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A0047104R
ABN 13 496 482 286
Free Debate Inc.
Free Debate fosters free and fair debate insociety with a focus on helping the under-privileged, the under-represented and the under-prepared.Free Debate operates on an apolitical, non-religious and non-profit basis.Free Debate seeks to promote public debates asa means of encouraging informed civicparticipation.Free Debate provides debate-related consulting,coaching and facilitation services to needyindividuals and organisations, including schools,charities, non-government organisations,community groups, local government andbusiness.
Teacher’s Guide
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Who we are.
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We are a volunteer based, non-profit organisation
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Our members are people who have had substantial experience in public speaking anddebating competitions and/or training debating teams
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Our members come from a diverse range of backgrounds
Our aims are.
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To foster free and fair debate in society with a focus on helping the under-privileged, theunder-represented and the under-prepared.
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To operate on an apolitical, non-religious and non-profit basis.
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To provide debate-related consulting, coaching and facilitation services to needy individualsand organisations, including schools, charities, non-government organisations, communitygroups, local government and business.
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To promote public debates as a means of encouraging informed civic participation.
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To generate and distribute debate-related resources and reference materials.
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To assist and co-operate with other organisations, especially recognised debatingorganisations, with a view to providing complementary services.
What we do.
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We provide training in debating and public speaking to people from a range of backgroundsand ages
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We do this through working with various partner organisations to deliver training programs,including:
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Western Chances
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Victorian Arabic Social Services
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Adult Multicultural Education Service
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Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
Why we do it.
Empowerment
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Advocacy skills are incredibly important for many day-to-day situations, such as jobinterviews, interactions with Centrelink, health services and other government agencies
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Many people in our community never receive training on how to communicate their point of view clearly and with confidence, and often feel unable to speak up
Leadership
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In the groups we most often work with, confident leaders are in demand to advocate for andtackle existing socioeconomic challenges within their community
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Free Debate Inc seeks to help by teaching argument-based critical thinking as well aseffective, confident communication
More.
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Email: freedebate@gmail.com
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http://www.freedebate.org.au/
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WHAT TO TEACH COMMENTARYThe Three Rules of Public Speaking/Debating1. The Snake Rule
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Surveys suggest that people are more afraid of publicspeaking than of snakes!
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Almost everyone finds public speaking scary – whether itis standing up in front of the class, giving a presentation atwork or uni, presenting yourself in a job interview or advocating for something you believe in.
[insert personal story of your own experience with scary speaking]
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But here’s the point - what this means is that anyone whois brave enough to take on public speaking and can doeven an average job at it has a
huge advantage
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2. The Scary Audience Rule
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It is easy to think that your audience – the people lookingat you when you speak – want you to fail; that they are just waiting for you to stuff up so they can laugh.
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Actually, that’s almost never true
– your audience wantsyou to succeed.
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Why? Because there is only one thing worse than giving avery bad speech, and that is watching a very bad speech –if you have any kind of human feeling, watching someonewho is giving a terrible, nervous speech makes you feelbad and embarrassed for them, which is horrible!
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What this all means is that your audience wants you to dowell – they want to see you walk up to the stage or thefront of the class confidently and reassure them that theyare in safe hands and can relax.
3. The Spiderman Rule
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This is the most important rule of all – when you learn tobe a good public speaker you are learning how to havepower.
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You are learning how to persuade people of things, toconvince them to believe or do things they might not havedone if they hadn’t listened to you.
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So the Spiderman Rule applies – “with great power comesgreat responsibility”. I am not training you to be able togive a great speech so that you can convince people of things that are racist, or sexist, or homophobic, or mayhurt them or others.This introduction doesa number of things – itemphasises the valueand power of publicspeaking, helps tofoster empathybetween everyone inthe room, and sets themost important groundrules about the contentof speeches.
Ground rules for the session(s)
It is critical that every-one in the class speaks
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