グローバル教育〔 地球的規模で考える 〕
PDA即興型英語ディベート
2026年度第7回即興型英語ディベート
On Monday September 14th, we held the seventh debate meeting of this academic year. Unfortunately, only about half the members could attend because the meeting had to be rescheduled due to the school cancellation day that resulted from the heavy rain warning last week. However, the members that did attend worked very hard, and the absent members will be given the practice materials by their homeroom teachers.
First, students took part in the final skills practice session. This time, they learned about and practiced two things. The first skill was advanced rebuttals. Here, the students are encouraged to try and use one of their team's own points to rebut the other team's point. This is a powerful strategy because it develops a clashpoint in the debate and directly shows that your ideas are superior to the other team's. This is especially helpful to the third speaker when they are summarizing. Depending on the points being argued by each team, it may not always be possible to rebut in this way, but students were shown its power and will look for opportunities to use these rebuttals from now.
The second skill was counterpoints. These are rebuttals to rebuttals. They happen at two places in PDA debate. The second speaker for each team has the chance to reconstruct their team's first point after it was rebutted. Also, any speaker may have to give a counterpoint if the other team uses a POI to attack their speech with a rebuttal. The main point of the practice session was to use the planning time well and try to anticpate rebuttals the other team might give and plan what can be said in response. Teams were encouraged to have the third speaker focus on this because they cannot make their speech during the preparation time.
After the skills practice, the students had a debate with online judges. The motion was Being fashionable brings more benefit than harm. (おしゃれは害よりも利益をもたらす。) This was a criteria debate, which gave the students a chance to define what benefit and harm might mean. The students debated very well and were given lots of positive feedback by the PDA judges. Well done, everyone!
From the next meeting, the students will start the two-debate pattern because we have finished all of the skills lessons. Now, they must practice those skills and put into action the advice given by judges. Good luck!
