English debate blog

Topic: Board games are better than video games

In English class, we learnt how to prepare for and run a debate, and then held our own debate. Then in the following English class we wrote this blog post together about what we learnt, and how our debate went.

(Tereza)

In a debate you have two teams, the affirmative and the negative team. In each team there are three people. Each speaker has four minutes to talk. When the bell rings the first time three minutes has passed by, and when it rings the second time four minutes have passed. You also need two judges to decide who won. In the debate ‘board games are better than video games’ on the board game team there was Jakub, Tereza and Adam. On the video game team there was Leon, Maroš and Neli. Tamara and Minka were the judges.

(Ondrej)

During a debate, you should say constructive ideas, not just hate on the second team. You should act respectfully and be polite towards the second team and the judges, otherwise you will not be respected and probably get kicked out. You should also talk persuasively and have very convincing ideas, so the listeners are going to agree with you.

(Adam)

If you are interested in debating and you want to try it, you are in a good place. In this paragraph we will talk about what each speaker needs to do and needs to know. Usually each team in a debate has three speakers. Each one is important and has their task within the team. The first speaker of the affirmative team defines the keywords of the topic, introduces the team’s argument and begins the debate. Then the second speaker continues with the arguments, and also uses rebuttal. Rebuttal is taking a point made by the opposition team and explaining why they’re wrong, and proving why you are right. And the third speaker rebuts the opposition’s arguments.

(Leon)

The first speaker in the negative team first defines the keywords: for example if the debate is ‘Board games are better than Video games’, you define (Board games, better, Video games) and then introduce the team’s arguments. They follow with a rebuttal of the previous team’s arguments.

The second speaker continues the team’s arguments and also uses rebuttal. The third speaker of the negative team starts with a rebuttal and has the last word of the debate so he tries to leave you with no doubt that ‘Video games are better than Board games’.

(Jakub)

Our team’s theme was board games are better than video games. We started with arguments about how board games help develop friendships and creativity, and how it helps to socialise or find good friends. Then we started with the mental and physical benefits of board games over video games, for example that video games can destroy your eyes, that they can worsen the behaviour of kids under 12 years, and can worsen mental health. And these were our arguments that will leave you with no doubt that board games are better than video games.

(Maroš)

Our team was the negative team that says that video games are better than board games. Our team’s arguments were: you can socialise with people around the world, you can take it anywhere with you because you have it in your phone, and you can play with programming easier than creating a new board game. So our main argument was that you can socialise with everyone everywhere. More people play video games too, and the number of people playing Minecraft alone is equal to 10% of the number of players of every board game.  You can play video games straight away, and you don’t have to prepare it like a board game, you just click and you play.

(Minka)

The debate was won by team positive (board games are better than video games) because they were more persuasive, they rebutted well, gave clear speeches, and were talking to each other through notes instead of talking while the other team was saying their arguments. The winner of ‘best speaker’ was Jakub because he spoke clearly and at a speed that everyone could understand. Jakub said what everyone will be talking about, he spoke persuasively, he stayed within the time limit and behaved respectfully towards his team the other team and the judges.

The students very much enjoyed the exercise, so much so that we are already planning our next debate.