An often overlooked skill that international teaching assistants (ITAs) need is that of offering their opinion on a topic that is not settled within a given scholarly community. The dialogic nature of classrooms in American universities can be unfamiliar to ITAs, and as such, ITAs may not feel well equipped to respond to inquisitive students on somewhat controversial matters. Very few descriptions of ITA training programs incorporate activities for this purpose (Alsberg, 2002). To these ends, the following activity was designed and implemented within an ITA training class based on a popular podcast/televised debate series.

Intelligence Squared U.S. Debates

Intelligence Squared U.S., a nonprofit organization, holds monthly debates that bring together a panel of experts to debate a motion in front of a live audience. Motions cover a wide range of contemporary, hot-button political and social issues. Past debates have focused on topics such as U.S. foreign policy, the U.S. health care system, free speech on campus, and artificial intelligence.

Two teams of two debaters, all experts in their fields, are pitted against each other in a three-round debate. The format of the rounds alternates between prepared remarks directed at the audience and controlled but free-flowing debate among the two sides.

Prior to the debate, the live audience is asked their initial stance on the motion, voting either “yes,” “no,” or “undecided." Following the conclusion of the debate, the audience is polled a second time, and whichever side has swayed a larger segment of the audience opinion toward its side is declared the winner.

All past debates are available on the website (audio, televised, and fully transcribed), making it a rich resource for a variety of aspects of language learning, including American English prosody and reductions, idioms, methods of handling questions, assessing conversation styles, and cultural content.

Pedagogical Goals of the Activity

There are a number of pedagogical goals of this activity. ITAs

• produce argumentative, sentence-length discourse with their own input;

• practice fluency and gain self-confidence when speaking;

• become exposed to the presentation of others’ argumentative discourse;

• gain exposure to the moderator's summarization of debaters' arguments; and

•  enjoy conversation in academic English on realistic issues that reach beyond the class.

Classroom Activity Procedure

Modifications to the original debate format are necessary to accommodate the various constraints of the classroom. For this reason, only the prepared remarks round and audience voting of the original format are performed.

Within my sections, this activity was implemented in 30 minutes, with 12 students per class.

Step 1: Introduce the Activity

Introduce the (preselected) topics on which the two debates will take place. Do not yet reveal the propositions to be debated.

I showed only two pictures (via projected PowerPoint slide); one image of our university’s well-known football team and the other of an Apple computer. In selecting these images, I attempted to evoke my ITAs’ knowledge of well-publicized, current issues on our campus: our nationally-ranked football team and a recent agreement between our university and Apple. Both of the debate motions were the subject of actual debates featured on Intelligence Squared U.S. Debates, available for ITAs to view extracurricularly.

Step 2: Divide the Class Into Two Discrete Debates

Ask for a show of hands: “Who is interested in (Topic 1)?” Identify the first six students who expressed interest and segregate them to one side of the room. If an insufficient number express interest, then some coercive assigning may be needed. Inform them they will be discussing an idea related to Topic 1. Inform the remaining six that they will be discussing a topic related to Topic 2. Do not yet reveal the debate motions.

In my sections, I informed the first six they would be discussing sports, while the second, technology.

Step 3: Reveal Debate Motions, Select “For” and “Against” Teams

Inform the students assigned to Topic 1 that they will have only 3 seconds to consider the motion. Reveal the motion, and, after 3 seconds, ask for a show of hands for those who agreed with it. Identify the first three students and group them together, informing them that they will argue “for the motion.” Group the remaining three students, regardless of whether they raised their hands, and inform them they will argue "against the motion.”

Repeat Step 3 for the Topic 2 group. In total, two separate debates will result (Debate 1 and Debate 2), each with two discrete teams debating each motion.

For Topic 1, sports, I displayed the following motion on the screen: “Universities should pay student athletes.” For Topic 2, technology, the motion was, "Playing video games will make us smarter."

Step 4: Poll "The Audience"

Before giving further instructions, poll the two teams assigned to Debate 1 for their initial opinion on the motion of Debate 2, that is, on the motion they will not debate. This polling serves as our version of audience voting, the "audience" being the six debaters of the other, concurrent debate.

Repeat this polling for Debate 2. Record these initial vote tallies on the board:

Step 5: Provide Activity Instructions

Explain that each group has 5 minutes to develop their arguments for their position, which they will present to the class. Additionally, explain that each team will be limited to 5 minutes of argumentation, and each team member will be required to speak.

Explain that their goal is to convince members of the audience of their position so that they will ultimately vote with their side during the second polling. Explain that each debate’s teams will serve as the audience/adjudicators of the other, concurrent debate for the second polling.

I used a slide with written instructions to help explain the activity's chronology.

Step 6: Explain Relevance to ITAs’ Work

Explain the ITAs’ future need within university classrooms of effectively stating their opinion on an unsettled question in their discipline. This step is crucial for augmenting ITAs’ "buy-in."

Step 7: Share Prompts Materials, Begin Planning Period

Before turning the teams loose to plan, share materials with expressions used in presenting an opinion in academic settings, e.g. “Our group feels that…”, “It is our understanding that…”, “Based on the available evidence…”, and so on. This material should be visible to ITAs during the planning period.

During the planning period, teams should pool their knowledge on their motion, compare ideas, and coordinate the distribution of speaking roles.

I projected a slide featuring 15 such expressions, and enjoyed observing the buzz of activity that ensued (See Appendix 1).

Step 8: Debates

Starting with Debate 1, randomly select which team presents first. Instruct the audience to listen carefully and with an open mind because their votes will be the ones that count.

Serve as time-keeper and moderator; allow only 5 minutes per team for arguments to be made and ensure all students speak. Summarize each team's main arguments before moving on to their opponents. Repeat this process for Debate 2.

Step 9: Repoll and Select Winners

Returning to the board, repoll both teams from Debate 2 on the motion of Debate 1. Record their scores before repeating the repolling of Debate 1 teams on the motion of Debate 2.

Write the second set of scores adjacent to the initial scores, allowing all to see the value change in either a positive, negative, or null direction. Identify as winners whichever teams succeeded in changing the tallies the most in their direction.

Pedagogical Benefits

The benefits of this task-based activity are many: contextualized input, opportunities for meaningful output, listening to the moderator's (instructor's) summarization of the arguments, and exposure to and investment in classmates' articulation of their opinion through adjudicating their arguments. Regarding the affective dimension, even the most reserved students will be eager to express their views on these "real" issues and actively participate in the debate. With regards to ITAs’ teacher development, this activity may also expose ITAs to active learning and diverse class formats, in contrast with traditional university lecturing.

Not all students will make use of the opinion-prompts materials; not all need it. Moreover, ITAs may or may not incorporate these exact opinion-making prompts in their extemporaneous speech during their own interactions. Notwithstanding, if you make the slides available online for their review following class, they can revisit the material in an unhurried manner at their leisure.

Limitations and Suggestions for Improvement

Ideally, it would be best if students were already familiar with Intelligence Squared U.S. Debates to facilitate the logistically complex setup. When setting up the activity, experiment with seating arrangements, findings ways to best accommodate the audience hearing arguments.

A student may be assigned to a team arguing for a viewpoint with which they don’t agree, in which case, you can simply explain the pedagogical value and then challenge the student to find merit in the position nonetheless.

Linguistically, this activity obscures a secret well known to politicians and high school speech-and-debate coaches: the debater who uses "I" statements will likely be the most honest debater but the least convincing.

Within the classroom, the debate may end in a tie. This might be mitigated by eliminating the second polling’s “undecided” as an available option. Working with an uneven number of students may not be optimal, but it is not insurmountable.

The selection of debate topics is crucial: selecting a topic about which ITAs have little background knowledge or interest will sink the activity. Conversely, selecting a topic that is too controversial could quickly become uncontrollable. If motions are selected that have been debated on Intelligence Squared U.S. Debates, then ITAs may be inclined to investigate how their arguments line up against those of real experts on the topic.

Reference

Alsberg, J. (2002). Effecting change in pronunciation: Teaching ITAs to teach themselves. In W. Davis, R. Smith, & J. Smith (Eds.), Ready to teach : Graduate teaching assistants prepare for today and for tomorrow: A refereed collection of papers based on presentations made during changing graduate education: The sixth national conference on the education and employment of graduate teaching assistants (pp. 139–146). Stillwater, OK: New Forums Press.

Appendix 1

Roger Anderson is a doctoral candidate in foreign/second language education at Ohio State University. He is always seeking to improve his pedagogical practices and welcomes your suggestions and comments.