Tennis Debate

This activity is good for building students’ critical listening skills, which is one of the important skills for being a good debater. To execute this activity, you have to imagine a tennis match. It works the same way.

Preparation

Before you start class, the teacher should prepare some simple, fun topics that can be debated. (Some ideas are listed below.) For example: Dogs are better than cats.

Procedure When to Use It

• To get students thinking critically and creatively • To promote appropriate responses to arguments • To get students to work together • To practice turn-taking

Level

1. Divide your class into two teams (if the class is large, you might want to have four teams). Skills 2. Teams shouldn’t be larger than eight people in order to ensure 3. everyone has an opportunity to speak. Give the teams the topic. Practice 4. Next, the teams draw what side they will defend (i.e., dogs or cats). 5. The teams then have ten minutes to work together to write down all the Materials reasons they can think of that defends their position. A ball or something to toss 6. Tell the students that this is a brainstorming activity, so they should list A watch to keep time 7. 8. 9. as many ideas as they can think of. Next, you are ready to begin the debate match. Have the teams sit facing each other. Flip a coin or draw to see which team gets to begin. A list of fun, simple debate topics: Dogs are better than cats Hip-hop music is better than rock music 10. Give the winning team — we’ll call them Team A — a ball or some- Having a party on your fifteenth birthday is thing to toss. The team that begins will choose their best reason (only better than going to Disney World one) and tell the other team, Team B, what it is. Living in the city is better than living in the 11. After they state their reason, they toss the ball to someone on the other countryside team. 12. The person who catches the ball has to respond to Team A’s comment. Preparation Time

If the person can’t comment, then they can pass it to a team member 5 minutes who can. 13. They have 30 seconds to respond to the first team’s reason. Activity Time14. Team B cannot give one of their own reasons; they must respond to 10–15 minutes

Team A’s reason. The idea must connect. 15. When Team B responds, they pass the ball back to Team A and then

Team A must respond to Team B’s argument. 16. The team that can’t respond loses the round because they have “dropped the ball.” 17. The team that wins the round chooses another reason from their list and a new match begins. Example: Team A Team B

Team A begins: Dogs are better than cats because they can be trained to guard your house and cats can never be used to guard houses. Team B: You don’t need a dog to guard a house because you can buy an alarm system to do that. Team A: If there is an electrical outage or any technical problem, then the alarm system won’t work. A dog doesn’t require electricity or this type of maintenance.

Variations

1. Adjust the amount of time you give the students to prepare their lists or the time you allow them to respond. However, it is important to provide a time frame in which the students must respond so that it builds students’ ability to think quickly. 2. Have students list possible topics in order to have those that are relevant to their daily lives and culture, to encourage a richer discussion.