Author(s)
Simon Robinson
Citation
沖縄キリスト教学院大学論集 = Okinawa Christian
University Review(14): 79-90
Issue Date
2017-10-16
URL
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12001/22132
A Guide to Teaching Discussion and Debate Activities with
Japanese Students.
Simon Robinson
AbstractTeaching Discussion and Debate in Japanese universities can be difficult because students will often run out of things to say or fail to get emotionally involved with the material. However, over the last ten years of teaching debate I have honed a method that I feel is successful in getting the students engaged in lively debate. In this paper I give a detailed guide to this methodology, providing a rationale for each classroom activity and giving examples of student interactions, of my blackboard layouts, and of student feedback. I hope this paper will help other teachers to make debate a successful classroom activity that both teachers and students look forward to.
１．Introduction
Debate is a popular activity in English communication lessons, and because it is a talking activity with a lot of back-and-forth discussion, in theory debate provides an excellent opportunity for students to practice their speaking and listening abilities （ Stewart and Pleisch, 1998 ） whilst simultaneously examining social and cultural issues（Kluge, 2016）and developing their critical thinking skills（Harmer, 2015）， all in the medium of English.
However, in my early experiences of teaching debate the discussion activities felt rather stilted: even motivated students found it difficult to generate the animated to-and-fro that characterises an energetic and exciting debate activity. Furthermore, from observing debate in other classes（at university, high school, junior high school, and debate contests） and talking to teachers, it seems that many share this difficulty. In part the problem seems to stem from a lack of good resources that focus on the communicative aspects of debate - Stewart and Pleish（1998）note that“the scarce publications on debating for ESL/EFL students... focus on the format and procedures of the debate event... ［rather than］...developing language fluency”. To offer some help with this problem, I would like to share my methodology for teaching debate, which I have found to be very successful in generating animated
and excited discussion in the way that we teachers hope for.
２．My Teaching Context
I developed this methodology through my teaching at three universities: Okinawa University, Okinawa Christian University, and Okinawa International University. My students are usually Japanese nationals（with occasional international students） who are second, third or fourth year English majors. They are generally aged 19-22 and although some have experience abroad（ranging from a week or two up to a year or two）a majority do not. In terms of ability, some students can be quite fluent, though many need scaffolding and thinking time before they can phrase their thoughts in the way debate requires.
As is normal in the Japanese university context, I teach debate in thirty 90-minute sessions, either over one semester （ meeting twice a week ） or split into two semesters （meeting once a week），in which case the courses will be named Discussion and Debate I and Discussion and Debate II.
3.1 The Debate Topics
Choosing the topics is one of the most important, and one of the trickiest, parts of teaching debate. The key is that the topics you use should be directly
connected to and relevant to the students' lives
（Robinson, 2010, p29）and for each topic you will need to create a strong opinion that will form the basis for Agree and Disagree. My basic approach is that I want to throw the cat amongst the pigeons, because controversy stirs up strong feelings that help create a spirited debate, though whilst of course not going so far as to offend or embarrass my students（Teacher’s Guide to Introducing Debate in the Classroom, 2017 ），and whilst being careful to select topics for which there are plenty of points on both sides. Here are a few of the topics I use:
Topic: Part-time jobs
Relevance to my student's lives: A clear majority of my
students work part-time in addition to their studies.
Strong opinion:“Students should be banned from
working part-time during semester”
Reason this opinion stirs up strong feelings in my students: They clearly place great value on the income
these jobs provide （ for the independance, for their tuition and student expenses, and for the disposable income）so the idea that they could be banned from working to allow them to focus on their studies gets them pretty riled up!
Topic: Car society
Relevance to my student's lives: Here in Okinawa nearly
all of my students drive to school.
Strong opinion:“Okinawa should become a bicycle
society”
Reason this opinion stirs up strong feelings in my students: They take for granted the idea that the car is the
only reasonable way to get around, so the idea of everyone riding bicycles strikes them as pretty absurd.
Topic: Alcohol
Relevance to my student's lives: Although not all of my
students drink, alcohol plays a large
part in many of the social scenarios my students encounter.
Strong opinion:“Okinawa should have high tax
and limited sales hours for alcohol”（to illustrate this I show this Youtube video about alcohol laws in Norway: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=GE3Zk5Ze3rY）
Reason this opinion stirs up strong feelings in my students: Cheap and freely available alcohol is a norm in
Okinawan society, so the idea of changing this norm is quite surprising.
Topic: School
Relevance to my student's lives: It’s not an exaggeration to state that school defines my students’experience of childhood: virtually all of them went to school and few of them have even met anyone who did not.
Strong opinion:“Children should not be made to
go to school－they should be free to play all day, every day”
Reason this opinion stirs up strong feelings in my students: This opinion stands in direct contravention to
all of my students' assumptions about schooling, learning, and childhood.
In presenting topics such as these, that are both connected to my students' lives and challenging to their assumptions, I am engaging in Critical Pedagogy, an educational approach which uses the classroom as an opportunity to critically examine society with a view to reform （En.wikiversity.org, 2017）．I wish to emphasize that for debate to work as a classroom activity, it needs to address real issues in the students’lives in a real and critical way.
Because relevance is so crucial, and because school dominates the students’lives, you will find that the students’current educational experiences are a rich source of topics. For example, for the topic “language learning”I use the strong opinion“You can't learn English in a classroom - you need to go
abroad”. This is relevant because we are in an English classroom as we do this topic（I make the joke that this topic is“very meta”） and controversial because it questions whether this is the best place to achieve the students’stated goal of gaining communicative competence in English. Likewise, if teaching debate in a high school,“Students should not have to wear school uniform”would be an excellent choice of a debate - the students are likely to get very engaged with the material （no pun intended）and the result will be an exciting and animated debate.
One issue here is that as an educator you will have to carefully judge how far you wish to“bite the hand that feeds you”in selecting debate topics that are（at least on the Agree side ） openly critical of the policies and procedures of the institutions you are employed by. However I encourage you to experiment with this, both because these topics really engage the students in critical thinking and passionate discussion, and also because I believe we educators have a duty to be scrupulously honest with our students, even when that means turning a critical eye on our own educational practices.
For the first few debates you do with a class, you should definitely try to choose the topics that the students are likely to get most excited about. However, as your students become more experienced with debate then it becomes possible to broaden the range of topics, though when you do this, the Research and Reflection lessons（see below） become more important in order for the students to have enough background knowledge and understanding to be able to debate.
４．The Course Structure
My Discussion and Debate course follows a very clear structure of two lessons that repeat with different topics. In the first lesson we gather our initial thoughts and knowledge on the topic, and in the second lesson we divide into Agree and Disagree sides,
spend some time thinking about our reasons, and then finally meet in the middle to debate.
4.1 “Hands up, Remember Your Number”
The students, naturally enough, tend to come in and sit near their friends, which means that if I don't do anything to change their seating positions they will end up discussing with mostly the same people every lesson, which will get a bit stale. Over time I have developed a very efficient way of rearranging the students: I ask all students to put their hands up and then I start counting in order（1,2,3…） whilst pointing to students in a random order－ once a student has a number then they put their hand down. Once all students have a number I then simply tell them to sit in number order（this works particularly well in classes that have a circular seating arrangement, but I also do it in classes with fixed seating）． This only takes a couple of minutes so it is easy to do at the start of each lesson, and ensures that every lesson the students are working with different people, which keeps the group discussions and debate fresh.
4.2 Lesson 1: Think about the topic
4.2.1 Activity 1: The Why? Game
The Why? game is an excellent warm-up activity that gets students talking, gets them thinking about the topic, and also teaches several important skills that the students will need for debate. It's also fun, but quite hard work: your students will come to love to hate the Why? game...
The Why? game is very simple to play: in pairs student A will ask the starting question - this is a question I give the students, related to the new topic
- and student B will answer the question. Student A will then ask“Why?”, Student B will answer, Student A will then ask“Why?”again, Student B will answer, and so on until the time is up（I usually set the timer for three minutes）． There is only one rule: the answering student must keep talking!
Here's an example dialogue（using a starting question related to the“car society”topic）:
Student A: How do you come to school? Student B: I come by car.
A: Why?
B: Um, well, I live far from school so I need to come by car. A: Why?
B: Aaah, because it's far, so there's no other way. A: Why?
B: Because the bus would be too slow, and Okinawa has no trains.
A: Why?
B: Why?? Umm….I don't know, but maybe it's because people in Okinawa prefer to drive.
A: Why?
B:［starting to sweat now, B's brain is now working hard!］． Ummmmm…..it's convenient, in our cars we can go wherever we want.
A: Why?
...etc, until the buzzer rings for 3 minutes.
Before the students start I will usually do a quick warm-up where the class ask me the starting question and then“Why? Why? Why?”- this reminds them how to play and shows an example of thinking about the topic. After they play one round I'll do a quick feedback session where I choose one student at random（using a random number app on my smartphone）to play the Why? game so everyone can see and I can offer suggestions to the class on how to keep talking no matter what. The pairs will then switch roles so that B asks the question and A answers, followed again by choosing one student at random for a demonstration.
Every time we play I emphasize that the purpose of the Why? game is to practice finding things to say, because this is a vital skill for both debate and language learning generally － I tell the students that“the more you talk the better you get at it, but
you won't get much practice if you can't think of things to say,”and I refer to my own experience of learning Japanese as an example. The first time in the semester that we play the Why? game I offer the following pointers to help the students learn how to keep talking for the full three minutes:
１．Think about your own life－this is a chance for self-reflection: why do you do those things? There must be a reason, so try to identify it and then explain it.
２．Obvious answers are fine－don't worry about whether your answer is an intelligent one or not; for the Why? game just say whatever comes into your head! For example:
B: Because I live in Ishikawa... A: Why?
B: Because that's where my house is!
３．Let conversation flow! Don't feel you need to stay on the topic: let your conversation wander onto other areas - remember the goal is just to keep talking. For example:
A: Why?
B: Because my parents decided they wanted to live in Ishikawa, it's near my mother's family and my father has a farm.
A: Why?
B: My father likes animals, he has always been a farmer.
４．Try to give long answers－it's actually
easier to keep talking than it is to have to constantly answer“why?”so try to give nice long answers － by letting it flow!
５．Change the question － If you can't answer the question just change it to a question you can answer: “I don't know why he likes animals, but I like my house because it is near to the beach so I can go for a walk in the evening...
4.2.2 Activity 2: The Hot Seat
game, and basically just adds lots more questions that relate to the topic, and changes from pairs to groups. The very clear structure（and the use of a timer）grew out of my realization, when I first started teaching debate, that if I simply had the students sit in groups and“discuss”the topic, most groups would fall quiet fairly quickly. The big list of questions on the board, together with the assigned roles （ one“Hot Seat Student”and three “Asking Questions”students ） and the inherent challenge of talking until the timer rings mean that the task is very clear, and I have found that this structure helps get the students over their tendency to let conversation peter out, and has been very successful in getting my students to talk a lot more when“discussing”. I use the following method:
１．Think of questions
Working in the same pairs, I give the students five minutes to think of a list of questions that relate to the general topic. I then elicit their questions to the board, which gives us a big list of questions ready for the Hot Seat activity itself. （See Appendix, photo 1 for an example.）
２．The Hot Seat Activity
To demonstrate the activity I will go on the Hot Seat and have the class ask me a couple of questions that I answer thoughtfully and honestly - as well as demonstrating the activity this gets us all thinking about the topic a little further. Then in groups the students choose one student （for fun I like to have them janken－rock paper scissors－ for it）who is going to be on The Hot Seat. The other students take turns to ask questions from the board（though I emphasize that they should let the conversation flow, and not feel limited to the questions）to the Hot Seat student, who will do their best to answer the questions for the set period of time（usually 5～ 7 minutes）． Again the timer provides a clear sense of purpose: keep talking until it rings. As in the Why? game I make it explicit that the value of this
challenge is that the more you talk the better you get at talking.
（Note: on a perfect day my students come in multiples of four so that the time and turn taking work out perfectly. However most days aren't perfect, so for the final round, I tell groups of three to continue their conversation as a three-way Q&A session, and I tell the two remaining students in groups of five that they should both answer the questions. This avoids any groups having to wait for the other groups to finish）．
３．Feedback
For feedback I will ask for any interesting answers, perhaps picking up something I heard during the activity, and once we have done those I will also pick random students and ask them some of the more interesting questions. I may also offer my own thoughts on their answers or the topic more broadly, and I will sometimes show a piece of relevant video.
4.2.3 Optional Extra Lessons: Research and
Reflection
I will often go straight from the Thinking about the Topic lesson into the Debate lesson, especially when the topic is quite familiar to the students
（for example, driving）．However with topics that
the students do not know so well（for example, nuclear power），I will add in 1～3 extra Research and Reflection lessons. The format for these is a bit more free-form, but the basic pattern is that I will introduce opinions or perspectives on the topic（often by showing a short video clip）which the students will discuss in groups and then share their thoughts and reactions with the class. These lessons allow for some more thought on the topic, and also allow me to introduce more materials that provide a stimulus for the upcoming debate.
4.3 Lesson 2: Debate the topic
less able classes I sometimes break it into two lessons, so at junior high or high school this will definitely need to be spread over 2～3 lessons.
4.3.1. Thinking of Agree and Disagree Points
I open the class with a strong opinion. Sometimes I will simply give a short speech giving this strong opinion（which I call my“Angry Minute”）though where possible I show a relevant piece of video. I then write the strong opinion in the top center of board, and indicate the Agree and Disagree sides. I then do the Hands Up Remember Your
Number activity to divide up into new groups of four（or so），
and once they have sat down in their new groups I tell the groups on the Agree side of the classroom that they need to think of reasons to agree with the strong opinion, and the groups on the Disagree side of the classroom that they need to think of reasons to disagree, and then I give them ten minutes of thinking time.
Important Note on Groups: Unlike in the Hot Seat lesson,
where it doesn't really matter how many groups you have, in the Debate lesson it's very important to have an equal number of groups on each side of the debate.
After giving about ten minutes of thinking time I elicit five reasons from each side, numbered with odd numbers in blue chalk for the Agree side, and numbered with even numbers in red chalk for the Disagree side. （ See Appendix, photo 2 for an example. ） This number/color scheme makes it very easy to follow what comes next, which is that each side needs to prepare defenses to the attacks that will be coming.
In the first Debate lesson of the course I explain this with a very clear（and rather fun）example: I get one student to stand in front of me and then ask them to punch me （Me:“SLOWLY!! Don't hurt me!!!”）The first time I don't move, I just look
at what kind of punch comes. I then mime having a think, and then we do it again－this time I do the defense I just rehearsed. I now tell the students:
“This is what martial artists, boxers, K1 fighters, police officers etc do: they figure out what attacks are likely to be coming, and then they prepare defenses. And that is what you need to do for debate: Agree side, you can see that the Disagree side is going to attack you with these red attacks, and likewise Disagree side, you can see that the Agree side is going to come at you with these blue attacks. So now you need to think about how you are going to block and counterattack!”（This illustration is drawn from my own experience: it's an interest in karate that brought me to Japan in the first place.）
I then give five minutes of thinking time, and then elicit a block-and-counterattack from each group, using the numbers and colored chalk to keep the board comprehensible.（See Appendix, photo 3 for an example.）
（ Note that I don't get a block-and-counter for all the attacks. The reason for this is simply time: it takes a while to write everything on the board, and I want to have time for three rounds of debate）．
4.3.2 The Debate: Three Rounds Round One:
The students are now finally ready to debate. I take two students from each group（I use the students sat closest to the center of the class）and have them swap seats to make new groups, where in each new group there are two Agree and two Disagree students － I make it clear the two sides should sit opposing each other.
I hand out little signs with“Agree”and“Disagree” to each side, which are not strictly necessary for this round（though they do provide a nice visual reminder of the“debate”task）but which are very useful in
setting up Round Two － see below.
The Agree and Disagree table signs.
The last thing to make clear before the students start is that the Agree side always starts the debate. I give instructions for how they should do this: They use the phrase:
“We think that［STRONG OPINION］because
［ R E A S O N ］［ A D D I T I O N A L R E A S O N S / DETAILS/FOR EXAMPLE TALKING］．
The reason for this explicit phrasing is that starting the debate is the hardest part - left to their own devices some students will have a tendency to stare at each other for a few minutes, and to give a very halting back-and-forth where they are basically just reading the points off the board. Making the Agree side start removes any doubt about who is going to start, giving a set phrase tells the Agree side how to start, and having that set phrase be open-ended reminds the students that now is the time to put the just-keep-talking skills they've been honing in the Why? game and the Hot Seat activities to good use. At this point I give an example of how NOT to do it:
● Me:““We think children should be free to
choose how to spend their time, because they can learn independence earlier!” - this is too short! You need to give some long talking to start the fight!” and then of how to do it:
● Me:“We think children should be free to choose
how to spend their time, because they
can learn independence earlier! For example, when children are free to play all day, they get lots of practice of taking decisions about what to do. Also, if they decide they want to learn maths, for example, then they need to figure out for themselves how they want to learn － get a teacher, self-study, etc. They have to take all the decisions for themselves so this is how they can learn independence when they are still young. ”（ See Appendix, photo 4 for an example.）
I now give a minute or two of thinking time for the Agree side to decide how they are going to start, and then lastly I remind the students that the challenge is to keep talking for the entire ten minutes （ showing the timer to visually emphasize the point），and then I start the timer and the students begin their debate.
Here I wish to emphasize that in teaching“discussion and debate”I lean quite far away from formal “debate”and toward a“discussion”where the two sides disagree with each other. Many debate resources
（Lubetsky, LeBeau and Harrington, 2000; Teacher’s Guide to Introducing Debate in the Classroom, 2017; Stewart and Pleish, 1998）take a more formal structure（First Affirmative, First Negative, etc...） but in my teaching I eschew this formality in favor of spontaneous to-and-fro, for several reasons:
● I am at least as concerned with using debate to develop
communicative ability and address the social issues as I am concerned with the debate process itself.
● Since my students are simply preparing for the
similarly informal final exam（for this course I am free to set my own exam）there is no specific need to practice a more formal debate structure, as there would be if I was helping my students prepare for a formal debate event.
● I avoid any more structure than necessary in order to
which in my experience is easier when we are not having to also think about a formal structure.
It is therefore important to acknowledge that I teach a very informal style of debate － if you need to（or prefer to） teach a more formal style then you will need to add that into the method I am outlining in this paper.
Another point to note is that I am very much teaching debate by having the students do a lot of it and learn from doing（a point echoed by Hansen, 2007）－ I thus spend very little time on pre-teaching useful phrases, for example, as my own experience as a learner of Japanese tells me that it is more effective for learners to extend their communicative ability by simply bumping up against gaps in their knowledge and learning to work around them, occasionally using me as a resource to help them phrase their thoughts（it is also more fun, which is probably the reason it is more effective － see Gray, 2014）
Round Two:
For Round Two I mix up the groups again, by getting the students who moved for Round One to move again, so that they are facing new opponents（this is easily done by having the front pair move to the back and the other two pairs move forward one space）．
And now here comes the fun part. For the last hour the Agree students have been Agree, and the Disagree students have been Disagree, and they've likely become quite entrenched in their side, even if their real opinion would be the other side. But now they are going to switch, which is where those Agree and Disagree desk signs become useful
— I take two of those and make a big show of switching them to the alternate sides.
Using the table signs to switch the debate sides.
This is always a fun moment－there is often a collective gasp as the students realise they are now on the other side and are going to have to completely switch the direction of their argument. As well as adding in some variety to the task, this technique reinforces the point that a good debater should be able to debate both sides, and that the best way to become good at defending your side is to get into the heads of your opponents and imagine how they are going to attack. By switching sides the students don't even have to imagine － two minutes ago they were the side they are now opposing.
It's a bit of a gear-change, so I give them two minutes of thinking time, reminding the new Agree students that they are going to need to start the debate with the“We think...”phrasing.
And then they debate for another ten minutes.
Round Three:
Early in the course, when I do a lot of set-up and explaining, it can be a struggle to get to Round Three in a ninety-minute period, though as the students become comfortable with the routine and structure we get quicker and Round Three becomes a more realistic possibility. For Round Three I tell the students that they are now free to choose and can move to go sit on the side that aligns best with their real opinion. Although sometimes there will be a fairly even split, usually one side will be much more popular than the other, though there will
usually be a few students on the unpopular side, and if necessary you can encourage some more able students to switch sides for a challenge（which in my experience they are quite happy to do － they usually value extra talking practice enough to be willing to argue the side that is not their real opinion）．
From here there are two options: whole class or
（uneven）groups. The problem with whole class debates is that discussion tends to be dominated by a few more confident students, with everyone else sitting watching and not saying anything. I don't think this is totally bad: it's a chance for the less able students to learn from observation, seeing how the more able students debate. That said, there is definitely more student-talking time to be gained by dividing the class up into several groups, with a handful of Agree students vs. a handful of Disagree students. These groups will likely be quite uneven, but again the advantage for the underpopulated side is lots of talking practice.
I forgo the timer for Round Three, because it's usually near the end of the lesson and because having had plenty of practice already, and now arguing their real opinion, the students are generally less in need of the discipline that the timer provides.
It's worth noting that occasionally everyone sits on one side, leaving no one to debate with. In this case I volunteer myself on the empty side, and have a me vs. the students debate. This can actually get pretty fun as I am likely to make some points that the students haven't really thought about yet, and my stronger- than-the-average-student debating style challenges the students to push back. Of course I invite and encourage them to do so, sometimes having them talk amongst themselves as thinking time, and I am careful to create lots of space for them to come back at me. If the side I am arguing is not my real opinion then I point this out and thus Round Three also provides a useful demonstration that a good debater
can debate both sides.
Finally, to finish the class I will ask for a quick show of hands for final Agree or Disagree vote, and I'll ask if anyone has changed their opinion over the course of the debates, and if so why. And I'll also often offer a few of my own thoughts on the topic, if I haven't already done so.
５．Results
My Discussion and Debate course has been consistently well-received by the students, as evidenced by the results of the student survey results at the schools I teach at. I would like to pick out a few key comments from recent surveys, which show that the students rate highly the experience of debate as an enjoyable tool for developing speaking ability.（I have quoted the comments as written - for comments written in Japanese I have included my own translation in brackets）．
Okinawa Christian University
2016 Second Semester - Lesson Improvement Survey
（沖縄キリスト教学院大学2016年度 後期 授業改善 アンケート結果）
Discussion & Debate I Class H:
● I think debate is a good way to improve the English
speaking skills. In this class, I think my speaking speed up and I was satisfied with that.
● ディベートはスピーキングを鍛えるよい方法だと
思いました。このクラスで言いたいことが少し
● で
this class really made me think, which w
は言えるようになったと思う。（I think debate is a good way to build my speaking ability. In this class I got a little more able to say what I want to say）． とても考えさせられる話題があり、よかった す。英語でのコミュニケーションをとりたい方に は、とてもお勧めする授業です。（The topics in as really good. I would really recommend this
class to students who want to get better at communication）．
Discussion & Debate II Class B:
● This class was wonderful. I could learn how and what
my classmates think.
● I learned how to think about things like social
problems objectively by standing at both side Agree and Disagree. Thank you.
● 授業に参加しやすい。雰囲気がいい。（This was
an easy class to join in with, it had a good atmosphere）
● 毎回の授業でディベートができて楽しかった。
（Having debate activities in every class was really fun）．
Okinawa International University 2016 Second Semester － Lesson Survey
（授業についてのアンケート結果）
English for Special Purposes:
● Opinionを考えられるようになった。（I learned to
think of my opinion）．
● ミニデベートみたいな授業で自分の意見をちゃ
んと考えて言わないといけないので、良い機会 になった。もっと向上できるよう頑張りたい。 （ Having a mini-debate meant I had to say my opinion, which was a really good opportunity. I want to get better at this）．
● ディベート形式で、話す力が身についた。楽しく
授業できた。（ The debate format meant I really
● ぞれに意見を聞くところは、良かった。
●
● となかっ
rtunities to take courses like this, where I
learned communication skills. It was a really fun class）．
生徒それ
（It was good to be able to hear everyone's opinions）． Out putの授業だったので楽しかった。こういう授 業はあまりないので、必要だと思う。（It was fun to have such an output-based course. There aren't many courses like this, I think we need more）．
意見を言える授業は、あまり受けたこ
たので、新鮮で良かった。（I haven't had many oppo
have to say my opinion, so it felt very fresh）．
Okinawa University
2016 First Semester Lesson Improvement Survey
（2016前期 沖縄大学授業改善アンケート学生意見） Discussion and Debate（Course Code: 32241）:
● 英会話能力が身につく良い授業だった。（I really
improved my English conversation ability, it was a good lesson）．
● 学生同士で意見を言い合った。（We exchanged
opinions with our classmates）．
● 生徒自身が考え口に出すので、英語に直に触れ
た 。（Because we had to speak directly with our classmates, I was able to experience real English）．
● 会話能力も向上した。（I improved my English
conversation ability）．
● 会 話 の 練 習 に な っ た 。（ It was good English
conversation practice）．
６．Conclusion
Debate is an excellent class activity for developing speaking and listening abilities, critical thinking skills, and for examining social and cultural issues. There are some pitfalls to implementing this skillfully in the Japanese classroom, as without appropriate topics and sufficient preparatory work a teacher is likely to find that the students do not have too much to say and the activity will fall flat. However, with carefully chosen topics and enough preparation before beginning the actual debate activity, debate can be a fun and exciting lesson activity that really develops communication skills and that the students will thoroughly enjoy.
７．References
En.wikiversity.org. （ 2017 ）． Introduction to Critical Pedagogy - Wikiversity. ［ online ］ Available at: https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Introduction_to_
Critical_Pedagogy［Accessed 6 Aug. 2017］．
Books.
Harmer, J.（2015）．The Practice of English Language Teaching. 5th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education ESL.
Head, P., Kluge, D., Morris, R., & Rees, G.（2017）．
Transformation through speech, drama, and debate. In P. Clements, A. Krause, & H. Brown
（Eds.），Transformation in language education. Tokyo: JALT.
Lubetsky, M., LeBeau, C. and Harrington, D.（2000）．Discover Debate. 1st ed. Medford, Oregon: Language Solutions Incorporated.
Robinson, S.（2010）．Tensaimon's JETpack. Raleigh, （North Carolina,）USA: lulu.com.
Stewart, T. and Pleisch, G.（1998）． Developing Academic Language Skills and Fluency Through Debate.
The Language Teacher,［online］22（10）．Available
at: http://www.jalt-publications.org/tlt/ articles/2381-developing-academic-language-skills- and-fluency-through-debate［Accessed 10 Aug. 2017］．
Teacher’s Guide to Introducing Debate in the Classroom. （ 2017 ）．［ ebook ］ Newfoundland and Labrador Speech and Debate Union, p.7. Available at: http://www .NLSDU.com［Accessed 6 Aug. 2017］．
photo 1 A list of questions for the Hot Seat activity.
photo 2 The initial Agree and Disagree points generated by the students.
photo 3 Block-and-counter points have been added to the initial list. 付録
