2022年度第７回即興型英語ディベート

On January 25th (Wed.), we held the seventh debate session for this academic year and the first for 2023.

First, we heard reports from our school's national debate team members. They divided their report into three parts:

Advice for first speakers (Prime Ministers and Leaders of the Opposition)
- Don't only explain your team's first point, also explain the background to the debate motion that supports your team's arguments.
Advice for second speakers (Members of the Government and Members of the Opposition)
- You have the longest part, so don't spend too long rebutting the other team's ideas. Use the AREA pattern to do the rebutting quickly and give yourself enough time to deliver your team's second point.
Advice for the third speakers (Prime Minister Replies and Leader of the Opposition Replies
- You can't prepare your own speech during the preparation time, so use that time to anticipate what the other team might say and think of rebuts, and support your teammates in making your team's first and second points.

Next, the students were told that the next time would be the last session this academic year and that we would watch the best debaters in an exhibition debate. Further, they were reminded that this time was the last chance to get points to be one of the debaters in that exhibition.

Then, the PDA staff leader reviewed the various strategies for debating that the students have been practicing. and gave time management advice. Specifically, if your speech is too short, adding concrete examples is good because they are easy to explain in detail and good examples make your arguments stronger and clearer. On the other hand, if your speech is too long, don't spend too much time on rebutting. Also, in general, practice with a timer to get a feel for how long you take to say things.

After that, the debates began. Today, the first debate topic was "Marrying at an older age is better than marrying young."(早婚よりも晩婚のほうがよい。). The second topic was "All the cultural heritage assets should be returned to their original homelands."(流出文化財は、すべて本国へ返すべきである。). Despite having had a long break during the winter vacation, the students were very active immediately. Noticeable points were the use of POIs and the responses to them and the length of some of the speeches with students speaking for the full speech time.

The students did an excellent job, perhaps inspired by wanting to appear in the exhibition debate. We're very excited for that event in February.

Good job!

一覧へ戻る