Debating undoubtedly has many advantages, it improves students’ communication skills and their critical thinking, it helps to develop effective tools for research, organization and presentation and also strategies to overcome fear of public speaking.
In the High School José Mª Morón y Barrientos, where we are lucky enough to be able to go to school these days, we keep practising it, both in Spanish and in English.
In this picture we have the 1st Year of Compulsory Secondary Education debating on: ‘Do we treat physically and/or mentally disabled people with respect and the same as everybody else?’
In this occasion, given the complexity of the issue, there were no teams, they gave their own opinions. This debate was in Spanish.
To prepare this activity, students did an activity where they had to behave as if they or their classmates or teachers were disabled, here we have a video of this activity:
In this picture we have the 4th Year of Compulsory Secondary Education students debating in English on the usefulness of learning languages.
As groups of students that seat next to each other to decide on the arguments to give are not possible, each one thought of both for and against arguments, and then, picking cards, the teams were formed and they defended what they had to. Many good ideas were given on both views.
These are 4th Year of Compulsory Secondary Education students debating in English on the advantages and disadvantages of internet being free for everyone. In a time of virtual learning and social distancing, not everybody has unlimited access to internet and all it provides. So, we thought this was an interesting possibility to discuss.
To debate, most of the time it is better to research the topic. Sometimes we prepare the students showing them videos. Here, our oldest students are watching a video on whether mentally and/or physically disable people should have babies. A very complex debate that made them think a lot.
After the teacher’s introduction to the topic and watching the information, it is time to defend your ideas.
We thought the discussion on whether mentally and/or physically disable people should have babies with the oldest students went so well that the same issue was debated with the students in the 3rd Year.
And here are some videos of the oldest students doing ordinary things as blind people do everyday.
