{"id":2728,"date":"2010-11-15T16:29:12","date_gmt":"2010-11-15T16:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielprimed.com\/?p=2728"},"modified":"2012-03-16T05:55:37","modified_gmt":"2012-03-16T05:55:37","slug":"a-video-game-model-for-teaching-debating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/2010\/11\/a-video-game-model-for-teaching-debating\/","title":{"rendered":"A Video Game Model For Teaching Debating"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The language centre I work at in China fields us teachers out to local schools as part of what I largely consider to be a marketing exercise in bringing more students to the school. For previous years the actual teaching side has been primarily stock language games there to fill the quota of time. The external classes were never really taken seriously and there wasn’t much effort by upper management or teachers to extend these classes beyond their transparent role as business pitches. Fortunately, in recent months, some of the senior teachers put together a new program and now we cover the skill of argumentation through weekly classroom debates. It’s certainly a big improvement and one of my favourite classes of the week.<\/p>\n

The initial lesson is a teacher-orientated push through the basic debate structure with lots of scaffolding and puppetry of students as the teacher does their best to cover the basic structure through demonstration in a tight 40-minute time frame (as well as basic introductions). From then on, the kids have a one week reprieve, debating for every lesson thereafter. Students themselves are free to choose the topic while the local English teacher chooses the speakers and assists them in their speeches during regular lessons. After each debate (20 minutes or so), the foreign teacher provides a critique, gives advice and focuses on the topic for the week (presentation skills, rebuttals, etc). This model is followed for every lesson.<\/p>\n

The idea behind the debates is that they act as a means to introduce the students to western ideology of reason as well as to improve their oral language and presentation skills. The latter 2 are important in bolstering the school’s reputation as a foreign language school for when some students will later participate in public speaking competitions. The former is a skill that they can’t get from their standard Chinese education and an important one to have as students in these schools are known to transfer to overseas high schools.<\/p>\n

The fatal flaw in this design is the integration between the local and international teachers. Each speaker in the debate needs to speak for between 2-3 minutes, however students have been hitting on average 40 seconds and at the shortest maybe 8. Obviously, such short length compromises the teacher’s lesson and in fact their very presence. The bond tying these 2 sides together is that student’s performances in the debates will make up part of their English grade. Yet even with this measure in place, the local teachers have not been pulling their weight, as a result leaving students to write their speeches in their own free time (not even for homework!). As you can imagine, with Chinese students overworked as it is<\/a>, this leads to a few sketchy sentences on a scrappy piece of paper come the beginning of class. This output by the students, while often great considering, is indicative of the lack of teacher support on their side of the fence.<\/p>\n

Personally, I’ve tried to remedy this issue by providing students with supplementary materials which reinforce the structure of debates and the nature of rebuttals. Rebuttals are the trickiest part of the course as it demands that either the students think on their feet or pre-plan answers to possible points made by the opposition. Thinking on your feet is hard enough for a native speaker to do mid-debate let alone a speaker of a second language. And having the students consider the points of the opposing team in their own time before the debate is unfair given the lack of time allocated to debate preparation by local teachers.<\/p>\n

As the classes carry on, the focal point for each class has moved away from basic presentation skills and into more finer points such as rebuttals, acknowledging weakness in an argument and using the floor time (audience participation) to your advantage. The tuition is now firmly on critical thinking and for this the students need more support. In order to push the students towards critical thinking, I’ve constructed a model designed to do 3 things: elaborate on ideas and reasoning, present the benefits of rebuttals to an argument and reveal how I calculate the winners of the debates. You’d be very much correct if you preempt me by assuming that the model is that of a video game. Below is my lesson plan\/outline for teaching students about debates using video game systems as a model.<\/p>\n

Debating Game \u2013 Lesson Plan<\/h3>\n

Preparation<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

At the start of the class I elicit all the information in the picture below and write it on the board as such. This visual image gives the chairperson something to work from as well as informing the other students about the debate’s proceedings.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Setting the Context<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

(Teacher’s dialogue is in quotes)<\/p>\n

\u201cWho likes video games, raise your hand?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cCool, now in a video game what do you want?\u201d<\/em> (Answer: points)<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, a debate is just like a video game. So in a debate, how do you get points?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The Finer Points of Ideas<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

(Students will likely make a few suggestions, try to steer them towards proposing ideas).<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get points in 2 ways, the first is to say ideas. So….\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

At this point I reference the team list I write up on the board before the debate and model examples based on the student’s performance. For the sake of the article, the topic of the debate is \u201cStudents should bring their own lunch to school\u201d.<\/p>\n

Elicit a point made by the first speaker of the proposition (Jake).<\/p>\n

Elicit whether the proposed idea was a good one and how many points the students would give it. Ask the students how they get more points from a single argument\/idea. Fill in this breakdown of an idea based on the students answers (may need to just explain this outright):<\/p>\n

Idea<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n