Anny Chen (grade 12)
Recently, students from different grades engaged in debate in their English or ELL class. For a lot of students, this was a unique experience at school. This debate involved different topics, included some controversial and popular topics. The debate was challenging but meanwhile, we learned a lot from it. I interviewed some students from different grades to tell us their feelings about this debate activity.
A lot of students expressed their feelings and opinions about the debate. “I think this debate broadened my view, it made us have a chance to know about different popular issues in our society. What’s more, it’s an exciting opportunity to understand the issues that our modern society needs to face,” a student from grade 11 said. Other than letting students know more about this world, the debate enhanced students’ personal abilities as well. Tiffany said she learned how to organize information, otherwise, it would take too long to find the information she wanted to mention in her debate. For our daily life and studies, if you have a strong ability to organize information and objects, it helps you a lot with being efficient.
Some students had to argue a position they didn’t actually agree with. However, research helped them to increase their confidence and they learned how to use the evidence they found to support their points. “I learned how to refute my debate opponent’s points by using my research information,” Lilian said. “Even though the position I got was not the position I supported, I could still use my research to confidently refute opponent’s points.”
This activity also helped some students to figure out some improvements they could make for English. “I saw my rubric and I got a low mark in the grammar part. What’s more, I felt grammar weakness made it more difficult to express my points accurately,” a student said. I also participated in the debate. I felt that I needed to slow down while talking and follow steps to explain my opinion so that people wouldn’t be confused and I wouldn’t be stuck in the middle of the debate.
A lot of students expressed that they hoped they’d have more chances in the future to have in-class activities like debate. It helps increase students’ participation in class.