I teach and plan a lot of J3 ESL classes. And I was asked to introduce the students to debate in English.
First I introduced some opening and replying sentence starters.
I get them into pairs and have them janken. The winner is FOR and the loser AGAINST.
I introduce a topic such as Cats are better than dogs and have them brainstorm their side for 3 minutes.
They then start with FOR going first and AGAINST second they have 30 seconds each. They should take notes on what their partner said.
I then have 2 more rounds each replying to each other for 30 seconds. A very basic rebuttal.
It is very basic and only an introduction. But! It works very well and the students are getting very good at this as a warm up activity. We also give feedback after the students try to help them improve their English.
My JTE told me this is not a debate. And shouldn't be called one. He acts in a very angry tone as if we are not debating. It was his idea to try debate so I prepared this. Am I being gaslit here? I feel like while my idea isn't a full on formal debate it can definitely still be called a debate!
Any opinions or advice how to handle this situation would be appreciated!
by Easy-Onion-1620