Ladies
and gentlemen, this house believes that debating can be a thorough
skills training and our speech rests on these three main points:
First, debating develops a student’s speaking skills, second, debating
develops the students‘ listening skills, third, debating develops other
skills.
Now, first and foremost, debating develops the student’s speaking skills, and that can easily be done from grade 7 or 8 onwards (the latter is in which most students at the Schubart start).
Students love arguing for one side and attacking the other side and
they are rarely given the chance to speak for several consecutive
minutes in a regular language classroom.
Second, debating develops the student’s listening skills. Some
experienced debaters coaches claim that this is actually the most
important skill for a good debater – you cannot refute (speak against)
somebody else’s arguments unless you listened very carefully first.
And last but not least, debating develops ceratin other skills.
Students learn how to stand up and present their case, they learn how
importand structure and signpost is. They improve their command of
English: they elarn certain useful phrases (e.g. to address a major
point) and they enlarge their active as well as passive vocabulary. On
top of all that, students become more self-confident by having to give
speeches on the basis of just a few notes and they learn to speak to an
audience as well.
For the above reasons – speaking, listening and presentational skills – we beg to oppose the motion!
based on an article by Ellen Butzko, abridged and slightly adapted (Klett-Magazin close-up, 02/2004)