Produção oral: Debates

GRAB ‘N GO DEBATE UNIT - NLSDU.com

 What is a debate?
1. What situations might these skills be useful in?
2. Who needs these skills?
3. Why it is important and what sorts of people debate
for a living?
 What is a debate?
• Debate is a structured discussion.

• There are usually two teams of at least two people

each. One team, the Affirmative, supports the
resolution. The second team, the Negative, opposes it.
• Affirmative/ Pro team:
Identify the problems and propose a plan advocating
the most logical solution, point out problems with the
current situation and highlight the benefits of the
proposed change.

• Negative/ Con team:

Defeat the Affirmative by showing
that the reasoning, evidence, and
propositions of the Affirmative are
faulty and defend the present
system, pointing out that the
“problems” are insignificant or
they may offer solutions of their
own.
 Speeches
• Affirmative/Pro:
- Honourable judges, worth opponents, ladies
and gentlemen…
- The resolution before us today is that…
- We the affirmative define…
- My partner will go into the last…
- Our first needs for change is … evidence.
- The second is … evidence
- I will now outline our plan which…
 Speeches
• Negative/Con:
- Honourable judges, worth opponents, ladies and
gentlemen…
- We define…
- As the Affirmative failed to define the resolution, we
therefore define…
- The Negative team is unable to accept the contentions put
forward by the first Affirmative. I will refute them now.
- The points are wrong/illogical/weak because…
- The Affirmative plan had____ points. Points of the plan will
not work because…
- And that leads into our contention, that …
 Using Evidence Cards

• Research the topic to find out

what the issues are, then
examine the research to form
their case and gather facts
and examples to support
their contentions. The more
background information they
have, the more successful
debaters will be.
 Using a Flowsheet
• Use the Flowsheet to help you follow the arguments
made during the debate. Refutation is where you
“clash” with or attack arguments from the opposing
team. The best way to clash is by keeping a Flowsheet
of the opponents’ arguments.
 The clash
• As the speakers clash with their opponents’ arguments,
they can check if all arguments have been attacked.
Each time a student speaks, they should begin with
“clash”.
• Debaters begin “clashing” by saying:
- “I will now clash with my worthy opponents’ argument …”
- Followed by: • “Our argument will now follow …”
 P.O.I
• Points Of Interruption:
When a speaker on the opposite side of the table offers a
short contribution to a speech, normally consisting of a
question or comment of around 15 seconds duration.

Max. of two
in a speech
 Rebuttals
• Regardless of the style of debate used, each team
has one last chance to reinforce their arguments,
counter any attacks made by their opponents, show
the other side’s weakness and the strengths of their
own case.
 Rebuttals
• AFFIRMATIVE CONCLUSION:
In conclusion, the affirmative has shown clear needs for
change (summary)… and a workable solution
(summary) … that will have convinced you that you
must support the resolution in this debate.

• NEGATIVE CONCLUSION:
In conclusion, I have begun the negative case by
clashing with the Affirmative case and by making strong
points for the negative: 1. that etc. Concluding
quotation or observation about the Affirmative case. I
am sure that the judges will agree that their case must
fall..
The Time
 Essential Learnings
• Independent Learning
• Communication Skills
• Critical and Creative Thinking
• Personal and Social Values and Skills