I am curently in Stuttgart to do a series of workshops sponsored by Angelika Hoeness and the debate organizers here. Friday was to be a teacher workshop at Karls Gymnazium Stuttgart, an old line Greek and Latin teaching school near the city center.

Thirteen teachers showed up on a Friday evening and seemed anxious to learn. All of them had been involved in debating for a while but had not seen their teams really “take off” based on participation and competition. Bojana Skrt and I met with them and shared some talk and modest refreshmnts. We did an assessment of their status and needs and then got down to business.

The real challenge is how do you take students from the “I am interested in debate” stage and get them to the “now I am a debater stage.” I explained my step-by-step approach of skills based work that involves speaking, argument construction and refutation as a way to prepare for mini-debates that actually launch thir careers as debaters.

My approach involves keeping students active (people do not join debate clubs to sit and listen), short assignments and activities, repetition and then rapid advancement to slightly more complex activities once the simpler ones have been accomplished.

Two of the younger teachers agreed to serve as sample students so that we could actually do the drills I was suggesting.

For speaking I suggest the basic mechanics approach that I have used so often in my Basic of Public Speaking lesson, quickly followed by one minute speeches that serve as an assessment for speaking pluses and minuses. This is then followed by feedback and an assessment form they keep for some time identifying items they need to work on, and then frequent short speeches to work on areas in need of improvement. The speaking improvement component never goes away, as students often fall back some when they encounter more complex cognitive tasks while speaking, and also because we are never perfect speakers and can always improve.

For the argument development section I teach the ARE (assertion, reasoning and evidence) model and then have students present one argument. After feedback students do it again, one-after-the-other to create constant activity in the classroom. Then the students go on to more debate oriented arguments and build and present longer and more complex arguments until they reach the stage of building one major argument for or against a motion and then presenting it for three minutes.

For the refutation model I teach the four step refutation process (They say, we disagree, because, therefore) and have students start with very simple and short arguments that they refute giving one reasons. I also distribute and review a list of argument fallacies at this point. Then we do it again and ask them to find two reasons, then three and then four reasons. By this time they begin to think more creatively and find more things wrong with the arguments.  They we have them refute more complex arguments and then begin back-and-forth presentation and refutation of the final products of the argument development stage above.

At this point they are ready to debate but I always urge mini-debates at this stage. One-on-one debates with a three and a two minute speech, followed by two-on-two with longer speeches and then eventually graduation to a WSDC format with shorter speeches. Thus they get eased into a full debate when they have the skills to really engage in one.

In my experience most of the students who drop out do so because they worry about being able to do a full debate too soon. In this system they get there in easy steps that build on each other and by the time they are in their first mini-debate they already know how to do all of the basic things they need to.

The group was extremely responsive and attentive and asked many good questions. The two younger teachers did a great job of serving as models for the drills. Everyone seemed very happy with the 2.5 hour experience and now I need to email them the instructional materials I promised.

Today, Saturday, I have a workshop for students. More reports to come.