Reflection: Up, Up and Away

Reflection: Up, Up and Away

*updated: 1:24am 11/21

Thank you, Jeremy Harmer! Four words I probably don’t say enough. I was struggling for an activity for my debate class this week, when I came across a gem of an activity on page 350, the likes of which I had never seen on Dave’s ESL or anywhere else in my six years of scrounging online for fun, innovative ESL activities. You can find it under the bold header “Formal debates.” Basically you assign students (or let them choose) the identities of famous and prolific historical figures. These public figures, whether they are Julius Caesar, Marie Antoinette, Albert Einstein, King Sejong (for that local flavor) or PSY (for the less cultured learner) are all flying in the same hot-air balloon, when suddenly a catastrophic fire means one of these timeless icons has to jump out of the basket and sacrifice him or herself in order to save the group from certain death. Of course, being somewhat self-absorbed celebrities, none of them are too eager to do so. So the premise is they have to conduct a spirited defense for why they deserve to live. This is performed in the style of a debate. For brevity’s sake, I’m pasting below the exercise-sheet I prepared today for the class, based on the original exercise from the book. Oh, and these are the same debate students I’ve written about before, and reiterating from previous reflections, they are mostly higher intermediate and lower advanced speakers.     

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Balloon Debate:

Each person should pick a different famous person:

You can pick your own. But if you have trouble, here are some examples to choose from; King Sejong, Shakespeare, Ban Ki Moon, Cleopatra, PSY, Ghandi, Leonardo da Vinci, Walt Disney, Barack Obama, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Prince William

You and your famous friends are in a hot air balloon!

You are having a great time flying across the world…. but SUDDENLY DISASTER!!! There is a small fire!! The balloon will crash and everyone will die, unless one person jumps out and sacrifices him or herself to save the group. But nobody wants to be the one to die.

Come up with 3 reasons for why you (as the famous person) should live. The other group will judge who has the best answers.

I, _________________, am too important to die, because….

1)   ____________________________________________________

2)   ____________________________________________________

3)   ____________________________________________________

For BONUS points, come up with a reason for why one of the other famous figures SHOULD die:

____________________________________________________

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Then after they completed the sheet and had time to consider what they’d say and how they’d express it, they delivered their defenses in the punchy 90-second format of a debate (alternating with each numbered point), with rebuttals (where proficiency allowed it) and counterpoints made. Since there were six students, three students debated each other, while the other three students played the role of judge (and I guess jury and executioner), deciding which two students had the strongest points and which one went cloud diving.

The class was a lot of fun and the students who lost accepted it with good humor. When we previously had judged debates, the losing side had appeared discouraged or sullen, but not this time. There was a consistent rapid-fire discourse in the class that didn’t have as many pauses or trailing off as is usually present.

The past couple of weeks I felt I had been treading water in my debate class a bit. The formula of choosing an issue they felt passionate about, such as school uniforms or using smart-phones in class, and then discussing its merits or downsides had become stale and predictable. In inserting a bit of fantasy and having them personalize their roles as these revered figures, I could feel the atmosphere becoming a bit lighter and more easygoing than in previous weeks, when it had started to feel a bit too workmanlike.

I think some of the learner’ enthusiasm was due to the fact they were fulfilling a role that was detached from them personally. This was a fantastic role of someone very idolized (in most cases), so it gave them an extra boost of confidence in portraying him or her. They were able to step out of their L2 learner shoes and embody a public persona known for success. This is just my personal theory, but in my own experience when you act (and perhaps Tom, you would understand this too with your theater background) and personify a character other than your own, you leave behind a lot of your insecurities and inhibitions. In TESOLese, I believe this exercise lowered the students' affective filter and provided them a more passive and comfortable learning environment. In the course of the exercise brainstorming and actualization, there were lots of student-to-student interactions, student-initiated IRF, personalization, critical thinking and logical reasoning skills utilized. While NOT cooperative learning, it contained elements of it, such as the students being held individually accountable for their success, encouraging a healthy competition between them, a greater trust being placed in their abilities and peers giving each other feedback. Of course, they didn't work together in this instance. I suppose if I want to do a cooperative learning exercise in the future, a debating class would be a natural environment to do it.

In summation, the Harmer activity challenged me to re-evaluate how I teach my debate class and to think outside the box a bit, instead of relying on the same old formula of pick-an-issue, brainstorm it, organize points and debate. There’s a hidden angle there that I hadn’t fully considered and one which the Harmer exercise in question has opened my eyes to. I hope next time I can come up with my own original debating activity that is as effective as this one.