Integrating Debate Into Your Classroom

From improving speaking and listening skills to building self-esteem, learning to debate could have many benefits for school children. It helps them develop their speaking skills and ability to express themselves verbally in front of a group, which builds confidence. It builds their critical listening skills and their ability to respond to what other people are saying, and teachers find that it has a knock-on effect on children’s written work, as it helps them understand how to structure their work and make their points clearly. Learning to debate can help children to develop their research skills. Through debating, children can broaden their horizons and begin to explore big ethical questions.

Recent research from the University of Bedfordshire and the English-Speaking Union revealed that learning to debate can improve children’s SATs results by between six and 19 percent in all subjects.

I came across the following article which I found helpful for me as a teacher and decided to share it with you with its source of course.

Five Easy Ways to Integrate Debate Into Your Classroom 

If you’re looking for ways to increase engagement in your classes, while getting your students writing, and increasing the amount of time they spend reading, analyzing, and evaluating texts: you need debate in your life. There are many structures debate can take in your classroom: from Socratic seminars to fishbowls to more formal Lincoln-Douglas-style debates, but don’t be scared off by the formalities! You don’t have to be the advisor of your school’s debate club to bring elements of it into your classroom. Today, Education World looks at easy ways you can integrate debate into your classroom, by giving students choice in what they debate about. Allow them to browse the suggestions below to find the subjects that get them excited about the argument. Few topics students could research and debate about:


1. Social Justice: 

2. Conspiracy Theories: 

3. Childhood Favorites: 

4. School Policy: 

5. Pop Culture: 

Here's the link to the article:

comwww.educationworld.com