DEBATE!DDEDEBDEBADEBATE!

Primary DebatingHandbook

Dear Teacher,

If you are interested in introducingdebating into your primary classroom,then this short guide is for you!

Debating is a fun, educational way ofencouraging your students to reallyengage with topics. Learning to debateteaches students how to apply criticalanalysis and how to prepare anargument using facts and soundresearch. It also teaches studentsvaluable communication skills such ashow to deliver a speech and how toeffectively defend the points they make.

Debating can take many forms. If youare interested in entering a team incompetitive debating, this handbook willoffer some guidance on how formaldebating works and the rules ofdebating.

However debating is also a usefulteaching methodology. The componentsof debating can be applied across arange of curriculum areas and can helpyour students develop higher order skills.Debating exercises can be used forgroup work and for whole class activities.

This handbook is not intended to be adefinitive guide but aims instead to offersome guidance to any teacher looking foran introduction on debating in theprimary classroom.

Enjoy!

Welcome

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Using debating as ateaching methodologyin your classroom.

What is a debate?

A formal argument where groups or individuals presentopposing views about particularissue according to a set of rules.

You may be familiar with formaldebating. If you’ve seen a competitivedebate in action, you will most likely beaware that it consists of two teams arguingthe opposing sides of a statement or issue.There are formal rules that govern thiscompetition such as in what order and forhow long each speaker has for theirspeech. Marks are allocated according toset criteria such as use of rebutal orrefutation or evidence of team work.

Education Centres across Ireland will runPrimary Debating competitions forschools in their area subject to demandand capacity.

Concern Worldwide will partner with theEducation Centres to offer support.Concern is an Irish NGO which has 27countries of operation in some of thepoorest and least developed parts of theworld. We work to help the most vulnerablepeople and we focus on those living inextreme poverty. We also work in Irelandthrough our Active Citizenship programmewhich educates young people about globalissues. Concern has been running adebating competition at secondary schoollevel since 1984.

Introduction to Primary Debating

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Most definitions of debating include theword argument. But debating is about farmore than verbal sparring. Debating is away of engaging with an issue. It involvescritical thinking. It teaches us to reasonand to grapple with opposing points ofview. It teaches us valuablecommunication skills. It can challenge usalso. How often have we encounteredsome opposition to one of our long heldopinions, only to find ourselves scramblingfor arguments to defend our position,testing the soundness of the foundationof that same opinion?

Debating helps us to think through issuesand explore opinions and discover how tobuild a solid argument.

Debating helps students to really engagewith a topic and not just acceptinformation at face value. Students don’tjust need to understand the informationthey are presented with, they also need tohave the skills to research throughdifferent sources, critically analyse theinformation presented and form their ownconclusions and arguments as a result.

Using debates in your classroom can helpstudents to develop many skills including;

Abstract thinking

Analytical thinking

Public speaking

Language usage

Questioning/cross examining

Research

Point of view

Distinguishing fact from opinion

Organisation

Teamwork/Co-operation

Curriculum links includeEnglish (Oral languagedevelopment), SESEsubjects (analytical thinking,research that includes fact finding andusing sources) and Maths (researchincluding surveys and statistics).

Why teach debating?

How is this relevant in my classroom? I’m not sure I want to encourage a lot ofarguments!

You may think that the last thing youneed to teach your students is how todebate. You may feel that some of themare well able to argue already! However,debating teaches us how to put togethera well-formed, researched argument orpoint of view which we are then able todefend. It also teaches us to listen toopposing view-points and to criticallyevaluate information.

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The three core components of debating;

Communication

& DeliveryRefutation & Rebuttal

Communication and Delivery

This refers to the delivery of their argumentor position. Good communication skills areimportant life skills for everyone. Manypeople fear public speaking but we cantrain ourselves to become more comfortablewith speaking up and speaking out.Debating is a fantastic way to buildchildren’s confidence over time. Childrenthat might start out nervous and hesitantcan often develop into confident speakersthrough the forum of debating.

Exercise one - identifying goodcommunicators.

Divide a piece of chart paper in half ordraw a line dividing your whiteboard/blackboard down the middle. Whatfamous people do your students think aregood communicators? Who can they namethat they would consider a good speakeror someone they would listen to?

Who is a ‘bad’ speaker? Break down thereason why in each case. What are theelements we can identify in goodcommunication? (humour, confidenceetc.) What do we want to avoid?(mumbling, shouting etc.)

Play a soundbite/podcast of any well-known orator e.g. Martin Luther King,Barack Obama, David Norris, Malala etc.Why do they think those people areconsidered good speakers?

Exercise two - ways of speaking

Divide up your class into pairs. Give eachpair two sets of prompt cards- one with atopic and another with a speaking style.The topics can be anything relevant to theage group of your class e.g. A pop-singer,a food, a sport (keep the topics simple).The speaking styles can include good andbad examples such as mumbling, lots ofems and other filler words, confidently,very fast, nervously, with anger etc.

Research

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They then take turns talking about thattopic in that particular style to theirpartner who has to guess both the topicand the style.

Exercise three

Break your class into small groups of threeor four. In these groups, everyone takes aturn speaking about their favouritetopic/person/food/sport etc. Everybodyspeaks for just two minutes. This allowsstudents practice speaking but with asmaller audience so they can start to buildtheir confidence. You can graduallyincrease the size of the groups andspeakers can speak on a different day,having prepared beforehand for their turn.

Delivery

The most effective delivery is when thespeaker knows their speech and is notreading from a sheet. Eye contact andvoice projection can be practiced once thespeech is learnt. They don’t need to learn itall word for word but they should be able tolook up repeatedly.

Students will get nervous and sometimesfreeze. It may be useful for them to have aprompt card with key words written in boldso they can refer to this to help them getrestarted.

Practice, practice, practice!

The more opportunity they have to speak,the easier it becomes so as studentsbecome more comfortable add morechallenges- bring in another teacher oranother class as an audience.

Research

Researching a debating motion provides a great opportunity for whole classinvolvement.

Initially it may be difficult for students tocome up with suggestions for debatingmotions. They may find it hard to pick aquestion or topic with two sides. Or theymay choose a topic that everyone wouldfind easy to agree with but which nobodywants to oppose.

Start by providing some topics you choosefor the class until they start to come upwith their own. You can link some of thesedirectly to what they are studying orlearning about in some subject area. Youmight want to choose something topicalfrom the current news cycle, providing it isnot too complex! Throw in some fun, non-academic, youth culture debates or somewacky ones eg.

The colour red is much moreuseful than the colour blue.

Cats make better pets than dogs.

As a whole class exercise, brainstorm thetopic from both sides. Start with theproposing arguments. Discuss how theymight group some arguments together. Workuntil there are three main arguments. Do thesame with the opposing side. Then divide theclass into six teams. Roll a die to determinewhether a team is first, second or thirdargument proposing and same for opposingteams. Everyone in the team needs to workon their particular side of the argument.

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Sources

This is a good opportunity to develop skills inunderstanding different sources ofinformation. It links to the history curriculumbut also to English and literacy.

Some questions you might ask the class tothink about;

Where can we go to look forinformation?

What is the difference between aprimary source and a secondarysource?

How can we choose which sourceis better? What role does memoryplay?

How do we know how trustworthy/reliable our source is?

This also presents a good opportunity todiscuss how we use the Internet as a sourceof information. How do we use searchengines? Understanding how they work.

Can we tell who has put up information?How can we tell if it is accurate? How to tellif the website we are looking at is an officialwebsite or not? Encourage children to look atweb addresses.

Apart from the internet, what other placescan we look for information? Is the authorof the information from the time or are theywriting after the fact? Were they there andis it a first-hand account or do we know ifthey are a reliable witness?

Collecting primary sources (SESE/Maths Integration)

This can become a class activity in itself.It could be linked to history class- theycould interview a parent or grandparentabout an aspect of the topic, whererelevant. For example, for a topic such as“Children spend too much time oncomputers”, they could ask an olderfamily member about life before smartphones were invented!

Or you could explore opportunities forintegration with mathematics by collectingresearch information and exploring waysto present it in various forms such asgraphs and polls. Is there a possibility ofcreating a survey of students in theirschool or an opinion poll among a numberof classes? You could use the data todiscuss mathematics representationssuch as fractions and percentages.

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Useful websiteswww.scoilnet.iewww.kidfriendlysearch.comwww.funbrain.comwww.factmonster.comwww.kids.nationalgeographic.comwww.worldalmanacforkids.com

Refutation and rebuttal

This is a core component of debating. Inessence, this is what differentiates debatingfrom public speaking. Refutation andrebuttal are the methods of counter arguing.To refute an argument is to produceevidence (facts or figures) to prove it untrue.To rebut an argument is to discredit it byoffering a completely different point of view.

Research is essential for putting together astrong argument. Communication isessential for delivering that argument.

But refutation and rebuttal are essential todebating your argument. In competitivedebating, this can often be the deciding factorin winning a debate. Outside of competitivedebating, the skills of refutation and rebuttalprovide students with higher order skills ofanalysis and defence of an argument.

In order to be able to counter argue in adebate, students should research both sidesof the topic or statement they are debating.That way they will be prepared for some ofthe points their opposition will use and beready to answer those arguments with factsand statements of their own.

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DEBATES

“I couldn’t disagree more!”This is a good exercise to practise rebuttal.

Divide your students in two lines standing opposite eachother. Provide the group with a motion and pick a side topropose or agree with this motion and the opposite sidewill oppose or disagree.

Keep the motion simple eg. Uniforms are useful. Oneside starts with the motion- Uniforms are usefulbecause… their opposite number across from themneeds to counter with “I couldn’t disagree more…”.Based on what they say, the next person in the lineon the proposing side need to follow with “I couldn’tdisagree more.. and another statement in support ofthe motion” and so on down the line with everyonedisagreeing with the statement before.

As well as keeping acollection yourself, youcould provide your classwith a suggestion box wherethey could leave ideas for debatingmotions. Some may need work butthat could happen as part of awhole class discussion- allow themto tweak and suggest how toimprove or strengthen a motion.

What does a debate look like?

In a debate there are two teams. Oneteam proposes or argues in favour of themotion and the other team opposes or isagainst the motion.

In general the home team is theproposition and the away team is theopposition but for neutral venues, teacherscan decide between themselves.

Moving on to formal debating should notbe seen as anything daunting orintimidating. In fact, once your studentsbecome familiar with the format involvedin debating, it becomes very easy to runmini debates with your class whenever agood topic arises.

The motion is usually a statement orsometimes a question. It should have twosides. Students often find it difficult toargue against motions they personallydisagree with. This is something thattakes practice. Allow them opportunitiesto debate unpopular topics e.g Computergames should be banned, summerholidays should be shorter etc.

FormalDebates

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The debate team.In the primary debating competition eachteam must have six members. At a formaldebate there are three speakers per school.You can use your other members fortimekeeping, research assistants, subs etc.

One member of the team is nominated asthe captain. The make-up of the teamdoesn’t need to stay the same for everydebate - you may choose to rotate roles.

Speaking order.The captain of the proposition speaks first.The captain of the opposition speakssecond. The second member of theproposition speaks next followed by thesecond member of the opposition. The thirdspeakers follow next. Finally the captainssummarise, this time with the captain of theopposition summing up first and finishingthe debate with captain of the proposition.

The Captain’s role;The captain is responsible for introducingtheir team. There are different ways to starta speech but the follow is an example;

“Chairperson, member of the audience,member of the opposition, we are heretoday to propose the motion that…”

The captain should introduce their team,outlining the arguments that each memberwill talk about. For example “Ciara willspeak about how zoos have been importantin conservation and Aoife will explain howschools benefit from trips to the zoo etc.”

The captain is also responsible forspeaking at the end. They need tosummarise the points their team made andtry to refute the arguments the oppositionmade or answer/defend any points againstthem during the debate.

The debate

Each team member should have a distinctpoint to talk about. Each speaker speaksfor two minutes. They will be awardedpoints against them if they go over thetime so it’s a good idea to practice,practice, practice! Make sure they arefamiliar with hearing the bell to signal thetime up. If they lose their train of thoughtand need to wrap up, teach them to finishwith “therefore we propose/oppose themotion that….”.

Practicing their speech also helps them todefeat nerves. Children are less likely toget nervous if they have had numerouspractice runs.

Team work

Each member needs to stay engagedthroughout the debate and not just fortheir own speech. They should have paperand pen at hand and jot down any usefulpoints. They need to listen to the speakersbefore them to find opportunities forrebuttal and refutation.

After their speech, they should be lookingfor points to assist their captain in theirsummation. Marks are awarded forteamwork, so each member should beaware of the importance of making acontribution where they can.

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Marking Sheets

During a debate marks are awardedaccording to different aspects ofdebating. In general marks are awardedto individual speakers for content anddelivery. This can include use of sourcesand use of refutation and rebuttal.Captains are awarded marks for theirparticular duties. There are usually marksawarded for teamwork. Penalties can beincurred if speakers go beyond theallocated time allowed. It is recommendedthat teachers familiarize themselves andtheir team with the marking sheet prior toeach debate. Copies of the markingsheets are available from your localEducation Centre.

Adjudicators

It is the role of the adjudicator todetermine the marks awarded during thedebate. After each speech they will awardpoints according to the categories on themarking sheet. At the end of the debate,the adjudicators retire to a separate roomto tally the scores and determine theresult. The chief adjudicator delivers somefeedback and announces the result of thedebate to the audience.

Next StepsContact your local education centre to find out if there will be acompetition run in your area. Your education centre will assist you inregistering and taking part. Competitions will run to a regional finalbut there will also be fun days run by Concern in regions across thecountry later in the year.

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Written by Fiona Nally, Schools ProgrammeOfficer, Concern Worldwide. 2015.

Participating teacher education centres include:

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