last message to friends ©Thor May 1999 back to Last Message index
ESL materials & ideas developed in China
"Debate" lesson plan
a) Possible Topics for Debate (other suggestions welcome)
1. People are naturally good and will develop best if given freedom and personal responsibility at an early age
versus
People are naturally bad if left to their own ways. They must be strictly supervised from an early age and punished severely when they deviate.
2. Animals and plants are only here to serve the interests of human beings. Natural wilderness without people is useless.
3. Women are intuitive, not logical. Men are logical, not intuitive.
4. The One-Child Policy will create a selfish society in China.
5. The best way to succeed in life is to be ruthless
6. People in China are as happy or happier than people anywhere else in the world.
7. The Chinese character writing system (hanzi) takes so long to master that many people never learn to read & write well. An improved pinyin system (such as in Vietnam) would be better than a character system (hanzi).
8. Most of the people who try to learn English in China are wasting their time.
9. Wuhan is not a good place to live in.
10. Chinese cooking is too conservative. It needs to consider changes in nutritional knowledge and changes in people's lifestyles.
b) Rules of Debate
1. Each team will learn which side (for or against) it must argue from the toss of a coin. The coin will not be tossed until AFTER both sides of an argument have been prepared by each team.
2. Each speaker in each team will have three minutes to speak. An adjudicator will time this, and control the debate. Speakers may not be interrupted.
3. A panel will award points to each team and declare the winning side. Points will be for the quality of argument, not the preferred outcome!
"Debate lesson plan" copyrighted to Thor May 1999; all rights reservedback to Last Message index