Debating

"I may be wrong and you may be right and, by an effort, we may get nearer the truth." -- Karl Popper

The NET Section believes debating, as the art of persuasion, gives students meaningful practice in both productive and receptive language skills. Debating as a staged performance encourages students to work collaboratively in teams. The process of preparing for a debate, and finally competing against another team, brings to life the beauty of both logic and rhetoric. 

Debating as a pedagogical activity provides teachers with a wide range of instructional choices. By preparing students for a debate, teachers can demonstrate how issues could be explored and understood from different perspectives. Debating also helps cater for learner diversity as it can be designed as a series of collaborative and purposeful learning activities to meet different students’ needs, interests and aspirations. 

The NET Section organises debating cluster and regional cluster meetings, and professional development workshops to enable teachers to share and examine a wide range of debating topics, instructional materials and strategies that can be used to promote debating and enhance students’ public speaking skills. 
 

To find out more about debating and public speaking, please visit Using Debate in the English Classroom and The NET Section's Darren Tay Public Speaking Event.