to the previous proposition speaker, identifies main clashes in the debate.3 minutes

Fourth proposition speaker presents two or three main issues in the debate and through weighing the importance of clashes gives reasons for proposition side winning debate. 3 minutes

Fourth opposition speaker presents two or three main issues in the debate and through weighing the importance of clashes gives reasons for the opposition winning the debate. 3 minutes

Both teams, proposition and opposition, have three members, two speakers and one person whose role is to ask questions. In addition to the audience questions the floor speeches from the members of the audience in support of one or the other team can be added as well.

An example of long debate format involving all students in the class

This is a very complex format, involving everybody in the class. It should be used at the end of a specific subject chapter or course. The motion and assignments related to it should be given to students far in advance. Because of its complexity and level of preparation needed it is also very suitable for multidisciplinary approach when debate is prepared in cooperation of more subjects which gives an opportunity to longer and more comprehensive preparation.

Students are assigned different roles, 30+ students involved.

4 students as speakers of proposition team, 4 students as speakers of opposition team;

4 students who will be asking questions/cross-examining the other team, 2 for proposition and 2 for opposition team, they will ask questions after first and second speakers;

2 commentators, one in support of proposition and one in support of opposition, speeches happening before fourth speeches on both sides;

1 timekeeper, taking time and showing debaters how much time they still have;

chair of the round (you can even call them Master of the ceremony), their main role is making sure everything happens as planned, they open the debate, call and thank each speaker;

Media reports/journalists/photographs …, one student prepares a report for the school radio, one for the school newspaper, one for social media posting, one takes photos, one can even make a video for the school TV and/or social media; number of students involved can be one to 6, or even more;

The rest of the students are judges, flowing the debate and preparing a written explanation of their decision on which team wins the debate. A teacher can even give each student a specific task, for example some students writing about arguments quality, some about evidence only, some about use of language …

First proposition speaker presents their constructive case (definition of the motion and two arguments in support of the motions). 3 minutes

Questions asked by the first cross examination opposition speaker. 2 minutes

First opposition speaker presents their constructive case (usually 2 arguments against the motion). 3 minutes

Questions asked by the first cross examination proposition speaker. 2 minutes

Second proposition speaker refutes arguments presented by the first opposition speaker, rebuild and extend proposition case presenting one new argument. 3 minutes

Questions asked by the second cross examination opposition speaker. 2 minutes

Second opposition speaker refutes the previous speaker, rebuild and extend opposition case presenting one new argument. 3 minutes

Questions asked by the second cross examination proposition speaker.2 minutes

Third proposition speaker responds to the previous opposition speaker, identifies main clashes in the debate. 3 minutes

Floor speech in support of the proposition team. 2 minutes

Third opposition speaker responds to the previous proposition speaker, identifies main clashes in the debate. 3 minutes

Floor speech in support of the opposition speaker. 2 minutes

Fourth proposition speaker presents two or three main issues in the debate and through weighing the importance of clashes gives reasons for proposition side winning debate. 3 minutes

Fourth opposition speaker presents two or three main issues in the debate and through weighing the importance of clashes gives reasons for the opposition winning the debate. 3 minutes

Note

Speaking time in this format is 33 minutes in total. However, these minutes do not include chairs announcing the speakers and the short pauses which usually happen in between the speeches, before the next speaker starts speaking. Consequently, that means that for such a format a teacher needs to plan at least 45 minutes and then use the next hour for feedback or plan the execution of such a long format within a block of two teaching hours. The other option is to cut out floor speeches or shorten the length of fourth speeches.

Difference Between Classroom And Competitive Debating

Classroom debating is a curricular activity, used when teaching different subjects. Competitive debate is an extracurricular activity in which debaters meet in debate clubs and attend debate tournaments on a regular basis.

Classroom debating involves more students, but in debate clubs, because of bigger intensity, students develop their skills more in a shorter period of time compared to classroom debating.

Classroom debating uses more formats and can adapt more to the diversity and unique needs of students than tournament debating.

Classroom debating uses debate as a methodology to make the learning process more interesting and active. It leads to better learning and understanding classroom material. Competitive debate focuses more on further development of skills and winning.

Classroom debating changes the role of the students and teachers, with students becoming more of a subject of the educational process, taking more responsibility and being more in control of their learning process and improvements. Peer learning and teamwork becomes an integral part of the educational process. Teachers’ role changes towards them becoming facilitators, moderators and mentors assisting students with their goals.

Classroom debating deals mainly with the themes connected with regular school work whereas competitive debate deals mainly with contemporary issues, ones which are usually not taught in schools, so debaters have an opportunity to research, analyse and interpret the reality they live in.

For classroom debating, students research mainly the school material, for competitive debating a wide range of different contemporary sources related to the topic is used.

In classroom debating students debate with students from their own class, while in competitive debating they debate with the students from different schools and if they chose to, they could join a global debate community and debate with debaters from the whole world.

rs can create a dynamic learning environment that combines physical movement, language

Debate Theory

In the following section we will introduce the basics of debate theory that would benefit either students or teachers who wish to become more actively involved with debate, be it by participating in a debate club, or for using it in the classroom.

Debate Motions

Competitive debates revolve around debate motions – statements that one of the teams has to defend, while the other team needs to oppose. The team that succeeds in fulfilling that role, is the team that wins the debate. Most motions are worded in a way that puts the phrase “This House” in the beginning. This may seem confusing at first, but in the context of a debate motion, the phrase can, for easier understanding, be replaced with “We”. “This House” is also the style in which motions are worded in many English-speaking parliaments, and this is where this way of wording motions originates. For the sake of clarity, such formulations are also used in this manual when giving examples of motions, but if you use debate motions for the classroom, feel free to replace “This House” with “We”. Additionally, formulations starting with “This House” would seem too out of place for use in public debates in most countries.

Types of debate motions

In many competitive debate formats, motions can be either prepared or impromptu. Prepared motions are ‘released’ several weeks in advance, allowing for intense research and preparation, while impromptu motions

are announced much closer to the start of the round, for example, 1 hour before the debate starts in the Karl Popper debate format.

There are different types of debate motions, and each type puts different obligations or burdens on teams which call for different strategies on how to best defend or oppose a motion. Traditionally, there have been three types of motions: fact, value, and policy; however, with time, types of motions that fall out of these standard categories have become more prominent and they will be discussed towards the end of this section.

Fact motions

Fact motions are the simplest since the teams only need to prove that the statement forming the motion is correct if they are the proposition, and wrong if they are the opposition. In other words, something happens or does not happen in the present (but also in the past or the future). For example, in a debate on the motions: “We believe that holidays on the seaside are better than holidays in the mountains” or “We believe that the internet is harmful to youth” what each side supports is already clear from the wording. Importantly, if the wording says more harm than good, the proposition needs to prove that they are correct in the majority of examples or cases. It is not enough for the opposition to identify one example where more harm might have been done.

Value motions

Value motions are more ambiguous than fact motions in the sense that they require a very clear definition of what the debate is about. Motions “THBT that Tiktok is the best social media network”, and “THBT that maths is the most important school subject”, are both value motions but an additional step needs to be taken before deciding what each team needs to prove in order to win. There needs to be a clear definition or a metric on what is ‘the best social media network’ and what makes a school subject important. Similarly, one could argue that more harm than good motions can also be labelled as value motions since the criterion of what is a ‘good’ is welcome (but not necessary, like with the other examples).

Policy motions

Policy motions are the ones that call for a specific action, a specific policy (usually from the government). Usually, they can be identified by the word ‘Would’ in the wording and by the fact that they propose a major change in the status quo (the current state of affairs). They can also be called ‘motions of change’.

Other motions

Motions that are more difficult to be put into categories include the ones starting with “This House (or ‘We’) Supports/Opposes”, which makes teams consider whether a phenomenon or an action brings more harm and should be opposed or is reality the opposite. Although sometimes these motions can be about policies, the proposing team does not have the freedom (fiat) to propose a concrete model but needs to explain why the phenomenon they are debating on is detrimental or beneficial or what the ‘new’ situation is likely to look like. Examples of such wordings are “We oppose homework”, or “This house supports more investment in the railways at the expense of investment into the road network”.

All motions should be debated from the general perspective – not what is the best outcome for a specific actor, but what is the best outcome for all. This does not apply only in cases where the viewpoint of the actor is explicitly stated in the wording of the motion.

Swapping a couple of words can mean a drastic change in the meaning of a motion and can mean a difference between motion types. For example, “We would ban personal cars” and “We believe that personal cars do more harm than good” lead to two very different debates although both are about the same topic. In the former case, the proposition should present a model on how they would implement banning of cars, both teams should discuss what kind of consequences the policy will bring, and the opposition could make an argument about how, for example, this would limit people’s right to personal property or something similar. None of these issues are relevant if we use the latter wording, as teams are only expected to analyse what kind of benefits and harms we get from cars in the current world and which of the two is more important. There is no need to discuss a hypothetical scenario where cars are not allowed.

Creating Motions

When debating at a competitive level debate motions are prepared by tournament organisers. Some tournaments even have special motion committees. In the majority of cases, the members of the Chief Adjudicators panel create the motions. In case of classroom debating teachers need to learn how to phrase the motions for their specific class.

Although there are resources where teachers can check the motions used by tournaments and other teachers, we still encourage teachers to learn how to do them by themselves, because each teacher knows their students and their teaching material the best. When creating motions for the classroom, one should first figure out what they want the debate to be about – try to think about intriguing dilemmas or trade-offs that they encounter at the subject they are teaching. Of course, formulating motions is easier for some subjects than it is for others. Using debating to teach languages for example, means that the teacher can create motions regarding almost any topic that is interesting and accessible to their students, while one needs to put in slightly more effort when it comes to some other subjects. Here are guidelines for motion settings:

1. Debate motions should be balanced.

This is probably the most important characteristic of debate topics and something motion creators spend most time on. Sometimes the motion committee will even debate the motion themselves when creating a new motion to make sure the motion allows a balanced debate. In debate we have two sides competing against each other and debate topics should follow the principles of fairness, so that both sides have equal opportunity to win. There should be strong arguments for and against available, backed up with research and serious literature. Motion creators should check their own biases and avoid temptation to craft the motion in such a way that it prioritises one side. A bias which can be the most dangerous is having a very strong belief for one side. Nothing is wrong if a person making a motion believes in one side but what is of the utmost importance is that they are aware of it and are able to make additional checks to prevent imbalance.

Context is important as well. Majority of motions are not universal, even if European and North American debate communities often think they are. Motions have different understanding and interpretation in different parts of the world which affects the balance and fairness of the motion.

This is especially important when preparing motions for international tournaments or having a very diverse class.

2. Debate motions should have one central idea and should not be too broad.

We should be careful when crafting the motions and not expect that a lot of ideas or policies can be discussed in one debate. Motions should be about one main idea, otherwise debaters cannot really engage and analyse the issues in depth. The following is an example from one of the classroom debate teachers training in Slovenia. The motion proposed by one of geography teachers was “Slovenia should adopt Dutch euthanasia, drugs and abortion policies”. What happens if motions are crafted in such a way is that because all three areas, especially so different, cannot be successfully covered, debaters focus only on one area and not really discuss the other ones. Making three different topics was a solution for the motion proposed, one about euthanasia, the other one about drugs and the third one about abortion.

Even when having one central idea a motion can be too broad. Debate has a limited duration and there is only a limited number of issues which can be discussed. This is why a more specific and narrow motion can help debaters engage in less issues but explore them more in depth.

Instead of the motion “There is too much money in sport” in which debaters could discuss a variety of issues, from profits the owners of the clubs have, media costs, sponsorships, salaries, which could lead debate in different unpredictable directions. The narrower motion could be “We should limit the salary cap for professional sportspeople”. which would bring more focus and in-depth debate.

3. Debate topics should be interesting and appropriate to the audience which it serves.

We can debate a lot of different things, but not everything which is debatable is also interesting. Motions, preparation for debates should motivate students to research and prepare as much as possible. As educators we want students to gain knowledge and debate is used as a tool to increase students’ engagement with the topic. Furthermore, not all motions are suitable for all audiences. Again, there is no such thing as a universally appropriate motion. Age, experience, educational level, regional and cultural context, debate format, purpose are the elements which need to be taken in consideration. Success of debate processes, level of improvement and debaters’ satisfaction are heavily connected with the motion they debate. They will definitely work harder if the motion is interesting, something they can connect with, not too difficult or too easy, or if they understand its importance.

4. Debate motions should be declarative sentences, not questions, avoiding subordinate clauses.

It is very important the motion is phrased as a declarative simple sentence. It is better if the motion uses fewer words than more and tries to be as simple as possible.

A motion should not be a question because it prevents teams from making a clear stance when proposing or opposing a motion. This should be a must and should never be violated. For example: do not use “Should we allow children below the age of 14 to use social media networks?” but rather “We should not allow children below the age of 14 to use social media networks.”

Debate motions should call for a change of status quo if they are a policy motion or propose minority view in fact or value motions. The other guidelines should be followed as well whenever possible, however, there is more flexibility, sometimes connected with the content itself, sometimes with the nature of the language. In Slovenian it is often extremely difficult to make a motion using a simple, not a complex sentence of more than one clause, which goes against that recommendation.

The other issue is trying to avoid negative sentences. It makes it unnatural that an affirmative team is supporting a negative claim and the opposing team is affirming it. For example: do not use “When fighting climate change the state should not allow people to eat meat” but rather “When fighting climate change the state should ban meat consumption.”

Language used should be neutral. The words should not carry the emotional, judgemental or ideological burden. For example: “EU should order their member states like Hungary, Slovenia and Poland to destroy the awful fences on their borders” or “That terrible 2nd amendment of the US constitution should be abolished” or “Schools should only serve that great healthy food”.

Argumentation

When opposing or defending debate motions, debaters come up with different claims about the world impacts that the passing of a motion could have. Ideally, these claims are reinforced by analysis and presented in a clear, structured way – only then can they be called arguments.

Structure of an argument

There are many different ways in which an argument can be structured, and different debate formats and debating traditions prefer slightly different styles. Still, any kind of an argument should involve the following four parts: thesis of an argument, analysis, evidence, and impacts. In very basic terms, when explaining an argument, one should clearly state what they are trying to prove, a few steps on how we get there, some explanation on why the claim we are making is important and all this can be strengthened by some examples. Here is a more worked out example of a structure of an argument that is built around the four building blocks mentioned:

A thesis of an argument, sometimes understood also as a title of an argument

Before going into the reasoning, it is crucial that the audience is aware of

what exactly the speaker is trying to convince them of. This is important so that everyone is able to follow the line of argumentation more easily, to remember it more when the speech is done, and it also helps the speaker link all the analysis that follows to the main assertion they have made in the beginning of their speech. Thus, the thesis should be short, catchy and should make it clear what the speaker is trying to prove. It helps if verbs are included in the name of the argument since they help make it clear which links the speaker is trying to establish (for example, restricting the number of tourists allowed to the mountains would help the environment).

Analysis

This is arguably the most important and the lengthiest part of an argument and it should be filled with explanations why the claim made in the beginning of the argument stands. Speakers are encouraged to be creative in finding the proper explanations, but they should always strive to show, step by step, the logical links in how they get to the claim they are trying to prove. Questions such as “Why is this true?” and “How can we see it?” should be answered about all but the most intuitive claims made in the argument. This holds true for both the value judgments that they make (for example for claiming that plastic is detrimental to the environment – it needs to be explained why this is the case) as well as for mechanizations, or descriptions why a certain action will lead to another one. Answering questions such as “Why is a certain actor likely to behave in such a way?”, “What are their motivations?”, and “Why other possible outcomes aren’t likely to happen?” can be of help.

Those new to debating will often need help coming up with analysis for arguments. It is important to note that in the majority of cases, they are perfectly capable of developing the analysis on their own and they just need some encouragement to bring it to the surface. Although hints may be necessary with those who struggle coming up with explanations, teachers should never just tell their students what are the necessary explanations that will fill the logic gaps in the arguments. Try to guide them with extra questions, make them think on their own, and, as they become more experienced, they should learn to internalise internal dialogues that push them to create better analysis. When thinking of analysis, a useful tool for more experienced debaters can be to think of possible rebuttals to their arguments. Then they can think of how to shape their arguments in a way to be more resilient to challenges from the opposing side.

Evidence

Evidence (sometimes called examples), which can be presented in the form of case studies, statistics, and quotes, serve as support for the analysis, something that helps make it less abstract and easier for the audience to relate to. Importantly, examples are never a replacement for actual analysis, and should never just “be put in” a speech without contextualization and grounding in abstract analysis. Although examples help convince audiences, it is often difficult to have a fruitful debate solely around them, as they often tend to move the debate away from the core clashes or conceptual ideas. Examples can be used after the analysis part of an argument, but they can also be integrated into the explanation itself (something often done by more experienced debaters), particularly if the argument analysis, for example, several different aspects of a certain phenomenon. Examples that are known and recent are usually more convincing and when doing public debates, one should think in advance what kind of examples will be relevant for the particular audience at the public debate.

Impacts

In debate jargon impact is the word used for the parts of the speech that establish the importance of a certain argument – why is the thing that the speaker is trying to prove so relevant for the audience. This is a crucial part of any argument, as in debating several competitive arguments are going to be presented and although they will often be responded to, they will only rarely become completely irrelevant, removed from the debate.

In debate on the motion: “When in conflict, we would prefer the development of the economy over the protection of the environment”; probably whatever happens, government will be able to claim that at least in the short-term preferring the development of the economy means more jobs available, while the opposition can always claim that the environment is better off on their side. Large part of this particular debate will thus depend on the impacts, which side will be better able to prove that their argument is the more important one. Not all debate motions provide trade-offs that are that clear, but very often some kind of a trade-off does happen.

When providing impacts for their arguments, debaters should seek to do the following three things (depending on the nature of an argument, they will sometimes be interrelated and not necessary three different points):

Explain why the impact is positive/negative. For example, why are jobs important, why is harm to the environment detrimental, or, to use an example of a different hypothetical debate, why is justice something we should strive for, why does equality matter?

Be as specific as possible in their impacts. For example, if we have more jobs, what does this mean for individuals, how will this impact their everyday lives; how will a more equitable society affect people, in what way will it change how they behave, etc.?

Weight the argument or explain why the argument is more important compared to possible other effects the motion might have. How many people does it affect, to what extent they are affected, who is being affected (maybe vulnerable groups that are more relevant for the motion), to what extent is this particular impact exclusive to the motion (it cannot be reached through other means or policies).

To be clear, this is not the only possible structure of an argument, different circuits use different structures and even different expressions for the same arguments (for example a structure based around warrants and proofs). But regardless of which structure or way of doing argument we choose, all arguments should include the four building blocks of an argument mentioned above, presented in one form or another.

Example

Here is an example of an argument one can expect to hear at a middle school debating competition:

Debate motion and side

THW replace teachers with robots (proposition)

Thesis of an argument

Robots fairer

Analysis

Teachers are humans, which means they have all sorts of flaws that make them less fair, while robots do not feel emotions and don’t develop biases, which makes them fairer. Fairness of robots is better in a couple of different ways:

They are more objective. Teachers, being humans, often struggle to treat all students the same way. They might, with full awareness or subconsciously, be nicer to students who are more hard-working and who behave better in class, while they might be more reluctant to be as nice to students who they have had a negative past experience with or to students who require more attention or behave worse in class. This means that teachers inherently struggle with being objective when it comes to grading or even conversing with their students. Moreover, teachers can, just like all other people, develop biases against certain minorities (sexual, ethnic etc.). Robots on the other hand, can be programmed to treat all students the same, they don’t develop a relationship with students - be it a positive, or a negative one - and are thus more objective and by consequence - fairer.

Robots don’t feel negative emotions or stress. Teachers can often be overworked or can feel stressed. The source of the stress can be their work (working with young people can be very exhausting and they often have a high workload) or personal life (for example, they might have issues with their families, or they might be just having a bad day). If someone is stressed or overworked, they often have a tough time doing their job properly and importantly, students being taught on ‘a bad day’ can suffer from poorer teaching and this is very unfair to those particular students. By comparison, robots don’t have lives outside their work, they are never overworked and don’t feel stress at all - and this means they teach all the students in the same way, with the same commitment, and this makes them fairer.

Example

For example, studies show that 75% of teachers frequently suffer from work related stress,

Impact

Having teachers who are fair is crucial to all students feeling comfortable in the classroom. If everyone in the class knows that they will get the same treatment as their peers and that personal circumstances of the teachers don’t affect the grades or the quality of teaching they are receiving, students are more likely to work hard in schools and be less upset when they fail to do as well as they had been anticipating.

Building A Proposition And Opposition Case

Motion type specifics

Before one starts to think about the arguments they are going to run, it is worth considering the tasks different motion types place on teams.

In policy motion debates (the ones calling for a concrete policy), the audience should have a clear image of what that policy is. Therefore, the government team, since they are the ones proposing a policy, should come up with a clear definition or model of the proposed policy, answering questions such as: “who will implement the policy”, “is anyone exempt from it”, “what are the repercussions for the ones who do not follow the policy”, “Will the policy be implemented gradually or instantly”. Importantly, the goal of the model is not outsmarting the opposing team by delivering a model that is best suited to work for the government’s constructive case (by, for example, somehow excluding all unfavourable examples), but to make the debate clear to the audience.

The debate should also be debated in the spirit of the motion. To illustrate, on the motion “We would not allow children to use the internet”, the government can propose certain limits, for example, that if the life of a child is threatened, they are allowed to go online and seek help. However, the proposition cannot, in their model, say that the children should be allowed to use the internet as long as they are not using it to access social media. This is clearly unfair and not in the spirit of the motion, because the proposition is trying too hard to escape their burden of having to defend not allowing children to use the internet.

Should the model presented by the proposition be unfair, the opposition should challenge the model in the beginning of their case by clearly outlining what part of the model was unfair and why, and what would be a fairer model. Opposition can also always argue that a certain part of the model is unfeasible or that it won’t work, but it can never argue that the policy won’t be passed.

In general, policies are designed as a solution to something perceived as a problem by the policymaker (raising the income tax to tackle inequality, banning cars polluting cars in order to address environmental concerns). Correspondingly in competitive debating, when teams have a policy motion in front of them, the team proposing the motion should identify what the problem they are trying to solve is, and then develop the rest of their case in a way that would link the policy they are proposing to how the problem they have identified is being addressed. The opposition, on the other hand, can either reject the problem that the government has identified (for example saying that inequality is not a problem), or argue that the proposed solution will not work or will make the problem even greater.

Similar to fact motions, value motions do not require a specific policy to be proposed, therefore a model is not necessary. Definitions, what do certain ambiguous terms mean in the context of the debate, are welcome as well as criteria on how to judge the debate (for example, what does it mean that x is more important than y – how can we measure importance?). This is necessary because value motions require that debaters make a value judgement and in order to establish a ground on which both teams can compete, a definition of the metrics for the judgement of value is pivotal.

Importantly, unless explicitly stated in the wording of a motion, the debate isn’t limited to a specific time (for example a historical period) or place such as the country where the debate is held.

Setting up a debate case

A set of arguments together with a stance on the motion (what exactly the team stands for) run by a debate team is called a debate case. In order to appeal to a broad audience, a case should be made of diverse arguments, each of them leading to different impacts. When thinking about which arguments to run, ideas sometimes come to us naturally, without a clear understanding how exactly we got to them. This is perfectly fine, but in order to think of as many arguments as possible, it is prudent to know different techniques that can help us think of arguments.

Finding the relevance of the motion

Debate motions happen for a certain reason – at debate competitions they are set by Chief Adjudicators because perhaps they have read something in the news and it reflects a real-life problem, in classrooms teachers create motions to help the debaters understand the subject matter or test them on it, and public debates happen on topics relevant for the community that they happen in. This means that the first question debaters need to ask when starting to prepare a case for the debate is: “Why is this motion relevant?”. With the help of knowledge that they have, they should try to put it into context and answer the question. Debaters should spend considerable time on this and should return to the core question whenever they feel like they have run out of ideas.

Stakeholder analysis

When trying to find arguments one should consider different actors or stakeholders that the motion affects. For example, “We believe that all school lunches should be fully vegetarian”, affects a plethora of different groups: the schoolchildren, the general population, the farmers, the parents of students, the suppliers, ... And those groups can be further divided into subgroups: farmers to those who primarily produce vegetables and those who produce meat, schoolchildren who would support that policy and those who wouldn’t, and so on. Thinking of whether or not and how the group can be affected by the motion, can make one think of ideas for arguments by thinking of issues they have not considered before.

Thinking of the clashes

As the name suggests, clashes are chunks of similar arguments and responses to them that the debaters usually clash over as the debate progresses (for example a clash on the economy, on principles, on effect on individual well-being etc.). When preparing for a motion, think about the ways the debate is likely to turn to in the end. It helps if the potential arguments and responses from the opposing team are considered. With a successful speculation of what the clashes in the round are going to be, debaters can figure out the arguments they can run and prioritise them successfully.

The techniques above can be used as something that helps the teacher lead a discussion in the classroom when preparing for a motion, as well as for team or individual preparation.

When the ideas for the arguments are gathered, similar ones should be grouped together, and formed into arguments, following the matrix described in the previous chapter. The strongest arguments should always go first. Extra care should also be given to make sure that each argument is unique and not too similar to any of the others and that they are not in internal contradiction.

Refutation

Refutation is arguably one of the most difficult aspects of debating as it often allows for little in advance preparation and requires careful tracking of the other team’s speeches. Because of this, expectations on those who have just started with debating should not be too high, and in the initial stages, having any kind of rebuttal to the opposing team should be seen as an achievement. As students become more experienced, more focus can be put on the content itself and later on the prioritisation of different rebuttals.

Refutation should take up a separate part of the speech (apart from summaries, introductions or presentation of arguments) and in order for it to be clear, it is encouraged that it follows the following structure:

“They say...” – Debaters should establish what exactly they are responding to by stating the core idea of the particular point of the opposing side.

“We disagree with” – It should be established with what exactly they disagree with – the logic of the argument, the scope of the impact, relevance?

“Because” – One or more reasons on why the disagreement is justified should be given.

“Therefore” – An explanation of what the rebuttal achieved, how it defeated the argument.

In terms of content, students will often think of rebuttals intuitively, but it is important that they know that there are different ways in which the arguments of the opposing side can be addressed. Often a single type of rebuttal is not going to be enough to defeat the argument and diversity of responses is something that should be encouraged. The types of responses below are organised by the amount of ‘damage’ they can do to the opposing arguments. Disputing the relevance of the argument successfully, takes down the analysis and the examples of the opposing side as well, since they cease to have any real meaning. A successful rebuttal of an example can make an opposing argument sound less convincing, but if it is still supported by valid reasoning and the relevance of the argument is established, such rebuttal is unlikely to be the most effective.

Disputing the relevance of the argument.

This type of rebuttal takes the opposing argument ‘at its best’ since it assumes that the opposing side is proving a certain point, but not the significance of that point. For example, a team arguing in favour of mandatory school uniforms might claim that they would increase classroom cohesion. A team on the opposing side is allowed to claim that even if this is the case, classroom cohesion is not a desired outcome, since, for example, they believe it is better that classrooms maintain a competitive climate, one that prepares the students for future life.

If done successfully, disputing the relevance of an argument can be a very effective type of rebuttal as it means that all the logical steps that prove an argument and examples explained by the opposing side are irrelevant. However, this is a type of rebuttal that cannot be always used, as arguments often provide impacts with a significance which is difficult to be disputed. For example, if the proposing team argued that school uniforms would decrease discrimination, then it would be very difficult for the opposition to claim that this is not a relevant goal and they would need to reach out to a different type of rebuttal.

Disputing the mechanisation of the argument

All arguments seek to prove a certain impact, a harm or a benefit, and speakers should provide the audience with the logical links on how we get to the desired impacts. These logical links can also be called mechanisms. When an opposing speaker challenges those links, they dispute the mechanisation of the argument and this type of rebuttal works even if they accept that the stated impact of the argument is a desired one. The links can be disputed in various ways, and this is arguably one of the most creative parts of debating: it could be that the speaker proposing an argument had identified the wrong incentives that stakeholders have, perhaps the over-estimated their capacities, or maybe they haven’t considered how some external, as of yet unidentified, stakeholders or circumstances might affect how the argument unravels.

To use an example of this type of a rebuttal, on a motion proposing that literature classes in schools should focus more on domestic rather than on global literature, affirmative side might claim that this is beneficial, because it would make the students better equipped to function in society, as the themes and issues that domestic authors write about are more relevant to the students, as there is cultural familiarity and it is more likely that the authors come from a similar social context. Possible rebuttals regarding the relevance of the argument are relatively clear, but if the opposing speaker wanted to attack the mechanisation, they could say dispute the learning process: affirmation claims that we learn about our society by reading texts that describe it and are built around contextually close issues, but opposition might claim that we would in fact learn more if we read more foreign authors, as through the discovery of other contexts and cultures, we learn how they differ from what is already familiar to us, which enables us to have a more nuanced understanding of the society we live in.

When looking for ways to attack a line of reasoning, debaters should pay attention to any logical fallacies that might have been committed. For example, presenting the world as black and white, when maybe more alternatives exist or generalising the behaviour of actors that share some similarities.

Mitigating the impacts of an argument

Mitigation is a technique that does not seek to dispute the relevance of the argument or validity of the mechanisation in absolute terms, but rather in relative terms. It seeks to establish that although the arguments of the opposing side hold some significance, they are not that important, because either they won’t affect all the actors that the opposing team talks about, the impact might not be that significant in terms of scale, or that the impact is not entirely exclusive, meaning that the goals are already to an extent reached through other means. This type of rebuttal is fundamentally weaker than the two above, as it can only form a dent (however the dent can be significant) to the argument but can never fully do away with it.

For example, when a team makes an argument saying that a certain policy should not be passed because it would limit certain rights of people, for example the right to privacy or the right to freedom of movement. Opposing team can mitigate the relevance of the argument slightly, by explaining how those particular rights are already limited in the status quo. This, of course, would not defeat the argument made, it would only mitigate it, potentially making it less relevant in the debate.

Addressing the examples in the argument

Examples’ role in the argument is to serve as support for existing analysis, which means that rebutting just the example isn’t likely to defeat the argument as a whole. However, audiences can be swayed by strong examples, so it is important to address them. As examples serve as a concrete proof of an abstract general logic; rebuttal to examples should try to raise doubt that examples used are representative of that logic. This can be done through identifying reasons for the occurrence of the examples that fall out of logic presented in the argument or by providing counterexamples.

Questions

As a way of making debates more interactive and engaging, many debate formats use the option of questions from members of the opposing team either during or in-between one’s speech. If you are planning a public debate, questions are especially welcome, and they can also be a way of including the audience into the debate. In some formats, questions are called “points of information” or “interventions”, implying that it is not necessary that an actual question is asked, but usually the stated “point” does call for a response.

Questions can serve different purposes, and the first step in coaching debaters how to make effective use of this tool, is to describe different goals questions can aim for. What is relevant mostly to beginner debaters, questions can have a benign role, being asked to clarify a certain part of the speech in progress. More often, however, they aim to either offer direct rebuttal to the spoken material, they can highlight a part of the debate that the opposite team is paying less attention to, or they serve as ‘traps’ that aim to commit the opposing team to something that can be used against them during the constructive speech of one of the members from the team that asked the question. And since debating is a game, sometimes questions are mischievously used to try to throw the speaker off balance.

Whatever purpose questions serve, they should always be brief (some formats limit their length to 15 seconds), and clear. It is encouraged that debaters think of questions that they are going to ask already when preparing for the debate, and it often helps that the wording of the question is written down verbatim, since because of time constraints, a very precise wording is needed. Unless being allocated a specific time, such as between speeches or at the end of the debate, they are usually offered in a manner standing up and saying “Question”, or “Point of information”.

When there is a specific time allocated to answering questions, for example in the Karl Popper debate format, the most commonly used debate format in European middle schools, this is called cross-examination and it happens between speeches. One can ask a series of questions and thus develop an entire line of questions, not unlike what we are used to seeing in TV shows set in courtrooms. In such cases, it is prudent to figure out what possible answers one can give to each question likely to receive and develop strategies on what questions to ask depending on the answer received, with the aim of reaching the same goals as described in the previous paragraph.

Comparisons, Clashes And Summaries

As arguments get presented in the debate and the responses to them are given, it often becomes difficult for the audience to track all the developments. Since the debate happens in real time, there is always a danger that points made by the debaters might simply pass by. This is why it is crucial that debaters try to summarise material and try to group together arguments and rebuttals regarding a similar topic, as well as compare the two cases presented holistically. To some extent, the described techniques should happen during all of the speeches (with the exception of the first) but become more prominent later in the debate. In

fact, many competitive debate formats have speeches dedicated entirely to summaries and the identification of the core clashes in the debate.

In speeches where no new arguments are being presented, one of the most striking difficulties for debaters is usually the question of structure, as one cannot rely on the straightforward presentation of different rebuttals and arguments that characterises most other speeches. As long as the structure is intuitive and easy to follow, speakers can be creative in how they would like to structure their summaries, but freedom can also be intimidating, and this is why most debaters prefer to use the structures of clashes or questions that they plan to answer in the speech.

Clashes are usually built around content that is thematically similar. For example, a speaker might opt to build clashes around topics covered (for example democracy, international relations, privacy) or they could separate them by the type of impact (e. g. clash on practicalities and a clash on principles). Although the debaters have relative freedom in which clashes they choose and how they name them, the clashes should be representative of the debate and happen and should address the most important point raised by the teams in the round. They are called clashes because both sides clash on certain issues, and this means that clashes should be constituted of the following:

Briefly present what is each team’s constructive contribution regarding a specific clash. Clashes can also serve the purpose of clarifying the debate and if the round was messy or confusing, this function becomes vital.

Track responses (how did each of the teams respond to the arguments) and add new responses if necessary and if the debate format allows it.

Weight the contributions (both in terms of arguments as well as in terms of responses) of both teams. What did each side manage to prove? Whose arguments are more important? Are the impacts of proven points the same?

There are different metrics that can be used for weighing and comparing arguments, and again, speakers are encouraged to be creative. Among others, debaters can compare the scope and scale of impacts, compare the relevance of the issues being concerned, or discuss the likelihood of the impacts occurring. In public debates, priorities of the audience might be different than in competitive debating, where the judge should be an average informed citizen, and it helps to be aware of the audience’s mood and predispositions when deciding on which part of the debate to focus.

Style

Style is most often understood as the manner in which a speech is delivered. Convincing style makes the speaker seem confident and more pleasing to listen to, thus helping to give weight to the content. The importance of style is particularly important for public debates, since speakers often have to work even harder for the audience’s attention there.

A good style is characterised by clear speech, variation in tone and speed, smart use of pauses after or before the most important issues, a confident posture, and maintaining eye contact with the audience. These are general tips but be aware that something like an ideal style does not exist. Some individuals tend to be more passionate, others calmer, some of us speak more quietly, others are louder. The key to developing a good style is not in moulding oneself into something they aren’t, but in identifying one’s strengths and weaknesses and working on those.

Not all debate formats consider structure to be a part of style, but structure to a large extent serves the same goals as style does. It is there so that the audience is able to follow the speech and the speech is more pleasant to listen to when one knows exactly what the speaker is talking about. Thus, it is important that debaters follow certain rules regarding structure in the speeches. The speech should be divided into parts, depending on the type of format and speaker role these could be: introduction, rebuttal, arguments, conclusion, or introduction, clash 1, clash 2, conclusion, or something else. The structure is made better if the speaker is announcing or signposting all the time what exactly they are going to do (for example “I will now give my rebuttals to the opposition’s first argument, then I will present my argument...”).

Many students lack experience in public speaking and that is why it is likely that they will struggle with following the advice for good style mentioned above. This is normal, and as they will gain more experience, they will often develop a stronger style organically. Hence the priority of anyone who wants to teach style is to make the students speak as much as possible. As style greatly depends on confidence, and confidence is sometimes determined by how well prepared the debaters are for their speech, ensuring that the debaters are well prepared thus often does wonders for style.

Research

It goes without saying that when preparing for any type of a debate, students have a much easier job if they are able to lean on the general knowledge and awareness of current affairs. This is why they should be encouraged to follow the news, read as much as possible, and discuss the phenomena around them with their peers as often as possible. There is some nuance in how to approach research, depending on the context in which you are using debate.

Competitive debating

Teachers who run debate clubs can encourage the culture of informational literacy by discussing current affairs with debaters (for example as a warmup, before starting with more debate related exercises) and by encouraging debaters to compare different media sources as editorial takes on current events. It is important that the students don’t rely on a single media source, but follow several of them, ideally representing a plurality of political opinions.

When preparing for prepared motions (the ones that are known several weeks in advance), an important measure of how well prepared the debaters are going to be is the ability of the teacher to motivate them to do research. Research done about a specific motion should be structured. In initial stages the primary goal should be the contextualization of the phenomenon (a policy, a social trend...) the motion is about. Questions that can help with research are: Where does it happen? What are the different variations under which the phenomenon manifests itself? Why did the phenomenon appear? Additionally, teachers can, when working with a group, assign homework related to research, for example that each student needs to find information about a certain part of the phenomenon (for example history, relevance of stakeholder X, relevance of stakeholder Y) and then present it to the whole group. Initial research should help debaters answer the questions, why is the motion being debated and why is it relevant?

After the initial stage, the debaters can start working on the arguments, as described in the chapter on case building. It is important that when doing research, students don’t actively search for arguments in the studied material. It is normal that they will get some inspiration for the arguments they can run, but it is best if they create arguments on their own. Arguments created in such an ‘organic’ way are more likely to be believable and will fit more tightly into the round. When the arguments are agreed upon then the debaters can do more research to find support (examples, statistics, case studies) to support their case.

Classroom debating

In the classroom, the need for research is determined by the function debate is aiming to fulfil. If debate methodology is used in order to assess the knowledge that students already have, then additional research is clearly uncalled for. However, research can be an important part of the learning process in instances when debate is used as a method for learning the subject matter. In such cases, debate works well with more traditional forms of teaching (lectures, reading assignments), which can serve the role of research. Additionally, students can be also motivated to do research on their own, as described in the previous two paragraphs, but the teacher should consider guiding them a bit more with recommending literature or other materials that would help the students prepare for a debate.

Adjudication

Different debate formats have different criteria on how to judge debates. World Schools debate format, the one primarily used by high school teams, uses three different criteria for determining who won the round: content, style, and strategy. British parliamentary style, widespread in university debating, uses a more holistic marking standard focused on the content presented, while some American formats neglect the style altogether and focus solely on content.

Despite the differences, there are some principles that are common to the vast majority of debating formats:

1. The judge should be an average informed citizen without expert knowledge or biases.

This means that when one judges debates and assesses arguments, the criterion for how well an argument or rebuttal was explained should be how clear and understandable were the claims from the viewpoint of an average citizen. Although one can never do this entirely, judges should try to leave all their ideological preferences, pre-formed opinions, and specific knowledge they might have aside.

2. Debates should be judged by a self-imposed standard, not by what the judge might think that should happen in the round.

If the majority of the time of the debate is spent on a clash that might seem irrelevant to the judge, it is not the judge’s prerogative to step in to prioritise some other issue that might seem to be more important in real life, but it appeared only briefly in the debate. The debaters themselves decide what is important in the round by the time they allocate to certain issues and by explicit weighting they do, the judge’s preconception of what ‘really’ is important should not play a role.

3. Judges should listen closely and track the round

All judges should do all they can in order to listen carefully to all the speeches and make notes in a way that would enable them to recollect the debate later. They are not just a listener of the round, but someone who after the round will have to go through their notes and, if the debate is done in a competitive environment, decide on the winner.

After the decision is announced, the judge should justify their decision. There are many ways to structure one’s justification; the most common ones are to go clash by clash or chronologically through the debate. Importantly, the part where the judge is giving constructive feedback (advice and tips on how to improve) should be separated from the oral adjudication – giving out reasons why one side won over the other.

Key Terms

Speakers: debaters for (affirmative, proposition, government) and against (opposition, negative) the topic, moderators, commentators and judges/evaluators.

Moderators: they call the speakers before the speech, thank them for the speech at the end of debates, make sure everybody is aware of their role, and make order if need be.

Commentators: students listening to the debate who are invited to make short statements, generally before the final two speeches of the debate or after the debate in support of one or the other side.

Judges: in competitive debating they decide the winner and give the feedback. In classroom debate they can be students who listen and take notes during the debate and give the comments at the end.

Timekeeper: A student assigned to measure speech time.

Teams: in short formats teams can consist of one or two debaters, in longer formats debaters may debate in teams of two, three or more against another team of the same number of speakers.

Proposition or Affirmative: the side favouring the topic debated. Opposition: the side opposing the topic to be debated.

Introduction: a short period where a neutral party would introduce the topic, the format, and the debaters.

Constructive case: debaters present their basic case, introducing what they think are the important issues for one or the other side.

Refutation: Responding to the other side case.

Rebuilding: Responding to the other side’s refutation of your own case.

Question: a question asked of a debater by someone else.

Cross-examination: questions asked by one side in the debate of the other, between the speeches.

Point of information: questions asked by the opposing team during the speeches.

Time limits: all speakers must respect the time limits, pay attention to the clock while speaking, and finish promptly when time has expired.

Debate Pedagogy

A Short Debate History

During history, debate, as a didactic method, has found different realisations and motivations for its use. The importance of a historical survey not only allows us to become aware that what we are doing is part of a wider heritage and educational approach, but above all helps to stimulate awareness that forms and motivations for which the debate is used today do not always correspond to those of the past. And this awareness offers the opportunity to refer to the past to review or rethink the present practice, beyond the forms this guide proposes. Moreover, the various references to authors presented in this historical sketch open up access to their works, or the works of their contemporaries, which form the basis of most of the logical, rhetorical and argumentative strategies that permeate debate theory and practice nowadays.

In order to avoid this section to cover too much space, it has been decided to exclude the references to its practice in the Chinese or Indian traditions, for example, in order to focus on Western history, according to its canonical historical periodization like Ancient Age, Middle Ages, Modern Age, Contemporary Age.

Debate as a teaching method in ancient Greece

Many authors consider Protagoras of Abdera (born between 490 and 470 BC) as the father or inventor of debate even though debates were part of Greek public life since at least the sixth century BC. Nonetheless, the use of debate as an educational method conducted by a scholastic institution can be certainly traced back at least to the Lyceum, that is to the garden dedicated to Apollo Lyceus in which Aristotle began to teach (335 or 334 B.C.), although this school later took the name Peripato, from the place chosen for the lessons: the peripatos, that is to say the promenade. Already Aristotle in chapter VIII of his book The Topics outlines in fact the characteristics of dialectical meetings, real debates distinct from political or heuristic ones, whose raison d’être is to allow the exercise of dialectics in its technical, social and gnoseological usefulness: technical since “with the possession of the method we will in fact be more easily able to argue about the proposed topic” (Aristotle, The Topics, 101a 30-31); social science “it is useful for conversations since once we have reviewed the opinions of the great mass of men we will come to relate to them not on the basis of their extraneous points of view, but on that of their particular opinions” (Aristotle, The Topics, 101a 31-34); gnoseological, since “being able to raise difficulties with regard to both aspects of the question, we will more easily discern in each object the true and the false” (Aristotle, The Topics, 101a 34-36). These meetings, of which Aristotle in Book VIII of the The Topics sets out the regulatory and ethical apparatuses, were characterised as an exchange of questions and answers between two opponents and were probably based on the forms of reasoning that Aristotle outlined in the Prior and Posterior Analytics and in the book The Topics: the demonstrative syllogisms and the dialectical syllogisms.

The method of the middle age universities: the disputation

In the Middle Ages, under the influence of Aristotle, and more broadly in the period between the 11th and 17th centuries, debate can be identified with, or assimilated to, the form of disputatio. The disputatio, which flourished in Italy and France, as well as being an event of great appeal in its form of disputationes quodlibetales - i.e. a dispute in which the masters could not pose the argument to be discussed but this was chosen, often in the form of unpublished and unexpected questions, by the students, the other masters present at the dispute or the public -, was more specifically a form of university exercise. More specifically, debate was a form of university exercise. An integral part of the school curriculum in the faculties of art, medicine, theology and law, the functions of debate were manifold: it served to promote one’s logical abilities, to analyse and subdivide, to train in the exposition of one’s theses, to accustom one to asking questions and facing objections, to sharpen one’s wits and cultivate readiness to reply, and to give an argumentative foundation to things already known.

Disputation created a great space for intellectual freedom and the university was considered and was seen as the place par excellence of total freedom of thought, even if efforts to regulate and prevent disputes between Christians and Jews were not the mildest, because when badly conducted - perhaps because of the violation of the rules of argumentative relevance and respect for one’s opponent - they could fuel heresies. But disputes did not only take place in universities and were not only held by ‘university professors’. It is increasingly believed that non-magisters also regularly conducted disputes in the various houses or seats run by religion. From a logical-argumentative point of view, the mediaeval dispute is distinguished by some authors into the two types “inquisitorial” and “syllogistic”. While in “inquisitorial” disputes, i.e. the oldest ones, an “interrogator” (interrogans) attacks the thesis of a questioned (respondens), through a series of questions in the “syllogistic” method, and proper to the later disputes, syllogistic arguments are offered by an opponent (opponens), who is sometimes called an arguer (arguens), to attack a thesis proposed by a questioned (respondens).

Ante litteram cooperative learning with debate in the ratio studiorum

As faith in mathematics as a method of understanding reality and reaching the truth spread, dialectics and debating were expelled from university curricula, especially in Europe. Nevertheless, debate, in its disputational guise, continued to find wide adoption in Jesuit schools and the Ratio Studiorum, the curriculum of Jesuit schools, proves this. Published in 1599 and subjected to several corrections until one of its last updates in 1832, the Ratio Studiorum anticipates, partially, the contemporary didactical approaches of cooperative learning and peer education by recognizing a defined and non-peripheral space for debating. In fact, in the chapter dedicated to the general rules for professors of lower courses it is indicated that the dispute, usually based on the professor’s questions and the corrections of the emuluses (the older students) or on the emuluses themselves questioning each other, must be held in high regard and practised whenever time allows. This is to stimulate a proper spirit of competitiveness that is of great incentive for studies.

Debating during modern era in USA and England

With the Enlightenment, dialectics had to give way to experimentalism and Latin to the vernacular. In the 18th century in American universities the value of syllogistics for the attainment of truth was also contested.

In England and the United States in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, clubs and associations began to form in the wake of the British and American parliamentary debates, which regarded debate as a method of improvement and progress. Members met to discuss the major religious, moral, social and political issues of the day and to hone deliberative and oratorical skills, but above all to encourage those who were systematically denied any possibility of public expression to speak out and debate. Women, for example, who had been excluded from London debating circles until 1750, were invited to take part from 1752 onwards, and by 1780 the first exclusively female circles were formed.

An interesting reading of the development of debate for the 18th and 19th centuries is offered by H. Summers, F. Whan and T. Rousse. According to these authors, after the debate projects started in Great Britain in the early 1800s - from which the Cambridge Union was born in 1815, the Oxford Union in 1823, and the University College London Union in 1828 -, debate spread to all literary societies in the United States. These debates had a very simple form: trivial issues, four or five speakers, speeches memorised in advance. As debates became more common, and attended by law students, many features of legal debates were introduced. The burden of proof, i.e. the obligation to put forward evidence or reasoning for one’s allegations when requested to do so, the possibility to appeal to authority, the idea of proof, i.e. reasoning and factual material with a persuasive function, and the way of formulating the issues to be debated, were some of these changes. Subsequently, the number of debaters was reduced and the speeches, which had been highly prepared, were mostly based on improvisation.

The limited use of debate as a didactic method today

From the 20th century, debate as an educational and training method resumed to be part, more or less widely and in a more or less integrated way, of the educational systems of countries all over the world. Primary, middle, high schools and university projects vary, from promoting playful contexts in which learning can take place to competitions where ideas and skills can be compared and developed at the highest and broadest level. The World Schools Debating Championship (WSDC), established since 1991, or the World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC), established since 1981, i.e. the world tournaments of high school and university students, are only two examples of the valuable debate-related training offer. Moreover, today, there are countless clubs and associations flourishing that, according to different protocols, propose it as an effective system of personal, professional and civic growth, operating in both democratic and totalitarian contexts. Promoting this didactic use of debate, which would make it possible to transform curricular teaching from a transmissive to a cooperative one, is one of the objectives of this text.

Debate And Education

It is clear from the previous section that debate, as it is understood in this text, has a strong educational value. The concept of “education”, however, needs to be clarified as it is polysemic and this will allow for a distinction to be made between the different effects of debate in this fundamental sphere. In addition to offering theoretical tools, this section also proposes a recapitulation of some empirical studies organised by competences promoted that will not only provide access to the methodologies used to carry out research in this sphere, but will also offer a basis for justifying and promoting debate projects within one’s own institutions.

Education as formation of identity, as social process and as professional training

It is clear from the previous section that debate, as it is understood in this text, has a strong educational value. The concept of “education”, however, needs to be clarified as it is polysemic and this will allow for a distinction to be made between the different effects of debate in this fundamental sphere. In addition to offering theoretical tools, this section also proposes a recapitulation of some empirical studies organised by competences promoted that will not only provide access to the methodologies used to carry out research in this sphere, but will also offer a basis for justifying and promoting debate projects within one’s own institutions. Education is, first of all, a relationship, a relationship between two or more individuals in which some take on the role of educators and others the role of educated. This relationship is distinguished by the fact that it is aimed at the free growth of the personality of the student and his emancipation from moralism, ideologies and prejudices. In this sense, education is not reduced to a technique, or a set of techniques or models of behaviour, but tends towards the formation of the individual, to ensure that they achieve a complete form. However, what form, values and knowledge the individual is encouraged or predisposed towards varies according to the different philosophical or cultural approaches that inform the same pedagogy of reference. This aspect highlights an internal tension in education, namely that between being, i.e. free growth, and becoming or having to be, the latter being understood as the assumption of a form which is always mediated and historicized: a social process. This oscillation between Rousseau’s ‘noble savage’, who risks corruption by society, and the need for a tutor, an education, that will allow Emilius and Sophia a complete development as persons, couples and citizens, plays an important role in the educational process, characterising itself as a moderating opposition to disciplinary tendencies. In other words, education aims to transmit the systems of representation through which human groups interpret and justify their collective projects; the normative systems through which actions are validated for each cultural sphere; the knowledge and techniques through which survival is ensured; and, finally, the systems of action that enable the structuring of contexts in which dispositions can creatively produce behaviour. Not excluded from these spheres are systems of expression that enable communication, persuasion, and the structuring of roles and functions. This system of cultural perpetuation and production, precisely because it always takes place within a defined and pre-constituted historical horizon, in order to avoid lapsing into uncritical transmission or into manipulation and subjugation, cannot exclude from its objectives the acquisition of a sense of dignity, i.e. the full moral development of the individual, the autonomy of judgement, and therefore his complete cognitive development and freedom of action. However, it also has to deal with the productive needs of the environment with which the student will have to relate, which is essential because talking about identity while neglecting professional identity risks excluding an important aspect of the person and the personality. It is these three dimensions of education, i.e. education as identity formation, as a process of socialisation and as professional training, which often come into contradiction when education focuses on one or only some of them while neglecting the others.

Debate as mediator among conflicting instructional goals

Within the framework of autonomy of judgement, debate is of particular importance because it enables the promotion of different competences, including epistemic competence, i.e. the set of knowledge, skills and motivations that guide the person to achieve a more precise understanding of the world, i.e. that enable the attainment of knowledge. It is knowledge that forms the sense that builds our competences; it weaves the autobiographical narrative plot and conditions existential scenarios; it helps to interpret the world because it provides the tools for reading, orientation and understanding; it facilitates not only expressing an ethical option, but becoming aware of the existence of various options; it enables us to create and realise our projects. Only a profound epistemological education that debate can promote can lead to an informed assumption of responsibility and thus to a conscious, active, free ethics. In fact, an education focused only on the acquisition of ‘technical’ skills and dispositions, as we indicated earlier, cannot be considered education in the full sense, i.e. in the sense previously indicated of moral development through the corroboration of a sense of dignity, autonomy of judgement and freedom of action. Certainly education cannot lack a ‘technical’ preparation, if only because autonomy of judgement is guaranteed by the acquisition of epistemic competence, which also includes the ability and knowledge necessary to recognise and refute manipulative and propagandistic techniques and information. Debate is also fundamental in these respects, making it possible to acquire an awareness of a use of language that is not strictly logical and referential, while at the same time nurturing those communication skills that are fundamental for the expression of one’s own ideas and for mutual understanding. Educating is therefore not only about acquiring technical and intellectual skills but also about developing emotional, psychological and social sensitivity. The importance of emotional and social sensitivity and awareness in education is effectively argued in Formación humana y capacitación by Humberto Maturana and Sima Nisis, who note that the different emotions have distinct effects on our intelligence and learning, a process at the basis of human transformation; competitiveness, envy and ambition, for example, would compromise the exercise of intelligence, a conclusion also well demonstrated by studies in cognitive psychology. Education must therefore be oriented towards a humanistic, and not exclusively technical, training, in order to foster the capacity for action and reflection with a view to responsible transformation that is consistent with the community and the natural environment. According to Maturana, in fact, by declaring ourselves to be only rational beings we build a culture that devalues the emotions and we fail to see the daily interweaving of reason and emotion that constitutes human living. An example of this close interrelationship would be offered by fundamental disagreements, i.e. disagreements on fundamental principles, which always have a strong emotional impact since the participants experience the criticism of these principles as an existential threat and to the management of which the debate contributes, as does attention to the rules of interaction and turn taking, which are extremely important for the relationship and the fruitfulness of the confrontation. From all of the above, the debate turns out to be an extremely valid methodology for meeting the various objectives that a healthy and harmonious education should set itself.

Some empirical evidence for debate

The concept of “competence”, through which we will look at the fallout of the regulated debate as a useful concept in the processes of orientation and formulation of school and work learning strategies, is very complex to circumscribe. Starting from the behaviourist point of view, competence is identified with the operational capacities people manifest through performance: the ability or rather the performance. It is the performance in front of a task, in a multiplicity of particular contexts and not just once, that determines the social recognition of competence. Cognitivism, however, has shown that what a subject shows they can do does not always correspond to what they actually know how to do: some components of competence, such as the cognitive aspects possessed and developed by the subject, are not directly visible. Therefore, there would be no competence without knowledge, or without a structured baggage of declarative knowledge, i.e. concerning data, facts, places, names, etc., and procedural knowledge, i.e. concerning the way of performing a given task, as well as the capacity of hierarchizing and organising knowledge. It is even procedural knowledge that distinguishes experts from novices. For some authors, from Chomsky onwards, the distinction between competence and performance is therefore necessary. However, even the skills and knowledge suitable for dealing with various new problematic situations are only the tip of the iceberg of competence, and would not be mobilised without the presence of motivation and willpower, which are predominant in determining or characterising excellence in competence, as well as predictive and facilitating factors for learning. Therefore, competence, as presented by the personalist model, by placing the subject at the centre of its interest, also includes as fundamental the volitional, motivational and value aspects of the subject. Knowledge, skills, attitudes and values would therefore be constitutive elements of competence. Among the knowledge, skills or attitudes that the debate would allow to acquire or develop we find attested:

the acquisition or development of logical and argumentative skills

the acquisition or development of non-verbal speaking skills

the acquisition or development of social and civic competence

the reduction of the social divide

the acquisition of knowledge

Acquisition or development of logical and argumentative skills

Learning to evaluate information is of fundamental importance and this seems to be the essential consequence of debating, which, precisely in raising objections to the other side and responding to their objections, stimulates higher order cognitive processes and differs from merely oratorical activities. As C. Pontecorvo (1997b), “opposition is productive because it prompts the articulation of reasoning”. The study by W. Semlak and D. Shields, using judges’ accounts of 94 students participating in a prestigious American event, found that students with debate preparation performed significantly better in problem analysis than students with oratorical preparation (Semlak and Shields, 1977). The presence of internally coherent and rich arguments to anticipate and refute the arguments put forward by the other side is instead attested by an Italian study that reaches these conclusions from the analysis of students’ texts elaborated ex ante and ex post the participation in a debate tournament (Turchi, Barbarossa and Monaco, 2008). Mainly, however, the study of the effects of debate on critical reasoning or critical thinking is American. Numerous investigations were carried out on this subject, especially up to the 2000s. Along with the research presented above, one of the most interesting is that of Green and Klug, who assume that critical reasoning skills are acquired only when they are transferable to new situations. On the basis of this premise, the authors collected the writings of 21 students ex ante and ex post debate meetings, on a topic that had never been discussed before, and had them analysed by impartial colleagues. The results confirmed a significant improvement in both reasoning and writing quality in the debaters compared to the control group (Green and Klug, 1990).

Even if not all scholars agree on the extent of debate impacts on critical thinking (Cfr. Greenstreet, 1993; Hill, 1993) the extensive meta-analysis by M. Allen et al. (1999) also leads to a generalisation of the improvement in the critical abilities of debaters. The statistical analysis of a large number of longitudinal (pre vs. post on an identical sample) and cross-sectional (experimental group vs. control group) researches referring to different methods to promote reasoning skills, led to the conclusion that, regardless of the type of research project carried out, debating is the best method to develop critical skills (Allen et al., 1999). However, for Hill, the high reliability and high statistical validity of the WGCTA does not make it such a perfect instrument that it does not require the use of other and different instruments to complement its results (Hill, 1993), while for M. Korcok, the difficulty of having groups of randomly selected individuals, given the great commitment that participation in debates requires, is unlikely to make it possible to carry out substantial studies on the link between participation in debates and critical reasoning through a real experiment (Korcok, 1997). Even if impacts are positive and they are also supported by anecdotal evidence, empirical methodologies need to be improved to deepen the relationship between debate and critical thinking skills.

Acquisition or development of non-verbal communication skills

Verbal and non-verbal communication skills are among the most powerful and frequently attributed benefits of debating. The study by Semlak and Shield presented above highlights this: not only did students with debate preparation perform better than students with oratorical preparation in analysing the problem, but they also performed better in organising and communicating the message. Studies by B. Williams et al., and R. Littlefield note that the ability to speak and communicate is the most commonly perceived benefit of students (Littlefield, 2001; Williams, McGee and Worth, 2001). This result also emerges from a broader survey, that of N. Inoue and M. Nakano who, in addition to asking what are the most common benefits of debating perceived by Japanese students, compared the data obtained with similar surveys carried out in the United States of America. The conclusion drawn from the comparison was that communication skills are the most cross-culturally recognised benefit (Inoue and Nakano, 2011). These investigations, taken as a whole, exhibit the limitations frequently found in the field of debriefing research. The first limitation is to restrict the analysis of the students’ communicative improvements to their perception of their own improvements: in fact, it would also be possible to analyse the marks expressed by the judges for each individual student throughout the tournament or to evaluate the footage of the same student in successive matches. The second limitation is that the central terms of the research are not sufficiently problematised. In fact, it is not clear whether by the expression “communicative skills” these investigations refer to verbal or non-verbal skills, or whether these improvements are referable to the debate context or to the wider relational context knowing that, for example, the tendency to argue leads to have more satisfactory relationships within the debate context (Swift and Vourvoulias, 2006) but also to be less aggressive in general (Infante, Trebing, Shepherd and Seeds, 1984).

Acquisition or development of social and civic competence

One might wonder why social and civic competence, which are so important, are only dealt with at this point. In fact, when arguing for the potential for debate, reference is often made to the benefits mentioned above, for which empirical studies have already been presented. The ability and willingness to consider the various alternatives around an issue, to critically evaluate the information available, and to communicate one’s position in an assertive but not aggressive way, leads in fact to avoid the homologation demanded by powerful propaganda media, to avoid easy adherence to cognitively accommodating points of view, and to become agents of social and political change. The aforementioned skills, which, as we have seen, can be acquired through debate, are at the basis of democracy itself and could be summed up in the ability to tolerate and properly manage disagreement (Huckfeldt, Johnson and Sprague, 2004). J.E. Rogers’ study supports this conclusion. In a thirteen-year study of the same subjects, Rogers found that former debaters were significantly more involved in political and social life and more culturally tolerant than the non debaters in the control group. Those who participate in this activity are more likely to vote, have culturally diverse friendships and do voluntary work (Rogers, 2002, 2005; Rogers and Rennels, 2011). B. Mezuk and S. Anderson (2012) also emphasise the important relationship between participation in debating projects and social and civic competence. Debaters, compared to non-debaters, are said to show greater social competence, characterised as the ability to share what one has, to cooperate and to listen to others; a more developed social conscience, operationalised in terms of helping others and the less well-off; a more pronounced sense of civic duty, understood as a sense of responsibility towards the problems of the community and towards its improvement.

Not comparable to the results referring to the regulated debate, although interesting for those involved in cooperative learning, are the studies of D. and R. Johnson. They develop and adopt an instrument, called Controversy, which is similar in some respects to debate, but substantially different. In addition to a preparation rigorously oriented towards cooperative learning, Controversy differs from regulated debate in that it also has a discussion in which the parties, previously aligned in opposing factions, reach a common point of agreement by mediating their reciprocal points of view (Johnson and Johnson, 1992). This objective, appreciable if it is achieved on conflicts, i.e. on incompatible objectives, is somewhat perplexing if it is achieved, as often seems to happen, on disagreements, i.e. on incompatible points of view. If it is appropriate to smooth out situations in which two or more actors obstruct each other in achieving their mutual objectives, the same need not be done for disagreement. In fact, it is not the presence of disagreement that threatens the health of a society (Willard, 1989): as Zarefsky points out, a Catholic and an atheist can have and maintain opposing views on abortion but nevertheless be able to cooperate to reduce the circumstances in which the moral dilemma arises, i.e., for example, to avoid unwanted pregnancies (Zarefsky, 2012). Secondly, the systematic settlement of cognitive differences implies the misunderstanding of the other party (Huckfeldt, Johnson and Sprague, 2004) and leads to denial of one’s own sensibilities (Ash, 1951), conformity (Willard, 1987) and not basing one’s choices on the goodness of arguments.

Tackling early school leaving and reducing the social divide

Early school leaving is a composite phenomenon. It can indicate school drop-out, school failure or lack of interest in the educational pathway undertaken (Caputo, 2006). However, from a psychological point of view a situation with a potential risk of dispersion is experienced by the subjects as a discomfort and manifests itself with low self-esteem, low esteem in their scholastic abilities and low esteem in their relational abilities. It is precisely on these aspects that the debate intervenes, recognising itself as an effective methodology for combating early school leaving. The survey carried out by E.D. Williams, R.B. McGee and S.D. Worth (2001) on 753 students participating in the debate project asked them to list the benefits of their participation in the project. Within the 49 categories of improvements that were indicated by the students, the increase in self-esteem was identified as the sixth most obvious perceived benefit. The increase in the level of self-esteem also emerges from an analysis carried out by the Urban Debate League in Minnesota: the debaters showed a 15% higher self-esteem than the control group, an increase proportional to the duration of their participation in the activity (see Snider, 2011a). These findings are also supported by research carried out by J. Rogers (2005), professor of communication and drama at the University of Missouri: participants in debating projects were less prone to depression than their non debating peers. If an educational method, as in the case of regulated debating, encourages academic success, which is a prelude to an improvement in economic conditions and consequently in life expectancy, then such an instrument becomes fundamental at an educational and social level (cf. Duffin, 2006; Mezuk, 2009). A study by B. Mezuk, whose survey sample consisted of approximately 2500 students who attended at least one year of school between 1997/1998-2006/2007, years in which the Chicago Debate League organised debate tournaments in the Chicago urban area, although conditioned by self-selection, produced the following results: the grade point averages of the debating students in their final year were higher than those of the non-debating students in the same year; the average of African-American debaters who dropped out of school was about three times lower than that of African-Americans who did not debate; the probability of reaching the level of preparation required for passing university was twice as high in African-Americans who debated as in those who did not debate (Mezuk, 2009).

Mezuk and colleagues (2011) also surveyed ten years of school data from the institutional records of 116 high schools and the records of debate tournaments held during the same period. The comparison between the control group and the experimental group was made by comparing the outcomes of the two groups with the compulsory standardised test, the American College Testing (http://www.act.org/aap/) or ACT (which measures students’ readiness for university) and with the Grade Point Average (GPA), i.e. the average of all the grades of each individual student per semester. In addition, to eliminate the problem of self-selection, five groups of debaters and non-debaters, who were homogeneous in terms of their probability of participating in the debate, were compared. The results of the analysis led to the conclusion that debaters were 19% more likely to graduate than non-debaters, had a grade point average about 1 point higher and were significantly more likely to meet or exceed the minimum score required for passing the ACT test, especially in science and mathematics (Mezuk, Bondarenko, Smith and Tucker, 2011). Also B. Mezuk, together with her colleague S. Anderson, pointed out that those who participate in debate education projects are more likely to be prepared for university studies (Mezuk and Anderson, 2012) and, as presented in a preliminary report in 2013 on data collected in previous years, are more likely to enrol in university (Mezuk and Anderson, 2013). In addition to the increase in self-esteem and the improvement in academic performance, debating also intervenes in the improvement of esteem in one’s interpersonal skills, as indicated in the section on social and civic competence. Participants in regulated debate training projects become more inclined to communicate towards their classmates according to cooperative strategies and reduce their tendency to employ contentious strategies (De Conti, 2014), have more culturally diverse friendships (Rogers, 2002, 2005) and are more helpful towards each other and the community (Mezuk and Anderson, 2013).

Acquisition of knowledge

One of the main aspects this handbook addresses is precisely the acquisition of disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge. This is facilitated by the fact that the debate always takes place on precise and controversial topics: motions. Some examples of motions are: “This house believes that human rights are historical products” or “This house believes that science can be reconciled with religion”. It is the arguing for or against such motions that actively engages students in the research and elaboration of the content and, therefore, facilitates the acquisition of knowledge inherent to the discipline about which the questions question, as H. Vo and R. Morris indicate (1996). Three out of four students in their economics course considered the debate to be helpful in understanding economic issues and in developing a more concrete view of economics. S. Scott came to the same conclusion in a science, technology and society course (Scott, 2008). The necessary presence of pros and cons, guaranteed by the debate, also allows for a better understanding of the various positions around the subject matter, a result corroborated by the five-year study by H. Combs and G. Bourne (1994). In this survey, 88.9% of the students participating in their business administration courses considered debate to be a better tool than lecture for understanding the various positions around controversial issues, while 77.5% considered that they learned more from debate than from lecture.

Disciplinary knowledge is also deepened by confrontation with the opposing team and internal confrontation within each team. The cultural background of the student or participant is also enriched by considering different points of view. M. Turner et al. (2010) point out in fact that those who are familiar with a topic will only engage in searching for conflicting information when they are aware that they will be confronted with a person who has a different opinion to their own, a sine qua non of debates. As Cousinet (1971) also makes clear, when faced with opposition, the child learns to live socially, i.e. to enrich his or her thinking with the contribution of the thinking of others. Furthermore, in order to discuss social or philosophical issues, for example, notions of other disciplines such as economics, psychology, anthropology, etc. are also needed, or information provided by associations, institutions or bodies dealing with specific issues. In this way, not only are wider knowledge than that immediately required by the issue of debate acquired, but also knowledge from different but interconnected disciplinary fields is related to each other. This awareness is also manifested by the students of a psychology course on gender issues, surveyed by J. O’Kon and R. Sutz (2004). The use of regulated debate for knowledge acquisition is attested to in many disciplines including economics (Vo and Morris, 1996), business administration (Combs and Bourne, 1994), philosophy, geography (Estaville, 1988) and nutrition (Magnus, 2000), to name but a few studies particularly focused on knowledge acquisition. However, few of these studies present statistical analyses of the results obtained, and even those that do limit their investigation to students’ perceptions of their learning. One might wonder, in fact, whether these data should not also be corroborated by structured testing, of which C.Green and H. Klug’s survey seems to be one of the rare examples (Green and Klug, 1990), or by performance tasks such as participation in the same debate, since, for example, the objections that teams address to each other may highlight their degree of preparation (Barnard, 1937).

Debate And Ethics

The Ethical Paradigm To Complete Education

Ethical reflection is concerned with systematising and defining the concepts of ‘right behaviour’ and ‘wrong behaviour’, and with outlining the moral rules governing such behaviour. Indicating which good habits we should acquire and which duties we should follow, or assessing the consequences of our behaviour for other people, are some of the aspects covered by ethical investigation. But what is the relationship between ethics and debate? Why should we think about debate from this perspective and ask ourselves which behaviours are right and which are wrong, or which values inform debating practice? Perhaps the sciences of education have not already confirmed that debate is an effective teaching practice, leading to the acquisition of key skills and competences suitable for success in 21st century societies and effectively supporting the formation of the individual as a citizen?

Ethical reflection, more than one might imagine, is vital to debate in the twofold sense of being productive of authentic reflection, and of safeguarding its existence. In the first case, it complements pedagogical reflection, which very often, rather than infusing teaching practices with new values, only attests to the extent to which practices conform and conform students to dominant values; in the second case, it prevents the debate from promoting attitudes that are anything but noble and which would be capable of undermining its incredible educational and training potential, as well as its dissemination.

Reflecting on ethics and debate, even when used for teaching, is crucial because debate is, first and foremost, a competitive practice and competitiveness can exacerbate agonism. Ethical reflection on debate is also important because it is an activity that implies communication and argumentation, and as such, ethical communication must be promoted.

There are many ethical theories through which to analyse the debate: deontology, utilitarianism, the ethics of rights, the ethics of care, to name but a few. However, one ethical paradigm that is as important for debate practice as it is generally considered antiquated is that of the virtues. The virtues, understood in Aristotelian terms as the perfection, the excellence, of a faculty that makes its operation worthwhile, are fundamental to understanding the educational framework of debate and its potential in educational terms, and some of them more than others, and around some of them the correct practice of debate hinges.

Loyalty

Debating is a competitive activity that is carried out, by teams, with great agonism. If the confrontation between the teams were to take place without respect for the rules, then there would no longer be any fairness of confrontation. Indeed, if the principle of fairness were not respected, the formative function of debate would cease to exist, even if technical improvements in the oral presentation and argumentative skills of the debaters were noted. Loyalty is a very broad concept that is also characterised by respect and justice. In the immediate term, being loyal leads one to think of respect for the rules, eloquently indicated by the expression ‘recognising the loyalty of an opponent’. A debating team that has supported and defended its own position, as well as contested that of the other side, with a fighting spirit but respecting the rules, without being aggressive, without causing obstruction, without playing to the limit of the rules, could be qualified as loyal. However, although respect for the rules is part and parcel of fair play, it does not exhaust its content, which is much more significant. It does not only imply respect for the rules, which are as important in debating as in any sport or game, but also incorporates friendship and respect for others.

Intellectual honesty

Debating is a communicative activity aimed at convincing or persuading a panel of judges or audience of one’s own position and relies heavily on the elaboration, use and transmission of reasoning and information derived personally or from third-party sources. The aim of this activity is not only to equip students with fundamental social and personal skills but also to promote a conscious attitude towards the cognitive opportunities offered by participating in and witnessing an adversarial confrontation.

Specifically, intellectual honesty requires the ability and willingness to critically evaluate the credibility of statements and arguments encountered, especially one’s own; it requires combating negative and positive biases (whether towards particular ideas, particular individuals or groups) when evaluating the statements and arguments of others; it also requires (in educational contexts) being aware of and appreciating the intellectual development of other people and respectfully supporting this process. Put more succinctly, intellectual honesty involves a commitment to pursue the truth, to reduce prejudice and injustice towards others, and to support the intellectual development of all members of the community. According to Alfred Snider, honesty might even be the only ethical prescription of the debate ‘game’, which would invest all figures orbiting the debating activities - tournament organisers, judges, participants and coaches, we would add - and would mainly concern the use of evidence and the procedures of debate.

Respect for diversity

Among the various aspects that characterise debate, its social, socialising and educational functions are clear. Debating means dealing with people who hold different points of view and sharing with them the distinctive signs of one’s own diversity in the intense feeling of belonging to the same community. In this context, respect imposes itself as a fundamental value, since not only is the recognition of other people’s ideas, but also their freedom and dignity.

Developmental Stages Of The Learner And The Reference Framework For Democratic Culture

The whole framework this guide is based on includes two distinct kinds of theories: the first relates to the cognitive developmental stages which helps to understand how cognition develops through the ages, how cognitive development can be supported or promoted and how cognitive development can be understood in depth so as to avoid rigid application of these theories for educational purposes. The debate exercises proposed are checked with the developmental stages theory so as to assure, as far as it is possible, that exercises are adequate for the ages they are recommended for.

The second framework is related to educational goals and the desired and intended behaviours of students. It also provides a detailed rubric of competence related to debate so as to help monitor and evaluate improvements.

Both frameworks must be taken into consideration to develop a vertical and horizontal curriculum on debate because without understanding cognitive development and without a coherent set of educational objectives, debate theory and exercises could bring to unfitting and inconsistent practices and learning. Moreover, combining these frameworks could work as a whole theoretical framework for an evidence based instruction through debate, along the horizontal curriculum, which is also the approach assumed in the Erasmus+ project Debating as a New Approach to Learning.

Jean Piaget cognitive stages

Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist that studied how knowledge develops within the human being (discovering its universal mechanisms) and how the developing mind moves through distinct stages. At the heart of Piaget’s biological theories of development is his emphasis on the human being’s ability to adapt to the world through the dual processes of assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation occurs when new information is modified or changed to fit into our cognitive schemas, while accommodation occurs when what we already know, our cognitive schemas, is modified or restructured so that new information can fit in better. Piaget understood that this process is governed by genetic factors and environmental experiences and through his experiments arrived to sketch how cognitive mechanisms develop through specific periods called Preoperational Period (from 2 to 7 years old), Intuitive Phase (from 4 to 7 years), Period of Concrete Operations (from 7 to 12 years) and Period of Formal Operations (from 12 years to adulthood).

For the aim of this guide the specific periods of interests are those related to primary and middle school (from 7 – 12 years old). Following the table of the cognitive mechanisms that characterises the specific stage. We added also the table of the preoperational period and the Intuitive phase because often, Piaget’s framework, as critics stress, overestimates the abilities of older learners and students in a class are not necessarily operating at the same level.

The Preoperational Period (2–7 years) - Intuitive Phase (4–7 years)

The child has an intuitive grasp of logical concepts in some areas

Concepts formed are crude and irreversible

Easy to believe in magical increase, decrease, disappearance

In moral-ethical realm, the child is not able to show principles underlying best behaviour

Increasing in language ability (with over-generalizations), symbolic thought, egocentric perspective, and limited logic

Still a tendency to focus attention on one aspect of an object while ignoring others. He/she does not understand point-of-view. During the first two years or so of this stage, the child remains highly egocentric, being intrinsically incapable of looking at situations from other people's points of view

Cannot reverse operations

In this stage of development are generally restricted to one aspect or dimension of an object at the expense of the other aspects. Children use their new ability to represent objects in a wide variety of activities, but they do not yet do it in ways that are organised or fully logical. intuitive mode of thought prevails characterised by free association, fantasy and unique illogical meaning. They also tend to classify objects in terms of a single dominant feature, so that if A is like B in one respect, it must also be like B in other respects too

In this stage of development should employ effective questioning about characterising objects

Engaging in discussion or interactions with the children may engender the children’s discovery of the variety of ways to group objects, thus helping the children think about the quantities in novel ways

They do not think realistically. They are thinking on two levels at once—one imaginative and the other realistic

This dual processing of experience makes dramatic play an early example of metacognition, or reflecting on and monitoring of thinking itself

From about four upwards, the child starts to be able to think in terms of classes, to see relationships between objects, and to handle basic number concepts, but remains essentially intuitive, since it may not be aware of what the classification and ordering systems involve

A process known as decentring -and to develop a sense of right and wrong, although it tends to believe that its way of thinking what is right and what is wrong will automatically be shared by everyone else

They use egocentric speech. Children often talk at, rather than to each other in what Piaget calls collective monologues

The teacher should also provide a dialogue time in which children have a natural opportunity for talking. Many should be helped to become good listeners. It may be necessary to provide talking opportunities between the loquacious and silent extremes

Period of Concrete Operations (7–12 years)

There is the ability to perform multiple classification tasks, order objects in a logical sequence

Thinking becomes less transductive and less egocentric

The child is capable of concrete problem-solving.

Class logic-finding bases to sort unlike objects into logical groups where previously it was on superficial perceived attribute

Children’s development of language and acquisition of basic skills accelerate dramatically

Children at this stage utilise their senses in order to know

Seriation and classification are the two logical operations that develop during this stage

Children mentally “operate” on concrete objects and events.

As students use the materials, they acquire experiences that help lay the foundation for more advanced thinking. However, children tend to think that the manipulations they do with models are one method for finding a solution and pencil-and-paper maths is entirely separate

While a specific way of representing an idea is meaningful to some students, a different representation might be more meaningful to others.

As children continue into elementary school, they become able to represent ideas and events more flexibly and logically

They are not yet able, however, to operate (or think) systematically about representations of objects or events

Child’s ability to decenter, or focus on more than one feature of a problem at a time. Children should be encouraged to classify things on the basis of a single attribute before they are exposed to problems which involve relationships between two or more attributes.

The child develops the ability to classify objects by several features and to think logically about objects and events. It must, however, be exposed to practical examples in order to understand the differences between such objects and classes, since it cannot yet think in abstract terms

To develop a progressively more sophisticated sense of right and wrong.

The child here is concerned with knowing only the facts and therefore becomes confused when faced with the relative, probabilistic nature of human knowledge

Since children prefer to talk and have much more facility in speech than in writing, they should be given opportunities to recite in class whether they know the right answer or not

Children at this level are still moral realists, having difficulty comprehending the subtleties involved in various situations.

Since the child sees rules as absolute, good judgement must be exercised by the teacher to prevent manipulation of the child’s literal interpretation of rules

Following some simple diagrams that synthesises some basic processes (Image 1) and some advice for didactics (Image 2).

Image 1 - Cognitive processes in 7-12 years old period

Image 2- Suggestion for didactics for 7-12 years old period

Critics recognize that Piaget’s theory has some weaknesses. Indeed, it is considered too abstract a theory. That is, it does not offer a complete description of cognitive development because abstract directions and requirements may cause young children to fail at tasks they can do under similar conditions. Moreover it overestimates the abilities of older learners. For example, middle school teachers interpreting Piaget’s work may assume that their students can always think logically in the abstract, yet this is often not the case. Another important criticism regards stages and stresses that stages are not so distinct. All students in a class are not necessarily operating at the same level. Teachers could benefit from understanding the levels at which their students are functioning and should try to ascertain their students’ cognitive levels to adjust their teaching accordingly. They can then design educational experiences based on the child’s need and readiness. Moreover, although not possible to teach cognitive development explicitly, research has demonstrated that it can be accelerated.

This criticism led pedagogists to look at other theories, such as Vygotskij’s and Bruner’s, that explain how cognitive development does not strictly fit the Piaget model, how it can be promoted and how knowledge depends on other factors as those invoked by Piaget.

Lev Vygotsky proximal development

In the history of psychological development, Vygotsky’s contribution has generally been contrasted with Piaget’s one. Piaget referred to a strong genetic-biological model, while Vygotsky referred to the social and cultural context; the first highlighted the general and common evolutionary lines of the human mind and the second the emerging psychological differentiations linked to environmental factors and social interactions.

Vygotsky considers learning as a historically, socially and culturally conditioned process focusing his interest on two main aspects: the development of higher psychic functions in the child and the influence of social variables on cognitive processes. Like Piaget, they recognize that the interaction of the individual with the environment is important for cognitive development and embraces the vision of the child as an active builder of knowledge, but gives a greater weight to the social component than to the biological one.

According to Vygotsky (1987), there are cognitive skills that are biologically based, but their development is conditioned by social, cultural and historical influences that can facilitate, as well as hinder, development.

The Belarusian pedagogist overcomes, in this way, the evolutionary conception of development promoted by Piaget which considers development as a linear process that follows a defined and invariant succession of stages without admitting leaps. According to Vygotsky, this means not taking into account all those elements of discontinuity that intervene and upset the linearity of the evolutionary path, causing qualitatively important structural transformations.

Development is a dialectical process, characterised by moments of continuity and discontinuity that alternate and create critical issues, and these stimulate the activation of energies and resources that open the way to new possibilities for development and learning.

For Vygotsky, a cognitively stimulating family and school context, capable of providing the necessary cognitive tools together with adequate support, will allow the child to advance faster in mental development and encourage him to overcome the limits of his current cognitive level to access the next level. It is possible to observe that a cognitively stimulated child will be able to effectively solve tasks typical of a mental age above him. Learning can therefore precede development. This hypothesis has been tested in a series of experiments whose results have led to the formulation of the concept of “zone of proximal development”, which lies between spontaneous performance and mediated performance.

The zone of proximal development is the distance between the child’s current level of development and the level of potential development: that is what the child could achieve under the guidance of adults or other more competent helpmates. In other words, the child can solve, thanks to the guidance of an expert, problems and tasks that they cannot yet solve on his own but which will soon become part of his individual skills. From this point of view, the interpersonal relationship has a privileged space in Vygotsky’s socio-cognitive theory and plays a decisive role in the construction of the knowledge process.

This chart helps to understand the concept of the proximal zone.

The actual level indicates the mental performance that children achieve on their own as they advance in age. The potential level instead, is what they reach in a context where they can interact with others.

The difference area that is created between the first and second level represents the zone of proximal development.

To make things simple, development can follow a relatively linear trend according to individual biological maturation: at five the child can solve certain problems, at six more difficult and so on. If we assume that the same child grows up in a cognitively richer context, the child’s performance may improve. In fact, they anticipate at a certain age what they would have done in the following age.

This increase in performance, mediated by the tools provided by the context, is particularly accentuated in an intermediate age, between about seven and 10 years. In fact, this is a crucial phase for the growth of the human mind, during which the role of the school is essential: therefore in this period we must act, allowing children to have as many experiences as possible (and eventually also the practice of Debate won’t be that far).

The new skill acquired or the new task given, however, must be understandable to the child even though they do not yet know how to master them independently. The adult provides the necessary support so that the child becomes capable of producing skills that they are already able to understand. If the child demonstrates that they can do alone what they were previously able to do only with the guidance of the adult, this proves that the skill in question has been internalised.

As Vygotsky himself writes: «The zone of proximal development defines those functions not yet mature but placed in a process of maturation, the functions that will mature tomorrow are currently in an embryonic stage. These functions could be called the “flowers” of development, rather than its “fruits” .

In conclusion, Vygotsky identified some critical periods or phases of important transitions: birth, one year of life, three years, seven years and thirteen years. These “critical” periods involve momentary imbalances, which, when adequately accompanied, can turn out to be great opportunities for growth and the occasion for new important learning.

Vygotsky developmental stages

Fundamentally, Vygotsky recognized that social settings and learning were closely entwined.

Therefore one must identify and implement strategies that are effective in a social context.

It is also important to note that the culture of each individual is created by their unique strengths, language, and prior experience. One of the ways that students gain knowledge is when they collaborate with their peers or mentors on activities that involve problem-solving skills and real-life tasks.

Indeed, it is an interesting notion that Vygotsky defines as “the difference between what a student can do without help and what they can do with help”: the Zone of Proximal Development.

Vygotsky described four stages of the Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotskij, L. S. (1987). Il processo cognitivo. Torino: Universale Scientifica Boringhieri.).

Stage I: assistance is provided by “more capable others.”

Those other can include parents and teachers, but, importantly, they can also include peers. In any classroom, there are students who are “getting it” along with those who are not yet getting it. Those who get it can assist those who don’t yet.

Stage II: assistance is provided by self

At this stage children can provide their own assistance. One way to help this process along is to provide learners with a “script” or “algorithm” that provides a step-by-step description of how to properly perform the desired skill.

Stage III: Internalisation, automatization, “fossilisation”

Children develop to the point at which they no longer need to talk themselves through the process. The action is internalised, and no longer requires extra effort.

Stage IV: De-automatization: recursiveness through prior stage

Just when the learners may feel that they have mastered the action, sometimes there is a “de-automatization,” or a regression back to earlier stages. This may be due to encountering an unfamiliar context, or new requirements. The learner then loops back to the beginning and moves through the stages again, resulting in learning that is enhanced and solidified.

Jerome Bruner’s theory of development

“If Piaget is considered the greatest theorist of the psychology of cognitive development and Vygotsky is generally opposed to Piaget, Jerome Bruner manages to mediate between the two creatively”

The observations of Piaget and Vygotsky were fundamental for Bruner, so much so that they were represented with the metaphor of the right hand and the left hand. Bruner, in fact, identifies with the right hand the logical thought that follows a linear path, internal to the mind and which works by deduction (Piaget), and with the left hand a more circular thought, which can only be formed through the contribution of culture (Vygotsky). The two hands cooperate to achieve knowledge of the world.

Bruner’s theory, known as “constructivism”, recognizes that cultural influence acts on cognitive psychological development. The human mind is fundamentally intersubjective, so it evolves through the interpersonal relationship and within a specific socio-cultural context. Culture influences individuals, their way of being and operating, their way of expressing themselves, organising and interpreting reality, their aspirations, expectations, motivations and cognitive modalities through which learning takes place. Development is therefore a social and cultural process.

The privileged means of cultural transmission is “narration”. Narration is a particular way of organising experience that allows children to recall facts or experiences, to describe, to transmit, interpret and understand, offering them continuity and giving them meaning thanks to culturally shared meanings. Regarding learning, Bruner like Piaget believes that it takes place in an active and constructive way and like Vygotsky it is socially and culturally influenced.

Bruner defines “narration” as a process by which “information is obtained from someone using someone else’s mind” and recognizes social relationships and cultural tools as necessary mediators between the subject and the world. They say that “we do not construct a reality by considering our solitary reflections. Mostly, our approach to the world is mediated by our relationships with others ”.

In this context, the adult plays a key role in the cognitive development process: they is the one who has a greater degree of competence than the child, therefore they guides and supports the steps of his learning, helps him to deal with problems and solve them, stimulating as much as possible the full expression of his cognitive potential.

Therefore, the adult has the function of supporting and not replacing the child, and respecting his autonomy, they merely accompany him gently until they are able to continue alone.

Learning is considered by Bruner (1996) as a constructive process that starts from an internal dimension and develops in an intrapsychic or relational environment.

To explain infantile cognitive development, Bruner takes up Piaget’s contribution, but in line with Vygotsky’s thought they put more emphasis on cultural contextual factors than on biological-genetic ones. For the American psychologist, development does not occur through the succession of genetically determined evolutionary states, but through the acquisition of increasingly mature thinking strategies with which the individual organises the data of experience in an integrated “structure”.

These structures develop through three evolutionary stages: enactive, iconic, symbolic.

In the enactive representation, which characterises the first year of life, reality is codified through action.

The iconic representation is the most used coding system up to 6-7 years old. In this phase the child is able to represent the world through images that can be visual, auditory, olfactory or tactile. The iconic representation is strongly anchored to the perceptual experience.

Symbolic representation encodes reality through language and other symbolic systems such as numbers and music. The child is able to overcome the sensory world and is able to think abstractly, to infer, to categorise, to formulate hypotheses and expectations.

The three systems of representation are not mutually exclusive, on the contrary they mostly act in an integrated way.

Bruner believed that to learn children need 3 integrated phases. For this reason they argue that a child (of any age) can understand complex information: this is possible through the spiral curriculum concept.

Structuring information so that complex ideas could be taught first at a simplified level and then revisited at more complex levels later (from enactive to symbolic).

Therefore, subjects would be taught at gradually increasing levels of difficulty.

From the second childhood, the child is able to activate the 3 stages in a flexible way, adapting their use to the characteristics of the context and the learning requirements. This means that everything can be taught to children, as long as the concepts are simplified and passed through these stages, from manipulation to the use of a symbolic code.

The most important symbolic system is certainly the language that allows children to think in abstract terms, while the image maintains a close link with the reality it represents. Language is something that is acquired through interaction with each other and allows them to communicate and share experiences. Through language, it is also possible to order events and give them the form of a “narration”. With this idea, Bruner (1968) emphasises how learning is a process that is based on the use of strategies to process information, in a context based on collaboration between the participants. For Bruner (1968) collaborative learning improves problem-solving strategies by favouring the comparison between different points of view and allows to internalise and develop critical thinking skills.

Bruner developmental stages

Jerome Bruner identified three stages of cognitive representation and held the following beliefs regarding learning and education:

learning should facilitate the development of problem solving skills through the processes of investigation and discovery.

the topic should be represented in terms appropriate to the child’s way of seeing the world.

learning should be designed in a spiral: mastering simple skills leads to mastering even more powerful ones.

culture should shape the notions through which people organise their opinions about themselves, others and the world in which they live.

Stage I

Enactive, which is the representation of knowledge through actions.

The enactive stage appears first. This stage involves the encoding and storage of information. There is a direct manipulation of objects without any internal representation of the objects.

For example, a baby shakes a rattle and hears a noise. The baby has directly manipulated the rattle and the outcome was a pleasurable sound. In the future, the baby may shake his hand, even if there is no rattle, expecting his hand to produce the rattling sounds. The baby does not have an internal representation of the rattle and, therefore, does not understand that it needs the rattle in order to produce the sound.

Stage II

Iconic, which is the visual summarization of images.

The iconic stage appears from one to six years old. This stage involves an internal representation of external objects visually in the form of a mental image or icon.

For example, a child drawing an image of a tree or thinking of an image of a tree would be representative of this stage.

Stage III

Symbolic representation, which is the use of words and other symbols to describe experiences.

The symbolic stage, from seven years and up, is when information is stored in the form of a code or symbol such as language. Each symbol has a fixed relation to something it represents.

For example, the word ‘dog’ is a symbolic representation for a single class of animal. Symbols, unlike mental images or memorised actions, can be classified and organised. In this stage, most information is stored as words, mathematical symbols, or in other symbol systems.

Educational implications

The concept of discovery learning implies that a student builds their knowledge and does so by organising and classifying information using a coding system. Bruner believed that the most effective way to develop a coding system was to discover it rather than be told by the teacher.

The role of the teacher, therefore, should not be to teach information through rote learning, but rather to facilitate the learning process. This means that a good teacher will design lessons that help students discover the relationship between bits of information.

To do this, a teacher must provide students with the information they need, but without organising for them. Using the spiral curriculum can aid the discovery learning process.

In conclusion, Bruner states that in order to foster learning by discovery and reach higher levels of development, it is necessary to:

Simplify the task or idea

Motivate and encourage the child

Highlight important elements or errors of the activity

Give models that can be imitated

The Concept Of “Competence” As A Complex Structure Of Values, Knowledge, Skills And Attitudes

Before examining how the debate methodology can promote different skills and competencies in learners, it seems appropriate to clarify how we use the term competence in this text.

We use it in a well-expressed meaning in two definitions provided by the Council of Europe in its more than ten-year analysis of critical competencies. We can find the first in the “Recommendations on key competencies for lifelong learning” of 12 December 2006: Competencies are defined here as a combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the context. We find the second in a text that in this work we take as a fundamental point of reference:

For the purposes of the Framework, the term “competence” is defined as the ability to mobilise and deploy relevant values, attitudes, skills, knowledge and/or understanding in order to respond appropriately and effectively to the demands, challenges and opportunities that are presented by a given type of context.

Why did we decide to start from this definition of competence? The answer is simple: it seems the most correct, inclusive and unambiguous.

The term competence is used, in ordinary language, in many different ways, for example, as a synonym of ability (the ability to do something well) or of performance (// has demonstrated competence in conversational Arabic).

However, applicable definitions generate some ambiguity and limit the scope of the concept, which, in our opinion, has a greater breadth. In this respect, we would like to mention Pellerey, who anticipates the European Commission’s work on skills and is somehow moving in the same direction. Competence is, therefore, for him:

la capacità di far fronte a un compito riuscendo a mettere in moto e a orchestrare le proprie risorse interne, cognitive, affettive e volitive e quelle esterne disponibili per affrontare positivamente una tipologia di situazioni sfidanti.

This is a good summary, in which we would like to underline:

that each competence, according to Pellerey, is a complex construct, which to solve mobility problems multiple “resources”;

the importance of the concept of “challenging situation” in the definition of “competence”.

Pellerey identifies two ideas that we punctually find in the definition of the Framework (2018), which speaks of a series of tools that are mobilised and of challenging situations (as well as opportunities) that must be faced. To define the term with precision, it is not enough for us to refer to some semantic areas to which it should refer. We must also distinguish it from other similar concepts often used in the pedagogical field: skills, abilities, aptitudes. To do this, we will try to place these concepts (with their specificities) within four general areas, which seem to us to be easy to understand and undeniable in the description of educational phenomena:

Know

Know-how

Knowing how to be

Knowing how to learn

In the first voice, we insert the dimension of content, which has a more theoretical and abstract meaning than competence. Between “knowledge” and “know-how”, we place “skills” that differ from competence due to its application dimension and its link with the actuality of performance. Instead, we place the almost synonymous concepts of ability and capacity in the context of “know-how”. The first appears to us to possess a more innate and practical character concerning competence. At the same time, the second seems to show a more potential and mental meaning for the concepts of competence and ability. In the context of “knowing how to be”, we place the values that underpin every motivation relating to learning and attitude, or a specific type of perspective towards reality internalised by the individual and rarely questioned. Finally, in the context of “knowing how to learn”, we place the ability to learn, which is fundamental today, within a society and an ever-changing labour market.

We do not place “competence” in any of these macro-areas because it refers to each of them. In conclusion, competence appears to us as a complex construct through which the individual, to respond to challenging situations, refers to their values and certain acquired behaviours: attitudes or, in other words, “knowing how to be”. Competence is not limited to this but seeks new information and resolution methods among one’s “knowledge”.

Then it applies these contents to particular contexts thanks to specific innate skills or acquired abilities (“know-how”), finally determining automatism in learning in similar conditions (“knowing how to learn”).

The reference framework for democratic culture

Our approach to the concept of “competence”, which has been outlined in the previous chapter, is shared with - and, to a certain extent, borrowed from - the internationally recognized guideline that serves as a pedagogical anchoring point for our work: the Council of Europe’s Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (subsequently referred to as RFCDC, in short).

It was tiny Andorra that, in its role as Chairman of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers for 2013, came up with the idea of elaborating a tool that could be used by European lawmakers, pedagogues and teachers to promote democratic culture through education. The Council of Europe’s Education Department was then tasked with defining the Model of Competences that is at the heart of the RFCDC, which was later approved in 2016.

In 2018, the RFCDC was finally published in its entirety. The full version of the document is freely downloadable online on the Council of Europe’s website at this link (https://www.coe.int/en/web/reference-framework-of-competences-for-democratic-culture/) and consists of three volumes: Vol. 1 stating the underlying concepts and models the Framework is built on, Vol. 2 displaying the full bank of Descriptors that can help educators identify the level of the Competences attained by pupils and Vol. 3, offering Guidance for the implementation of the Framework itself.

The reason for this complex endeavour lay in a perception that in those years, at least from the London bombings of 2005 onwards, became quite widespread among observers and lawmakers alike: that Europe’s social fabric, despite the affluence and material wealth of our societies, was in fact weak and torn, and that our education systems were tragically unable to imbue pupils with the all-important values of democracy, tolerance and peaceful cohabitation with people of diverse ethnic backgrounds.

As the Council of Europe’s Secretary Thorbjørn Jagland frankly remarked in the Foreword to the RFCDC, “the urgent need for it was brought into sharp focus by the many terrorist attacks across Europe in recent times”.

As the first quarter of the 21st century progressed, the subsequent Islamist bombings in Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Nice and London (and, on a whole different front, white suprematist Anders Breivik’s 2011 rampage in Utøya) only served to remind us that the perception that something was amiss in the European education systems was indeed correct. Tiny Andorra and the European countries that duly followed her initiative were right.

Nowadays, the need for education systems in democratic countries to teach competences pertaining to tolerance and valuing of diversity is even more widely recognized. 2018, year of the RFCDC’s publication, was also the year when the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), performed every three years since 2000, covered for the first time a new area named “Global Competences”, ie the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary, among other things, to “live harmoniously in multicultural societies”, and to “thrive in an interconnected world”.

Even though the wave of terrorist attacks that spurred the Council of Europe’s initiative now seems to have waned, with the most recent notable episode at the time this is written being the August 2017 Islamist attacks in Barcelona, few would say that the need for education to cover democratic values is no longer actual. The persistent risk of economic upheavals, the looming threats of geopolitical instability, the fascination for authoritarian, and yet from an outside look apparently efficient-looking models of society, the resurgence of a cornucopia of eerie conspiracy theories and irrational thinking patterns linked to the Covid-19 pandemic are all elements that make our pressing duty as educators to provide our students with democratic competences and critical thinking skills all the more evident.

It is with that in mind, and not only to take advantage of an already established framework, that the authors of this guide chose the RFCDC as their pedagogical anchoring point. Furthermore, the RFCDC also has some invaluable strengths: being internationally widely recognized; having been developed and tested in volunteer schools in a variety of European countries; being adaptable to a variety of contexts and learning ages, “from pre-school education to primary and secondary schooling to higher education, including adult education and vocational education”.

For the purpose of education to diversity and critical thinking, as the following Chapter will attempt to show, Debate can be a very powerful tool, particularly in the years of secondary education. Of course, Debate will not impact on all of the RFCDC’s twenty areas of interest with the same decisiveness; on the contrary, it will affect some of them straightforwardly and decisively, and others only in an altogether indirect way. However, it is hard to imagine a single methodological strategy that could accomplish such a task leaving none of the multifaceted areas of the RFCDC behind.

Debate, having been structured and refined as a way to open pupils’ eyes to evident examples of the inherent ambiguousness of reality, have them scrutinise aspects of reality and current affairs, refine their media literacy skills, assert claims that they possibly are not personally convinced of, and finally dialectically confront each other in a fair and respectful way, may well be one of the teaching activities which will allow students to develop the most competences pertaining to the RFCDC at the same time.

Democratic framework rubric for debate practice and evaluation (II cycle of education)

Having explained the choice of the reference to the Framework (2018), we now intend to clarify concretely how the debate can promote the skills presented by it. Our speech, here, will inevitably be concise and will proceed by analysing some macro areas and exemplary cases presented by it. For a more detailed description of the role of debate in developing all the skills of the Framework (2018), we refer to the two tables that we report at the end of this paragraph.

Given that the debate can help develop all areas of skills of the document, let us focus on the areas where the impact of the debate can be more significant.

Concerning valuing cultural diversity, openness and respect to cultural otherness, for example, the regulated debate, through its inner logic, its netiquette and the proposal of certain motions, can be decisive in promoting dialogue, understanding and respect between cultures. It also would promote a positive evaluation of them.

Regarding civic-mindedness, debate, in the construction of the Team's strategy, can transmit to the students the habit and the pleasure of cooperation given the achievement of a common goal, but also the research and the deepening of some social and civic problems, first considered only superficially by the students.

The responsibility area is equally strengthened by the methodology which in every phase of the debate, from its preparation to its development, requires each speaker to respect the commitments made with the coach and teammates, precise deadlines and kind of timing that must be exploited wisely sparingly.

Similarly, the debate will develop self-efficacy in students, continually placing them in front of problems to be solved and sudden requests for clarification (PoI). In this way, the debate will lead students to be self-confident in the decision-making process and face new difficulties and challenging obstacles with appropriate methods.

In addition to this, the relationship with the other self (teammates, opponents, judges and the "World" evoked by the motions) will contribute to building in students a deeper and more critical self-awareness. This means overcoming one's limited and sometimes selfish vision of the world and personal and social prejudices (the Baconian idols) to look at reality more critically and comprehensively.

Tackling unpublished problems will be a constant in the debate activities, enhancing the skills related to the tolerance of ambiguity. By constructing research hypotheses and analysing new and challenging problems, students will get used to facing complex and ambiguous issues that are not easily solved and interpretable according to multiple values, political or cultural paradigms.

If our students are to get used to facing new challenges thanks to the debate, they will have to work on Flexibility and Adaptability. For example, they will have to learn to apply their knowledge in unprecedented contexts, modify the usual working and problem-solving methods, and finally, show the ability to adapt to the group or Team dynamics in which they are inserted. Not only will they have to find new solutions to complex problems, but they will have to do it together with others.

In some cases, they are strenuously defending their strategic proposal; in others, accepting someone else's idea that can potentially be more effective than theirs and winning. The Socratic dia-logos differed from this collective learning process in the debate stages.

In these activities, despite the guiding role of the teacher-coaches, the students will also be protagonists, developing the first path of bibliographic research and learning to learn, following in their small way the scientific method in its main phases:

1. observation of a phenomenon;

2. construction of an interpretative hypothesis,

3. verification of the hypothesis.

Therefore, the area of autonomous learning skills will also be promoted by the debate, making students more and more autonomous.

However, the area that I believe is most supported by the debate is analytical and critical thinking skills. The debate does not intend to promote a heuristic but rhetoric based on logical bases and problem-solving skills. It leads students, for example, to reflect on the priorities to be achieved before making choices, analyse significant evidence before judging reality, carry out cost-benefit analyses, and compare different possible solutions to the problem raised in the topic. Finally, the speakers will learn to critically weigh the sources and hypothesise cause-effect relationships between the phenomena studied.

Another skill that I particularly appreciate in all its facets is active and critical listening, relating to listening and observing skills. Also, in this case, the debate builds a virtuous habit in young people: listening to others with the attention that concerns both the verbal and non-verbal code. This listening, which we often do not observe even among adults, is promoted by the debate regarding fair play and specific style and, above all, through a concrete need: fully understanding others to refute it effectively. Finally, this attention to listening represents a precious gift from the debate both towards students and public opinion. Thanks to it, we think that the public debate can be more reasoned and less assertive in the future.

To fully understand the "other", in addition to logical skills, students will have to develop their propensity for empathy and their cooperation skills. Students, due to debate, pay attention to all those non-verbal signals that reveal so much about others' feelings to achieve this goal. The gaze, the gestures, the posture of our interlocutors, if well decoded, tell us almost infallibly if they are at ease if they agree with us if they are nervous or sad or intolerant. A good speaker knows how to interpret these signals in the debate game and beyond it. He/she knows how to be part of a workgroup effectively and flexibly, knows how to share information in a proactive way, and knows how to encourage teammates to express their ideas even if they are different from their own. Finally, He/she knows how to plan the group's work, dividing it appropriately among its members based on the interests and talents of individuals.

However, we cannot deny that teamwork is always easy to manage and characterised by collective harmony. Therefore, the speakers will also have to develop conflict-resolution skills. Negotiation and mediation skills will sometimes be essential to get the Team out of a dangerous situation of impasse. In the same way, it will be essential to focus on shared priorities and solutions, avoiding that the group's attention is dispersed, focusing on secondary issues or those perceived irreconcilably by group members.

Observation of others and the need to communicate effectively (inherent in the regulated debate) will help students become more aware of their linguistic, communicative and plurilingual skills. In this way, students will improve them, for example, by enhancing the synthesis and expression skills in a foreign language (in international tournaments) and finally in the proposal of POIs.

Finally, again in the linguistic field, thanks to the debate, the speakers will acquire linguistic meta-cognition skills (critical understanding of language and communication), which will lead the most expert of them to become, within their Team, accurate and proper coaches added. At this point, our students will be able to communicate effectively and teach the techniques of message delivery or, in any case, carry out tutoring activities. The teacher must be aware of this vital resource and use his best students in a continuous peer to peer process.

In conclusion, the debate will be promoted by the debate undeniably but conditioned by the motions addressed by enhancing students' knowledge about politics, law and human rights, culture, cultures, religions, history, media, economies, environment and sustainability. Whatever the quantity of contents addressed, we are sure that knowledge of them will be developed through the debate thoroughly and critically: the same internal logic of the meeting-clash of ideas requires it in an almost essential way.

Debate Skills

The use of debate as a teaching tool provides students with experiences that are conductive to life-changing, cognitive, and presentational skills. The practice of debate contributes to developing students´ cognitive abilities and skills, and helping them to become aware of reality and how to interpret it by relating information. Reasoned arguments and convincing evidence, instills in them the sense of poise and confidence and teaches them how to research, organize and present information in a clear and attractive manner.

For Shuster and Meany (2005, p-5) “Debate and public speaking are of extraordinary value to middle school students. Participation in debating can boost student self- confidence, accelerate learning across the curriculum, and improve critical thinking and oral communication skills”. The inclusion of debate in the school curriculum contributes to the foundation not only for speaking and listening but also for all literacies.

Even though additional research on the contribution of debate to students’ success is needed, current studies show a positive correlation between the practice of debate and academic achievement (Alkerman & Neale, 2011; Wood, 2013). Alkerman and Neale´s study links the practice of debate not only to knowledge improvement but also to the development of critical thinking, and communication skills and to contribute to boosting students’ self-confidence, and cultural awareness.

But the skills developed by debaters during their school years not only help them academically but also professionally. The skills students develop thanks to the practice of debate make them more “career ready”. The speaking and listening skills that students work in debate contribute to the development of the most valued skills by today´s employers. The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) consider in their Job Outlook (2010), that the top four skills that employers seek are:

communication skills

strong work ethic

teamwork skills

analytical skills

“Each year, without fail, strong communication skills come out on top” (p. 25).

Thought And Language

The practice of debate helps students to become aware of how they express their thoughts in words and sentences and how influenced they are by their own language. The relationship between thought and language has been extensively studied since ancient times. From the experiments of Pharaoh Psammetichus, through a certain mediaeval statism barely broken by the tests carried out by Frederick II of Hohenstaufen (Emperor of the Holy Germanic Empire) and James IV (King of Scotland), up to the present, there have been several names who have left their mark on this discipline. John Webb, Locke, Gottfried von Herder, Bonnot, Rousseau, Webster, von Humboldt and Darwin himself, to name a few throughout history, and, more recently, names like Saussure, Sapir and Whorf, Chomsky, Pinker, Bloom, among others, have dealt in one way or another with the evolution of language and its relationship with thought.

Indeed, there seems to be a deep relationship between the development of thought and language. In human terms, we do not know the existence of complex thought forms that do not involve language. Even humans with less than 2 years old can have a thought and to involve themselves in non-linguistic operations that refer to spatial realities or imply a relationship between 2 or 3 elements, such as the presence of one object behind another.

That thought can occur without the need of language to explain the existence and survival of most animals regardless of whether they live in community or not. However, language is the tool or the means to perceive reality.

Naming objects through language implies the identification of the object among other objects. Note that we understand an object as any reality (inert, alive, actions, etc.) that is independent of the subject. The identification and differentiation of realities from each other and their symbolization through language allows thought to operate with realities that are not physical in manner. This differs significantly from the non-linguistic thinking mentioned above, concluding that language facilitates the quick relation of information about realities that are not present at that moment.

Taking into account the research and considerations of L. Strauss, Saussure, Sapir and Whorf or philosophers or authors related to philosophy such as J. Derridá, Vattimo, Foucault or Hayden White, and adding the most current ideas of P. Lieberman , Lakoff, Johnhon, Tomasello, BF Skinner, Chater, Christiansen, Gilbert, Kirby or Deacon, we can conclude that thought is influenced and even shaped by language by implying that a system of symbolization of reality can be used to replace the referent. At the same time, the symbol implies the existence of the reality it refers to, material or not, which entails its creation or identification. From this statement we could then, for the purposes of this chapter, move closer to the system of symbols, the language.

The use of language is very complex since words and sentences are used automatically; there is not a conscious awareness of how thoughts become the words used to express them. Students perform the complex language activities with apparent skill and ease selecting, as speakers, the words that they want to use and organising them in a grammatically correct form, and, as listeners, they use the information received from the senders to make sense of the message and engage in a conversation. The challenge of this process is that language is always incomplete. Or, as Richards stated (Richards, 1965:3): “rhetoric, I shall urge, should be a study of misunderstanding and its remedies. We struggle all our days with misunderstandings, and no apologies required for any study which can prevent or remove them”. Receivers must rely on prior knowledge to draw representation of the reality expressed by the sender. To better understand this process, psychologist have identified two types of language representation:

The underlying representation: the idea that the student wants to communicate

The surface structure: the verbal expression that students use shape the idea (the underlying representation

Communication is successful when receiver´s interpretation matches the underlying representation of the sender:

The practice of debate can contribute to the students´ improvement of their comprehension skills since during debate interactions students must try to match their representations of the message with the ones provided by the speakers. Students´ use of ambiguous language in the surface structure generates multiple underlying representations in the mind of the receivers. The reason for these communication problems is uncertain and could be explained by:

The speaker´s thinking process

The speaker's use of language

The receiver´s thinking process

The practice of debate helps students to develop their thinking skills. They become aware that communication does not only depend on the words explicitly said by the sender but also by what the receiver implies. During the practice of debate students make inferences, going beyond the words used by the speaker. As a result, students “construct” new knowledge, enriching what they already know with the new information provided by the speaker. As Burner (1957) explained, thinking is “going beyond the information given”, and making inferences to understand language is thinking.

To argue about a topic, must identify reasons to support their claims. Unfortunately, this process does not encourage students to consider counterarguments, invalid evidence, or the strengths of the opposing view. The practice of debate gives students someone to argue against, an intelligent critic that plays the role of the Devil's advocate putting forward his or her point of view in a logical, responsive, and evidence- based argumentation way.

Debate helps students to develop their communication skills. They realise that effective communication is more than the words used in the message. They learn that the purpose of the communication determines the amount of information conveyed and that the listeners understanding of the intended meaning depends on the balance between the amount of new information used and the amount of information the audience already knows.

On the other hand, students need to find a way to convey their message as effectively as possible. This entails the search for discursive and communicative strategies (or, in short, rhetorical) that allow the receiver to understand the message as much as possible. In this sense, students must learn how and in what way they can elaborate their message through the language, the communicative tool that they will use, and what type of uses can be more effective for communication.

Students learn that information is better understood when a simple and precise language is used. That practice of debate helps students to convert complex thoughts in simple language to facilitate understanding. Students are so encouraged to take the audience in mind when preparing a speech.

The practice of debate helps students to gain and express confidence. Since there are many ways to express a message, the practice of debate helps students to find the communication style that suits them best.

Reasoning (the ability to reason critically)

The ability to reason critically is one of the most valuable skills for students´ academic, professional, and personal development and success (Butt, 2010).

We consider reasoning as the combination of information that produces a conclusion that is different from the premises. Therefore, the development of reasoning should not be confused with the purpose of reasoning since it could lead us to an error in training. In other words, it is very different to create a tool to nail something to the wall (work according to the purpose) than to create a hammer. In the first case, any product that allows me to nail something to the wall would be useful, regardless of what I have made or if that object is better or worse compared with other objects, or if it works in every case or just certain circumstances. In the second case, my goal is to make a hammer and I must know how to do it in the most appropriate and efficient way possible, regardless of the purpose for which the hammer is built (although naturally the manufacture of a hammer is produced to cover a specific need). The same happens with reasoning. If we confuse the development of reasoning (how the information is related to obtain a conclusion, regardless of whether the goal is to persuade, learn, dialogue, etc.), with its purpose (for example, persuasion), we can fall into the trap of being satisfied with the “persuasion”, whether it is reasoned or not, without knowing exactly why it is persuading us.

To build a position in a debate, the development of reasoning is not just a necessary step but the prior one. Students reason to connect the information about the topic of debate with their conclusion. They work to guarantee that the result of their reasoning process is enough to defend their position in the debate.

In debate, students must value the best information from the one they have to produce the desired result: defend their position in the debate.

When we talk about reasoning, therefore, we talk about the student's ability to find information, relate it, and reach a conclusion. As teachers, our role cannot be focused on changing the existing information since they are facts and data over which we have no influence. What we can do is to accompany our students in the investigation process, guide them through the resources that we consider are the most appropriate ones, but we cannot change the reality that will serve as information. Our role as teachers that intend to develop our students' reasoning skills should focus on how the information is related, that is, on the process that students follow to connect the data to get a conclusion. Let's take this example: if I had the following operation

3 ¿? 2 = 5

The way to relate both figures so that they result in 5 would be through addition, symbolised by +, so that the answer would be:

3 + 2 = 5

As teachers we must focus especially on what sign and what operation is intended to perform the students to obtain the result, in our case, 5. Any other operation (a subtraction, a division, a multiplication...) would not result in 5, and therefore the available information (3 and 2) would not have been related or linked in an appropriate way to obtain the 5. In the same way, students in debate must relate the information available to obtain the final conclusion, which they already know as it is their position; it is in this process where the teacher plays a fundamental role helping the students to develop their reasoning.

Once this is understood, we can focus ourselves on the purpose for which we are reasoning. In other words, once we know how to reason adequately, we can focus on establishing a purpose and modify, according to our interests, the way we reason. Thus, students probably won't need the same reasoning process to carry out a theoretical or a scientific demonstration than to persuade someone about which product to buy or which position to support.

The next step is to determine the purpose of any debate. Debate is usually related to persuasion, which implies that our audience does what they are “persuaded” to do. However, not all debates, and certainly not all speeches, are intended to influence the actions of the audience. In many situations, the speaker only seeks to provoke something in the listener, regardless of whether that leads to behaving in one way or another. This would be the case, for example, of the topics of debate that imply “regret”, “celebration”, etc. In this type of speech, much more common in real life than those aimed at persuading, the purpose is to provoke something in the audience, which does not imply persuasion. For this reason, the purpose of the debate, and thus the purpose of everything it implies, such as reasoning, the use of language, etc., is rather perlocution, and not persuasion. Assuming the perlocution as the purpose, it is then that we can choose precisely what is intended to provoke in the audience and how. For example, it can be intended that the audience supports the position that is defended, provoking in them the feeling of urgency, fear, sympathy,….

To succeed in these areas, students “require the ability to understand, decide, or persuade effectively, either verbally or in writing, through the process of argumentation” (Iordanou, 2013, p. 292). The ability to reason critically allows students to critically verify the information they receive, to consider alternative points of view and to elaborate counterarguments (Osana and Seymour, 2004)

These critical abilities stimulate students to go beyond challenging an opposing point of view in an effort to develop a deeper understanding on the topic object of discussion. Unfortunately, numerous studies reveal that students have difficulties providing adequate justifications to their claims (Hsu et al., 2015) and generating counterarguments to rebut the views presented by other students (Liu & Stapleton, 2020; Sadler, 2004; Stapleton & Wu, 2015). The contribution of debate in the development of students´ ability to reason critically can help students to overcome these weaknesses and their negative implications for their success in the school, in the labour market and in their daily lives. According to Yeh (1998): the students´ capacity to elaborate “effective arguments influence grades, academic success, and preparation for college and employment” (p. 49).

Argumentation (the ability to generate arguments)

Once the concepts related to reasoning have been explained, it is easier to understand what argumentation is. An argument is a reasoning. There is no notable difference between reasoning and argument. They are the same. The argumentation in a speech would be the set of reasons used to obtain a conclusion.

Even though we can say that argument and reasoning are equivalent, we could not affirm the same thing, at least strictly, of reasoning, argument, and argumentative model. Unfortunately, neither the development of reasoning nor the differences between reasoning and argumentative models are usually present in debate training. However, the knowledge of this difference and how to use it will be very useful for the teacher.

If reasoning, as we said, is the relation of information to each other to obtain a conclusion that is different from the premises, the argumentative model is the systematisation of the reasoning. Therefore, one thing should not be confused with the other. To reason students need the necessary information and the ability to relate it to draw a conclusion that is independent from any model or fixed structure. For this reason, there are many mistakes when preparing or evaluating a debate. Students and teachers base their work solely in terms of argumentative models, leaving aside the development of reasoning as such, which is carried out without the use of models.

So, the argumentative model is a reasoning system. The argumentative model systematised the way students relate the information to draw a conclusion. In this sense, the argumentative model “does the work” for them. As we already said in relation to reasoning, the fundamental thing when constructing and evaluating arguments is the way in which the information is related. The argumentative model, in general, determines how the information is related, so the teacher must understand the link or relationship between the premises proposed by the model in order to use it properly and evaluate it in the best possible way.

The use of argumentative models can be especially recommended in the early stages of reasoning development, since some of them, like the Toulmin model, help with great precision to follow the student's reasoning.

We must remember that the importance of the argumentative model is not to assess if the students' work was right or wrong, but to help understand whether the information is correctly related to draw the conclusion. This is the main point that any teacher must attend when developing students´ reasoning skills and when using argumentative models. This information is also useful to provide the teachers with the criteria they need to differentiate what is an argumentative model and what is not.

Communication is the students´ tool to express their thoughts and ideas and plays a key role in their learning. Even though most students prefer the friendliness of informal conversations to exchange their views on a topic, these exchanges cannot be considered a debate. Though informative and interesting, these exchanges fail to get into a serious debate where students work to develop advanced arguments and to value them in the light of evidence. The students´ investigation exercise to provide evidence to the reasons that support their claims gives rationality to the exchange of ideas, an important element for a critical analysis of the topic. This ability to generate and evaluate arguments has been widely recognized in the literature and has been considered a good indicator of the critical thinking ability (Mercier and Sperber, 2011) The practice of debate helps students to develop the ability to present and evaluate cases, an asset for their academic, professional, and personal development.

The practice of debate helps students to identify and differentiate what information is trustworthy and reliable and what is not. Thanks to the practice of debate, students learn how to use reasoning to assess and accept a conclusion. They develop a vigilant attitude to the information they receive from different sources.

Research has shown that argumentation skills are not highly developed in students since they show difficulties generating relevant evidence to support their points of view, counter arguments, and refutations (Kuhn, 1991) or they tend to let their belief bias guide their argument evaluation (Klaczynski, 2001). It reflects the importance of helping students develop the ability to understand and practise argumentation to be able to recognize the strengths and limitations of the arguments. Through the practice of debate, students learn how to put forward reasons where claims are justified.

The practice of debate helps students to introduce a claim and to justify it. They work to connect the evidence with the claims through the warrants and backings (Erduran, Simons and Osborne 2004). For this reason, the argumentation plays such an important role when the students work to prepare their explanations to defend their position on an issue. Toulmin (1958) suggested a model to reflect the argumentative process (Von Aufschnaiter, Erduran, Osborne, & Simon, 2008):

Thanks to the practice of debate, where students have to elaborate arguments for and against a given proposition, students become aware of the difference between augmenting with their friends and in a debate since in the former one they have to build arguments to support their position. As teachers we need to be aware that, even though using an argumentation model can be challenging for some of our students, they should learn how to use it since the development of the argumentation skill is closely related to critical thinking and reasoning.

Thanks to the practice of debate, students understand the minimum standards that a statement must have to be considered an argument (Kuhn and Crowell, 2011):

evidences that support the thought process

pros and cons of the different positions of an issue

a conclusion that weights those pros and cons

Evaluation (the ability to evaluate arguments)

The evaluation of the arguments must remain consistent with the information exposed about the reasoning, the argumentation, and the argumentative models.

In relation to this point, we must first take in consideration that as teachers, and probably as a jury, we should not assess the content, in other words, value how much we like or agree with it. From a competency perspective, our main interest must always be to value how the speech has been elaborated to achieve its goal, the perlocution. Another thing is that, when deciding the winning team in a debate, we consider the veracity or appropriateness of the content used by the teams. However, the evaluation should always focus on whether the construction of the discourse is adequate to conclude the position it defends and whether that adequacy would lead the team to fulfil its objective.

Second, we must evaluate the adequacy or relevance of the arguments that a team has used to achieve perlocution in the audience. This means that it is the task of the teacher or the jury of a debate to assess whether the arguments used provoke something in the audience. In fact, it is common for a team to produce a technically correct speech which does not provoke anything in the audience.

In this sense, the teacher, who will have already evaluated the technical correctness of the speech, will be able to assess whether the content of the speech is plausible, provokes something in the audience or leads the audience agreeing to believe what it defends.

The ability to evaluate arguments allows students to value the strength of the reasons given to support the claim. It can be one of the most difficult tasks that students face not only during debate practice but during their life. The practice of debate train students to follow the following process to develop the evaluation skill:

Read for understanding: the practice of debate encourages students to understand what they read or listen. Making students more aware of their level of understanding encourages them to try harder to fully understand what they read or hear. The practice of debate contributes to enhancing students´ understanding of the concepts or intentions behind what is said or written, helping them identify important arguments, key facts and points of agreement and disagreement, and search for pieces of information that require clarification.

Examine arguments: The practice of debate contributes to clarifying to students that to argue is not simply to disagree with other students but to enter, as the Oxford Dictionary defines, “in an action or process of reason systematically in support of an idea, action, or theory…”. The students aim when valuing arguments is to form a judgement about the validity of the argument presented.

Clarify thinking: In order to value the information given students need to clarify their thinking and the thinking of others. The practice of debate shows students that it is a process of asking and answering probing questions.

Cultivate the habits of mind: the habits of mind are related to commitments, values and standards. The ability to evaluate arguments helps students to become aware if they approach situations with an open mind, with an enquiring attitude and with respect. The practice of debate helps students to develop good thinking habits like being open and flexible to change an opinion, respecting other people's reasons, qualifying the arguments before accepting them, having an inquiring mind, being aware of assumptions and questioning their own conclusions.

Organising and prioritising

Students need to master their organising and prioritising skills to communicate their ideas clearly and effectively, given the amount of information available around any topic. Since debate requires that students think quickly and articulate their ideas clearly, its practice can contribute to the students´ development of their organisation and prioritising skills.

Debating in the classroom will encourage students to express themselves clearly. Through the practice of debate, students can move their speeches from a stream of words and ideas to a more organised and structured one.

The prioritising skill will help students in all subjects. Thanks to the practice of debate, students learn how to plan an essay or identify the most relevant information to include in notes or to evaluate a problem. Debate gives students the opportunity to make their own prioritising choices and to experience the importance of meeting the goals given the deadlines set by the debate encounters.

Listening and response

Debate provides students the opportunity to connect with the ideas expressed by their colleges. By practising debate, students develop the ability to listen attentively, showing their peers that they can engage with their ideas, respond to their comments after a deep analysis, ask questions or support or challenge their ideas. As Lindsay and Knight (2006) say, listening is an essential skill present in most of the activities we carry out throughout the day.

According to Nunan (2001) listening is a process that occurs in sequence and rapid succession where humans hear, attend, understand, remember, evaluate, and respond. The practice of debate helps students to become aware of where they put their attention when listening to the speakers and to analyse and give meaning to what they have just heard. In this sense, the practice of debate helps students to understand the intended meaning and the context assumed by the speakers in their messages. This process helps students not only to receive and interpret the message received but also to add it to the mind storage bank.

This skill development contributes to the students´ capacity to assess the message they have just received by giving them the resources they need to value evidence, differentiate facts from opinions and identify biases, prejudices, and assumptions in the messages. Students also learn the importance of not evaluating messages too soon, since evaluating them before they are fully delivered results in the cease of the listening process and in a partial understanding of the message.

The previous exercises give students enough information to prepare their counter argumentations. This exchange exercise is also a perfect opportunity for students to check if their messages were correctly received.

Exercises

Questions Older

1. Chain

Students have to come up with as many questions on a topic as possible. Student A asks the first question, student B answers and sets a new question, student C answers and so on. The questions should not repeat and everyone in the class should ask and answer. Very useful for pre-test revision.

2. Open motions

Teacher sets open motions to a few students and sets them a challenge to make them make sense in the context of their subject - We would say yes. We would say no. We would turn left. We would push the button. etc. The student gets 30s to set up the topic, then they have to accept and answer any question posed by the class. Students in the class should each ask at least one question. The student’s speech should not last over 5 min.

3. Prioritise (team best to worst)

The students listen to a speech in teams - each of them has to write down at least 5-10 questions they have. Then they get some time to discuss which questions are best and why. In the end the team should ask the speaker 5 questions. Discussion on questions.

4. Rephrase

The teacher gives a list of rhetorical questions or yes/no questions, the class has to rephrase into good, debate, content oriented questions.

5. Intro to answers

Students learn about delaying the answer strategies. They practise with different phrases - they are forbidden to answer in the first 5-10 seconds, but they must start speaking immediately - they need to fill the time with something. The phrases should not repeat. (Helps improve quick thinking, rhetorics, and gives them time to think of a better answer)

6. Spot the issues

The teacher selects a motion from a list of motions and asks one student to express questions about its pivotal issue. Once most important issues are expressed, the teacher involves another student on a different motion. (This helps to think about the questions on the fundamentals of the controversy).

7. Witness stand

The teacher selects three students and gives each a role: the defendant, the prosecutor and the defence attorney. Sharing a short case report with a little basic information as a framework for the exercise, the prosecutor has to question the defendant to show the guilty, the defendant has to answer defending himself coherently to the framework, the defence attorney has to ask questions to help the defendant to show the innocence

Questions Younger

1. Hat

Students listen to a speech and write down questions on slips of paper - teacher collects slips of paper and pulls out questions - the person giving the speech answers, the class comments on the question and answer.

2. Simple arguments

Teacher sets simple content related motions to a few students. The student gets 30s to set up the topic, then they have to accept and answer any question posed by the class. Students in the class should each ask at least one question. The student’s speech should not last over 5 min.

3. Tag team

Similar to “hat” but in teams - students listen to a speech and write down questions. In teams they pick the best questions and ask them. The student giving the speech can answer, or tag another person from the team to answer. If they tag, they need to come up with twice as many questions on their go around.

4. Prepare for parts

The students listen to a speech in teams - each individual is tasked with coming up with questions for different parts of the speech; definitions, plan, argument 1, argument 2 etc. After the activity discussion what is best, easiest, strategically most effective.

5. Don't sit down

Students have to come up with as many questions on a topic as possible. Student A asks the first question, student B answers and sets a new question, student C answers and so on. The questions should not repeat and everyone in the class should ask and answer. The student who cannot answer/ask has to sit down. The last student standing wins. Very useful for pre-test revision.

Note-Taking Older

1. Repeat from notes

Students take notes during a lecture/speech and then have to repeat as close as possible to the original. Their peers can add details they miss out.

2. Form and structure

Students look at and compare different styles of note taking people do during debates. They find the one that is most suitable for them and one they find strange. They listen to 2 speeches/parts of lecture and try taking notes in both kinds - discussion about pros and cons of each style.

3. Compare and add/remove

Students take notes during a lecture - after it they compare notes and see what they all included and what only some included. Discussion about what is most relevant, what could be left out and what should absolutely be there.

4. Blind spot

The teacher reads a speech supporting a specific position telling students to take notes because afterward they must rebut the arguments. However, after the reading, the teacher just tries to understand what students did not note because it interferes with the expectation to rebut. (This should help to acknowledge the importance of listening)

Note-Taking Younger

1. Make your own symbols

Teacher explains that debaters often use symbols for making notes. They show examples and task the students to come up with their own symbols. They try writing something down with their symbols, other students try reading it out.

2. Condense - report

Students read a text and take notes - the fewer the better. Then they report in as much detail as possible. If they miss anything out, their peers can help add details.

3. Keywords

Students listen to short excerpts of something and try identifying the keywords they would put down. Discussion if they picked the right ones or if someone else would pick sth other and why.

4. Different kinds of text

Students are asked to take notes of different kinds of text, from a short scientific report, to an interview. Reporting their notes will help understanding which is the most difficult kind of text to follow

Refutation

(both age groups; for the younger ones, exercises can be modified through gamification and opting for the easier version of the exercise outlined in the description)

1. Snap rebuttal

Students listen or read to an argument (speech by a classmate prepared in advance, a recorded speech, written essay) and immediately after the teacher selects a student who provides the rebuttal to the argument. This exercise can be used in different variations: there can be several rebuttals made to the same argument, students can be told in advance (prior to hearing the argument) who will be the one doing rebuttal (making it easier for them to prepare).

2. Race to the bottom

The teacher writes three to four claims on a blackboard and then the students are asked to figure out which of the claims is the most disagreeable (most likely to be incorrect) by firstly identifying rebuttals to each of the claims and then comparing the rebuttals against each other. Optionally, the students could also be divided into groups with each being assigned one of the statements, with the assignment to convince the rest of the class that it is the most disagreeable one.

3. Complete rebuttal for a larger group

Students listen or read to an argument (speech by a classmate prepared in advance, a recorded speech, written essay) and are then asked to write down (ideally on a space where everyone can see, such as a blackboard or an online document) rebuttals to the argument. The teacher firstly encourages students to find rebuttals, later leads the class to group together similar rebuttals, and lastly tries encourages the class to identify the strongest rebuttals - prioritise the negations. The exercise can end with one (or more) of the students being asked to provide a speech using the rebuttals that the class has put together.

4. Negation chain

The class is divided into groups of 4 to 6 students and each of the groups is being given one motion. Inside the group, the students deliver consecutive speeches with the first student first giving an argument in favour of the motion, and then the next one providing rebuttal to the heard argument and giving an additional argument, and so on (every odd speech is in favour of the motion, every even one is against). Students should have some time to prepare an argument (up to 10 minutes) and the rest of the class can be asked to listen to each of the groups.

5. Teacher vs the class

The teacher delivers a speech. The class, optionally divided into several groups, listens to the speech and has time to prepare a speech rebutting the teacher’s speech. The refutation is then delivered by a representative from each of the groups.

Argumentation Older

1. Synthesis is everything!

Provide each pupil with an article from a newspaper or magazine in which a thesis about a problem is clearly stated. The student will have to introduce these arguments and present them in an 8-minute speech. Subsequently, the student will be asked to re-present the question in half the time (4 minutes) and then in 2 minutes. Finally, the student will have to present the question in 1 minute summarising the most relevant issues. The students can also do the exercise in written form rather than an oral form to accustom students to a synthesis work without the pressure of the stopwatch.

2. Once upon a time...

The teacher will begin to briefly tell a story of a fabulous nature, which he will immediately interrupt to pass an evocative card to a student (taken from commonly used board games such as Dixit, Similo, Upon a Fable, etc ...). Based on what he will see in it (even in a subjective way), the student will have to continue with the narration: eg. The teacher says Once upon a time there was a wealthy, beautiful and mighty princess, but very sad ... According to the paper received, the student will have to explain the reason for this sadness. The teacher can then help the students in the narration by placing structured questions, or it could make the exercise more challenging, denying the possibility of any proposed solutions (e.g. a party was not enough to make the sad princess smile...). It is not so important that students are particularly creative in integrating the story but propose each new chapter argumentatively: why did this happen? The exercise can also be aimed at younger children.

3. The killer is (not) always the butler.

Pupils are given an assumption that connects a cause and a consequence in a stereotypical but plausible way: eg. The price of gas is high because it is a rare commodity. After this research, pupils will be asked to analyse the issue briefly and propose various causes that can better explain the increase in gas price: wars, international sanctions, costs of supply chains, energy waste, the inefficiency of pipelines and heat pumps, etc ... Students will understand that reality is complex and the killer is NOT always the butler!

4. Turn the topic!

Divide students into groups of 4/5. Each group will have to sit in a circle. Each group is assigned a topic to be analysed and a part to be supported (Pros or Cons). Each pupil is given a sheet divided into four parts. Subsequently, students are asked to reflect individually and independently (without reciprocal interactions!) On the topic, secretly write a short argument on the case in the first box of their sheet. Each student will then have to pass the sheet clockwise and provide further arguments, reasoning or evidence to support, supplement or correct what the debater on his right has argued. Thesis A will then be enriched with reasoning A1, with example A2 and evidence A3. Everything must take place silently and without the exchange of information. At the end of this work, the team will be able to share the themes that emerged, synthesising similar ones or criticising those that are not very convincing.

Argumentation Younger

1. Brainstorming reasons

The teacher divides the students into four groups and gives them a list of simple motions. To two groups they give motions such as, for example, "Football is better than basketball" or "Having a dog is better than having a cat", etc. The other group has the opposite motions, i.e., "Basketball is better than football" or "Having a cat is better than having a dog". At first, the students should identify at least one or two reasons to support their position, then they should present the identified reasons to the whole class.

2. Supporting your position

The teacher provide students with a list of motions and reasons for them (i.e. The country is better than the city because the country is less stressful that the city) and another list with supports for those reasons (i.e.According to the researcher Felix Requena, academic of the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Economic Sciences of the University of Malaga, rural environments cause less stress than urban environments). Students should link the right support for each motion and reason.

3. Kinds of support

The teacher provides students with a list of motions. For each motion the teacher provides also a list of different support like, reasons, expert opinion, statistic, example, explanation. Students have to link each support to the right motion and have to identify if the support used is a reason, an expert opinion, a statistic, an example or an explanation.

4. Identify reasons and support

The teacher read students a fable. After that the teacher starts again to read the fable but when the main character, during the narration, makes a decision, the teacher asks students to tell how the character could have decided differently and why.

Resolution Older

The underlining technique: Every debate starts from the same place: the resolution. To be successful, students must effectively evaluate, analyse and research the resolution given. We will show the best way to do this. The resolution is the focal point of the debate, and the goal of the students is to effectively debate about it since students' technical proficiency, eloquence and poise will be fruitless if they do not adequately address the resolution.

Imagine the following resolution:

“It is legitimate to act violently against large polluting projects in favour of the environment”

The underlining strategy consists of identifying statements based on the key words of the resolution. The steps to follow:

We identify the key words of the resolution

We make a storm of affirmations for each word and for each position (first we do the position in favour of the resolution and then against it or vice versa). Things to take into consideration when making the affirmation storm:

We have to answer “WHY”, that is, why, the selected word, in the context of the resolution.

It is a storm of affirmations, not synonyms of the word selected

Once the exercise is done for the pro side, we need to repeat it for the con side.

Stakeholders Younger

Identifying the stakeholders. Remember that Each stakeholder in a controversy has a particular point of view. Consulting as many stakeholders as possible guarantees a fresh, strong diversity of opinions and ideas to work with.The goal is to encourage students to consider all the stakeholders, not only the ones that understand “their side”. Considering all the stakeholders helps students to learn about the arguments of the “other side” and to anticipate their arguments. Which will be of great help to prepare for the rebuttal.

To make a stakeholders analysis we can follow 3 steps:

STEP 1: IDENTIFY THE STAKEHOLDERS

We must answer the following question: “Who will be affected by it?”

Sometimes the stakeholders are already written on the topic. For example, let's take a look at this resolution: “The government should provide children with free access to all sporting facilities”

In this case, children will be a pretty big stakeholder in this debate because they are already on the topic.

If the stakeholder is not listed in the topic, students might have to brainstorm about who they are. As part of this, think of all the people/organisations that are affected by the resolution, that have influence or power over it, or have an interest in its successful or unsuccessful conclusion. Some examples of stakeholders:

Individuals with something to win or lose

Nonprofit organisations (e.g., community or international organisations, consumer associations)

Workers (labour professional associations)

Educational institutions/academics

Governments

For profit business industries (associations, employers)

Families

Family relations

Poor and rich people

Disadvantaged people

Residents of certain country

Context Younger

Compare the following stories: In this activity we want to help teachers explain to their students how the context can change the rest of the story. To do this, we will follow the following steps:

1. The teacher tells the following story:

“In a very small town, there was a small supermarket run by an older couple. The owners were called Pepa and Pepe and they only had one year left before they could retire.

Every morning, Pepa and Pepe opened their establishment and attended to all the people of the town, always with a smile on their face. Pepa and Pepe were known in the town for their kindness to all their customers.

One morning, when opening the shutter, they noticed that it was forced. They entered the store and noticed that something was missing, they had been robbed.

2. The teacher ask his students:

What they think about the robbery. Is it fair? Is it unfair? Why? With these questions we seek that the students comment on what the people who have been robbed were like. Since we know they are good people, stealing hurts more, is that right?

3. The teacher tells the following story:

“It was the coldest night of the year. Gloria, once again, had no room in the municipal shelter and had to sleep outdoors. He didn't care about her, rather, he ached for his child. He was only 3 years old and had a cold. He didn't know how he was going to last another night. Then Gloria saw a small store nearby. He noticed that the lock on the door was a little loose, with a click of his heel he could break it completely and go into the tent to sleep in a sheltered place. So he did. He entered and realised that it was a small supermarket. She was very hungry and so was her little boy. So she got some scones and some milkshakes and they fell asleep between some boxes.

Before dawn, Gloria woke up her son and they ran out of the store.”

4. The teacher reflects with his students:

On how history has changed and how fair or unfair the robbery is now after knowing a different context. The teacher here should encourage the students to ask themselves: is the supermarket robbery unfair?

Theory

Context Older

1. How to create a good context.

Step 1

The teacher asks the students what questions do they think a good context should answer? And he is copying all the answers that can be given on the blackboard. To encourage brainstorming you can ask them, what questions come to mind? What do you want to know when your best friend tells you he has a girlfriend?

Step 2

When we have already selected the questions that the context must answer (WHERE, WHEN, HOW, WHAT, WHO) we divide the class into five groups and each one is given one of the questions (WHERE, WHEN, HOW, WHO). Each group must answer that question and as a result of that answer, invent a brief story, a brief context.

Step 3

After leaving them the time to prepare their stories, they will have a presentation time in front of the class. At the end of each of the stories, we ask you to change your question. Example: WHERE: They have made a story about New York, so we ask them to adapt their story to another place, in an improvised way, now without time.

Step 4

After the presentation of all the stories and the changes in the context, we all reflect on the importance of the context.

2. Build the context

In this activity we are going to continue reflecting on the importance of context. To do this, this time, it will be the students who create context stories that can modify a simple sentence.

Before going deeper into the importance of context, we have to explain to students how to create a good context.

Step 1

The teacher asks the students to divide the class into four groups. Before announcing what each of the groups has to do, write the following sentence on the board: “ONE PERSON PICKS UP A TICKET FROM THE FLOOR”.

Step 2

Now he tells each group to write a different context to that fact: Group A: that person is a thief: Group B: that person has recovered what he has lost. Group C: that person has taken something out of necessity. Group D: that person is very supportive in their day to day life. We give them 20 minutes to create their background story.

Step 3

At the end of the 20 minutes, the students must present their stories and explain why that person had taken the bill from the floor.

Step 4

In plenary, teachers and students reflect on the different stories and points of view that have emerged as a result of the same sentence.

Case Younger

Read:

https://elpais.com/ccaa/2013/01/30/valencia/1359541581_947640.html

Questions:

What do you think?

Should the woman be condemned?

If we didn’t know her situation and how she spent the money, would we have the same opinion? Why?

What we are looking for is for the students to think about how reality can be conditioned by having less or more information about the context in which a case is developed.

Case Older

New ends for stories: In this activity students have to identify the fundamental aspects that should be changed in the story if suddenly the end of the story changes.

Instructions:

The teacher makes groups of 4 to 5 students and asks each group to come up with a story.

Students will have around 15 minutes to prepare their stories.

The teacher walks around the groups and give them a paper with one of the following ends:

And that is how the world changed

And then he/she discovered that it was an alien

And that is how he/she became a superstar

And that is how it was included in the list of World’s Wonders

And that is how they became friends

The teacher gives the students 10 more minutes to change their stories to introduce that end

Finally the students will present their stories to the class and explain the aspects that had to be modified in order to introduce the chosen ending. That way they will see which were the fundamental aspects that they had to change so that the story makes sense.

Style Younger

1. Imitate famous people

Instructions

The teacher asks his students to think of a famous person they know very well. It can be your favourite singer, your favourite actress, etc. It is important that no one says who you have chosen.

When everyone has chosen their celebrities, we give them time to think about how they could imitate their way of speaking, their gestures, the way they move, etc.

Then, in turns, they go out to present their impersonation of the character to the rest of the class. They must speak like him, gesture like him, but they cannot say who he is. The rest of the class must guess who it is.

After all the presentations, in plenary, the teacher and the students reflect on who or who of the celebrities who have been represented can be the best speaker.

2. The good speaker

Instructions

The teacher writes THE GOOD SPEAKER on the blackboard and asks the students to describe the qualities that a good speaker should have.

After this brainstorming, we grouped those concepts that are common (for example: to be understood when speaking = to vocalise well) and we created a list of qualities of a good speaker.

Finally, the teacher can present a video of a great speaker so that the boys and girls identify those aspects that they have pointed out and others that they had not seen and believe are important: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0jJL_YFyIU

Imitate: After having selected the qualities that a good speaker should have, the second step is that the students could be able to identify the gestures and way of speaking of a person they do not know, imitate him and then explain what aspects he does well and what he does not

The teacher presents the following video to the students: https://youtu.be/1qq7lDL-bzY

After watching it, divide the class into groups. Each group must prepare a good imitation of the main character of the video. Imitate his voice, his movements, his ticks, if he had them, etc.

The students will have to present their imitations in groups.

At the end, all the groups analyse what positive aspects the main character of the video has as a good speaker and which ones she should improve.

3. Mime

The purpose of this activity is to work the gestures and the body to see how without words, we can express our emotions.

After having selected the qualities that a good speaker should have, the second step is that the students could be able to identify the gestures and way of speaking of a person they do not know, imitate him and then explain what aspects he does well and what he does

Instructions

The teacher asks the students to prepare a personal speech about their preferences and hobbies. He/she gives them about 15 minutes to prepare it.

At the end, he/she calls each student to present their speeches, but without speaking. Each student must present their speech without releasing a word or a sound, only with gestures.

4. Exercice build your case

In this exercise the teacher will project the New York Times article called “Johnny Depp-Amber Heard Trial Enters Final Days: What to Know”. After that, the students must read the article and identify the 5Ws (where, when, who, what and why).

Motion Database

Primary School

Language

THBT the use of regional languages should be encouraged and protected

THBT the use of language instruction should focus on developing fluency over accuracy

THBT the use of language immersion programs is the most effective way to learn a new language

THBT the use of language instruction should focus on developing digital literacy and technology skills

THBT the use of English as a global language is detrimental to linguistic diversity and cultural heritage

Mathematics

THBT education should focus on maths and science rather than music and art

THBT the use of technology in the classroom enhances students’ understanding of mathematics

THBT students should be taught problem-solving skills rather than memorising formulas in mathematics

THBT the use of real-world examples in mathematics instruction is more effective than abstract concepts

THBT the use of games and puzzles in the classroom is an effective way to teach mathematics

THBT learning multiplication tables by heart should not be part of the maths curriculum

History

THBT the historical figure of Christopher Columbus has more positive than negative traits

THBT Napoleon Bonaparte did more harm than good for the three ideals of the French Revolution (liberty, equality, fraternity)

THBT teaching local history is more important than teaching world history

THBT studying history helps us learn from the past and make better decisions in the future

THBT understanding historical events and figures is essential for understanding the world today

Study of the Environment

THBT teaching primary school students about the impact of human actions on the environment is more important than teaching them about the natural processes of the environment

THBT teaching primary school students about the importance of recycling and reducing waste is more important than teaching them about other environmental issues

THBT teaching primary school students about the importance of renewable energy sources is more important than teaching them about fossil fuels.

Geography

THBT immigration policies should focus on reuniting families

THBT access to clean water is a fundamental human right

THBT urbanisation leads to a loss of green space and biodiversity

THBT urbanisation should prioritise protection of public open spaces and parks

THBT urbanisation should prioritise the development of walkable neighbourhoods

Natural Sciences

THBT the use of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind energy is a more viable solution to climate change

THBT the use of public transportation is better for the environment than the use of personal vehicles

THBT reducing the use of single-use plastics can help protect the environment

THBT reducing water consumption can help protect the environment

THBT reducing food waste can help protect the environment

THBT reducing chemical use in household cleaning products can help protect the environment and human health

Civics Education

THBT the use of digital technology (Internet, mobile phones and computers) makes children’s lives better

THBTt children can contribute to the fight against climate change

THBT school uniforms should be a thing of the past

THBT fines should be implemented for households wasting food

THBT civic education should focus more on practical skills, such as public speaking or debating

THBT wearing smock in school should not be (be) mandatory

THBT the sale of sugary snacks should be banned inside school buildings

Medie

THBT pocket money should be made compulsory, only for children who cooperate with their parents in household chores

THBT 4-days-school is the optimal organisational model for middle school

THBT in this time of globalised digital economy small towns can become models of environmental sustainability in Europe

Arts Education (Visual Arts, Music, Drama)

THBT street art should be considered as legitimate art form

THBT contemporary art is more valuable than traditional art

THBT the art education should be mandatory in schools

Physical Education

THBT physical education should be mandatory in all schools

THBT physical education programs should include education on nutrition and healthy lifestyle choices

THBT physical education should prioritise the importance of fun, play and leisure as well as physical fitness

Middle School

Language

THBT the use of slang and non-standard language forms is detrimental to society

THBT the use of text-speak and emoticons in written communication is detrimental to language skills

THBT studying dead languages is still useful

THBT the use of foreign languages should be encouraged in media and advertising

THBT language learning should focus on practical communication rather than grammar and vocabulary

Mathematics

THBT group work is more effective for teaching mathematics than individual work

THBT students should be taught to think logically and systematically when solving mathematical problems.”

THBT real-world applications of mathematics should be emphasised in the classroom

History

THBT Columbus Day should be remembered every year in all European schools

THBT Napoleon Bonaparte should be regarded as a betrayer of the ultimate aims of the French Revolution

THBT Technological innovations are the main cause of the Industrial Revolution

THBT the Black Death produced a decrease in economic inequality among survivors

THBT students should be taught about historical events and figures from diverse cultures and perspectives

THBT studying the history of different cultures and perspectives is important for understanding the world today

Study of the Environment

THBT studying the environment helps us understand the impact of climate change and the importance of taking actions to mitigate it

THBT the use of technology should be used to help protect and preserve the environment

THBT urbanisation and development should prioritise the preservation of green spaces and natural habitats

THBT the use of pesticides and herbicides in agriculture is harmful to the environment

We believe it is better to live in the countryside than a city.

Governments should put a limit on individual energy use.

THW abolish zoos.

We should stop eating meat.

We should ban personal cars in large cities.

Nuclear energy is the way to go.

Electric cars are overrated.

Politicians should not use planes when travelling within Europe.

We regret the rise of antinatalism among young people.

Geography

THBT citizens should be held responsible for micro climates, specifically urban or city climates

THBT governments should forbid living close to dangerous areas, such as volcanoes, rivers, tornado areas ect.

THBT understanding the earth’s population and demographics is important for understanding social and economic patterns

THBT goods should be moved by train and not by trucks

THBT that overpopulation is not a concern

THBT immigration is important for economic growth and development

THBT immigration policies should prioritise skilled and educated workers

THBT urbanisation should prioritise affordable housing for all citizens

Natural Sciences

THBT the use of pesticides and herbicides in agriculture is necessary for food security and crop productivity

THBT reuse is better than recycle

THBT recycling should be substituted with reusing

THBT protecting endangered species is important for biodiversity

THBT educating the public about environmental issues is important for creating a sustainable future

THBT using energy-efficient appliances and technologies can help reduce energy consumption and protect the environment

Civics Education

THBT 12-year-olds should have the right to vote on policies that affect climate change

THBT that strikes and demonstrations are useful tools to achieve Goal 13 of the 2030 Agenda (Fight against climate change)

THBT the practice of Debate should become a compulsory part of the civic education curriculum

THBT participation in active citizenship experiences/projects, carried out by students during school hours, should be mandatory

THBT young people should have their own representative, elected by first and second grade school students in the municipality, in the Municipal Council

THBT the aim of civic education should be the preparation of participating in local politics and community governance

THBT civic education should focus on teaching the history

THBT drug testing on animals should be banned

THBT GMOs are a solution to the problem of world hunger

THBT digital technologies changed the way the new generations communicate and interact forever

THBT social media proved to be more trouble than worth

THBT digital Literacy must be a mandatory subject at every school level in all EU countries

THBT in this time of globalised digital economy everyone must live and work in their birthplace to give it higher value

Arts Education (Visual Arts, Music, Drama)

THBT the use of technology in the creation of visual art is a positive development

THBT the traditional art forms should be protected and preserved

THBT artistic freedom should be protected and censorship in visual art should be minimised

THBT streaming services should be banned

THBT musicians should not be held responsible for the actions of their fans

THBT the music industry should invest more in promoting music education in schools

TH does not like the rapid spread of trap music and the figure of “trappers” among young people in recent years

Physical Education

THBT physical education should focus on promoting overall health and wellness, rather than just sports

THBT physical education should prioritise safety and injury prevention

THBT physical education should focus more on outdoor activities and nature education

THBT physical education should include education on the importance of mental health and well-being

THBT physical education hours should be doubled in Italian schools

Family

The teenager’s right of privacy is more important than the parents right to know.

This house would implement mandatory paternity leave for fathers.

Parents should not allow their children to play with toys – weapons.

We should not have kids.

Everybody should learn to cook.

We should fine parents when their children don’t do their homework.

Parents should be paid for staying at home with their children.

This house would no longer require parental consent for administering invasive procedures on adolescents (e.g. piercing and tattoos, cosmetic surgery, etc.)

Prisoners should be allowed to raise children in prisons.

Health

The biggest health threat to young people is the amount of time they spend online.

Unvaccinated students should not be allowed to attend public schools.

We should introduce a special tax on unhealthy food.

We should allow doctors/ medical professionals to make decisions about children’s healthcare against the parents’ wishes.

We support an absolute ban on smoking.

We should ban alcohol.

We should ban junk food for children.

Sugar is worse than fat.

Humanities/Social science

Money doesn’t bring you happiness.

The rich should pay much higher taxes.

TH believes that people living in the world’s richest nations have a moral obligation to share their wealth with those living in the world’s poorest nations.

Universal basic income is necessary for a fair society.

The minimum age to own a smartphone should be 16.

We should lower the voting age to 16.

Voting should be mandatory.

Protests bring more harm than good.

The government should create guidelines for Artificial Intelligence regulation to prevent widespread job loss in the workplace.

War is never justified.

Fireworks should be banned.

Gambling should be prohibited.

THB community service is a better punishment than prison for non-violent crimes.

Prison should only be for violent criminals.

There should be a curfew for under-sixteen.

THBT tourist quotas should be introduced in the most popular tourist destinations.

Mountains are a better holiday destination than the seaside.

Cancel culture is doing more harm than good.

Celebrities should be held to a higher standard of behaviour than the general population.

Happiness is more important than success.

Literature

Harry Potter books are better than Harry Potter films.

Children’s literature should replace happy endings with realistic ones.

There’s no need to read the book if you can just watch the film.

Attending live performances in theatres is more fun than going to cinemas.

Books should be realistic not fantastical.

Film versions are never as good as the original books.

The Lord of the Rings is better than Harry Potter.

Media

TikTok should be banned.

Facebook/Instagram should have a dislike button.

We regret the popularity of influencers.

Social media influencers should be required to disclose when the content they are promoting is sponsored.

Sites like Twitter and Reddit should do away with anonymous posting.

The media provides poor role models to young girls.

Advertisements are sexist.

Advertisements targeting children should be banned.

We should ban violent video games.

Unhealthy food should not feature in children’s TV programs.

This House believes violence in the media causes violence in society.

The government should hold social media companies responsible for overseeing the spread of misinformation on their platforms.

We should subscribe to printed newspapers.

We should not watch Disney princesses films.

We regret the rise of super heroes movies.

Reality TV portrays a distorted version of reality.

Relationships

We should tell our friends if they have been cheated on in a romantic relationship.

If our friends are using drugs we should report it to their parents.

We should terminate relationships with friends who lie to us.

We should terminate relationships with friends who use hate speech off - and on – line.

Lying is never justified.

Being kind is better than being truthful.

Social media is hindering our ability to form meaningful connections with others.

School

This House would ban make-up in middle schools.

School uniforms should be mandatory.

Homework should be banned.

Grades should be abolished.

School lunches should be free.

Teachers should be replaced with robots.

All children should get free school meals.

Students in Europe should learn at least one non – European language e.g. Chinese, Arabic, …

Students younger than 14 should not be allowed to have smart phones.

Bullies should be excluded from schools.

Girls and boys should play sports together on the same teams.

Students should be graded on their handwriting.

Book smarts are better than street smarts.

Everyone should learn to play a musical instrument.

Science

We welcome the development of independent AI.

Testing products for humans on animals should be banned.

We support the colonisation of the Moon/Mars.

Space tourism brings more harm than good.

Science is the answer to our problems.

Parents should be allowed to use technology to choose characteristics of their babies.

We would welcome robots into our homes.

Scientists should be held responsible for the ethical consequences of their work.

Sports

This House Would prohibit unhealthy food advertisements when broadcasting sports events.

There is too much money in professional sports.

Sportspeople are better role models than scientists.

Video games competitions should be included in the Olympics.

Competitive sports should not be played in schools.

There should be a mandatory sport class every day for all students in primary and secondary education.

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