Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Fumie Kato
UNC-Charlotte
1. Introduction
proficiency in higher education is particularly difficult, especially if the foreign language is seen
as a minor foreign language in the area. For these languages, learners seldom have opportunities
to speak or converse in the target language learned in the classroom. It is difficult to find native
speaker conversation partners outside of the classroom, with perhaps the exception of utilizing
internet devices, such as Skype or Line. Thus, speaking practice for these learners in social
learners here struggle to increase their oral abilities. Many students obtaining a Bachelor’s
degree in Japanese report regretting that they did not achieve a higher level of oral competency
before their graduation. In order to solve this problem, a class titled “Japanese Oral
Communication” was offered in Spring 2016 in a United States southeastern regional university
to increase students’ opportunities to use their foreign language abilities in the classroom.
Several teaching methods for enhancing communicative abilities were conducted during class,
In the United States and abroad, debate clubs are common, but there are few examples of
using similar structured debates as a class activity in a foreign language setting (Morse 108).
PAC Postscript Kato: Integrating a Debate Activity 2
into an Intermediate Japanese Class: A Practice Report Through Learner's Reflection
Most universities in the United States, with perhaps the exception of regions such as New York
and Los Angeles, offer limited advanced level Japanese classes. Japanese is also recognized as
being one of the most difficult foreign languages to master for native speakers of English (Jordan
and Lambert). Therefore, there was concern that a debate activity might be too difficult for
intermediate Japanese language learners in America. Additionally, the whole class-hour could
not be solely devoted to the debate activity, as other activities were also integrated into the class.
This means that students might not have enough time for the debate activity itself, which could
make the activity potentially even more difficult. For these reasons, there were concerns that the
activity might feel burdensome to the learners, cause them frustration, or raise their anxiety.
Therefore, the debate activity was integrated into the class with careful consideration of the
procedures in order to limit tension and frustration, and to increase their opportunities to speak.
This paper reports the outcomes of the integration in terms of suitability and the possibility of
2. Literature Review
Content Based Instruction (hereafter, “CBI”) emerged a few decades ago and is seen as
an effective language teaching and learning method (Heo 25). CBI was first introduced in
immersion programs in Canada and the United States, and has now spread all over the world
(Davies). CBI is not integrated into a regular language class. Instructors of CBI do not teach the
language itself; learners in CBI study some content with use of their target language, and
consequently learn the target language (Iberri-Shea 129). Ellis emphasized that instructors need
to conduct meaningful activities that decrease learners’ anxiety and promote their interests (161).
PAC Postscript Kato: Integrating a Debate Activity 3
into an Intermediate Japanese Class: A Practice Report Through Learner's Reflection
Therefore, CBI is a language learning method in which students learn their favorite academic
topics while they acquire language actively. Krashen advocates the differences between
“learning” a foreign, or second language, and “acquisition” of a mother tongue (17). CBI is
effective for acquiring foreign/second languages (Heo 25). Though everyone is able to “learn” a
foreign or second language, another step is needed to “acquire” it, so that it can be used in daily
life. Debate is widely considered to be an activity that can help a learner progress to the next
step, i.e., acquisition, as noted by Iberri-Shea, “[d]ebates can play an important role in content-
based instruction (CBI)” (129). Debate activities focus on content, strategy, objective and
language, and thus require debaters to comprehend content clearly, gain conceptual knowledge,
practice critical thinking. Debates also promote collaborative learning and enhance positive and
Students explore the topics of debate activities in advance to prepare for the actual
debate. In the preparation sessions, they use their target foreign language actively. Debate
activities are also characteristically learner-centered (Aclan and Aziz 14; Zare and Othman
1509). In learner-centered language learning, instructors play the role of facilitators, who suggest
to learners what they need to do. Students investigate the topics and construct their own
opinions, learning their target language at the same time, i.e., CBI (He 81).
because students must insist on their own opinions and refute others based on materials prepared
in advance, and because classroom debates increase opportunities for utterance and force
learners to conduct interact and cooperate as a team (Al-Marhooqi and Tabakow 425; Zare and
PAC Postscript Kato: Integrating a Debate Activity 4
into an Intermediate Japanese Class: A Practice Report Through Learner's Reflection
Othman 1508). There are many reports on the effectiveness of integrating debate activities into
EFL classes outside the United States. For example, Lee examined pre- and posttest scores, and
enhance learners’ English conversation abilities, and reports that a comparison of pre- and
posttest scores revealed that lexical richness and syntactic complexity were fostered in
participants, and that significant differences were found between the debate group and the
control group (79). Similarly, outcomes of qualitative analysis conducted by Aclan and Aziz,
who integrated a debate activity into their English conversation class, verified its effectiveness
(14). Al-Mahrooqi and Tabakow also introduced a debate activity into their English conversation
classes at universities in Oman and in Dubai, and reported that participants recognized
improvement in their English conversation abilities and confidence to speak English (426).
In insisting and refuting, as must be done in debate activities, students need a high level
of oral competency because their communication becomes complicated beyond that of general
conversation. In debates, participants need to listen to the other side’s argument clearly,
understand it, promptly respond, and refute it. Thus, debate activities are a superior teaching
method, which is the essence of the “communicative language teaching” (commonly recognized
Debate activities are also well received because they have benefits beyond mere language
acquisition. For example, since preparation for these activities is conducted in groups, students
can also foster their teamwork skills (Iberri-Shea 132; Zare and Othman 1507) and learn from
one another despite differences in language abilities among participants. Furthermore, debates
are an excellent activity to promote critical thinking because participants must collect several
PAC Postscript Kato: Integrating a Debate Activity 5
into an Intermediate Japanese Class: A Practice Report Through Learner's Reflection
opinions, investigate, compare, evaluate and judge arguments in the preparation stage (Al-
Mahrooqi and Tabakow 424; Iberri-Shea 133; Morse 112; Worthen and Pack 5). When choosing
which side of a debate, they are frequently assigned to the side that does not align with their own
views. Accordingly, students often have a unique experience in that they are required to insist on
opinions opposed to their own ideas or that they barely encounter in their daily lives. These
activities have become a good way to practice opposing opinions and consider a wide range of
topics diversely. Through the repetition of such activities, students learn to face undesirable
matters in their real lives with flexible consideration and openness, and become able to consider
other viewpoints. Consequently, Zare and Othman say that students often “strengthen their
Worthen and Pack illustrate that critical thinking is the ability to analyze controversial
statements, search out relevant information, test evidence and conclusions based on evidence,
recognize underlying assumptions, and draw and criticize inferences (4-5). Liu et al. integrated a
debate activity into their English conversation classes with freshmen and sophomores at a
university in Taiwan for one semester in order to promote these critical thinking skills. The
outcomes of their research suggested that in their freshman class Liu et al. did not see any
positive effects due to excessive difficulty, but they found improvement in their sophomore class,
though significant advancement was not recognized. They concluded that enhancing a skill as
complicated and high-level as critical thinking is difficult to accomplish in a short term, like one
semester (54).
Researchers also reported that participants could increase their writing competencies in a
foreign language because an essential task they need is to take notes of the data collected in the
preparation stage in the target language (Aclan and Aziz 7; Al-Mahrooqi and Tabakow 418; Zare
PAC Postscript Kato: Integrating a Debate Activity 6
into an Intermediate Japanese Class: A Practice Report Through Learner's Reflection
and Othman 1510). Aclan and Aziz detailed the effectiveness of the debating activity for
promoting writing abilities due to the necessity of learning essential vocabulary related to the
debate topics. According to their report, participants acquire new vocabulary through the
following four steps: 1) look up new words for the debating topic, 2) take note of them, 3)
translate them into their target language, and 4) use the words in the preparation stage, as well as
in the actual debate (7). Aclan and Aziz described how this process assisted in increasing their
students’ vocabularies as follows: the first three steps of this process were in the “learning” stage,
and the last step required students to employ the new words, which corresponds to “acquisition,”
There are many different styles of debating around the world, such as British
Format, and Karl Popper Debate. BP seems to be the standard form used at the university level.
BP consists of four members in one group such as prime minister, deputy prime minister,
member of government, and government whip, or leader of the opposition. Each speaker speaks
in rotation for approximately five to seven minutes. The participants are allowed to discuss or
talk for two to five minutes in order to rebut the other side. In the preparation stage, all team
members work to collect and research data to counterattack the opposition. Through these
The difficulty of the debate activity varies depending on when the decision about which
side of the topic each team is assigned. If each team’s side is assigned at the outset, each team
can focus on the preparation of their topic. However, if sides are assigned on the day of the
PAC Postscript Kato: Integrating a Debate Activity 7
into an Intermediate Japanese Class: A Practice Report Through Learner's Reflection
actual debate, each team has to prepare, research and collect opinions for both sides of the topic
in the preparation stage, and cannot concentrate on their side until the day of the debate. This
language education, the class is focused on the content of the topic to be debated and the actual
debate. Thus, when stating opinions in debate activities, small grammatical errors should be
ignored (Morse 110). During the preparation stage, the participants take notes and record several
positive and negative opinions on the topic. Minor grammatical mistakes should also be ignored
A debate activity was created and integrated into an intermediate Japanese class in a
United States southeastern regional university considering the procedures and effects of debate
activities, as reported above. The debate activity was planned and put it into practice as follows:
a formal format was not used, the side of topic was selected at the outset, and easy topics were
chosen. Increasing writing ability was also made a goal of this activity, as many researchers
pointed out the benefits in the preparation stage. Figure 1 shows the procedures of the plan.
1 2 3
1 session
st
Preparation (6 times) Debating
4 5
Questionnaires (see Appendix 1) were conducted in order to see if the debating activity
was helpful to increase intrinsic motivation1 and determine what effects the activity produced.
The following sections describe the procedures of the debate activity and report on the
oral communication class. The outcomes were analyzed through participants’ reflections on the
activity.
3. Practical Method
classroom activity in a United States southeastern regional university in the spring semester of
2016. Eight participants (male students: 5, female students: 3) registered for the course.
According to the instructor’s subjective observation regarding students’ oral competencies, their
Proficiency Interviews. Class activities consisted of three main activities, one of which was the
debate activity. Twenty-five minutes out of each 75-minute class were used for the debate
activity. The class was offered two times per week for 15 weeks during the semester. Thirty
minutes were used for actual debating. During the semester, debates were held four times using
In the last hour of the last class, questionnaires were conducted that consisted of eight
questions: seven Likert-type questions (ranging from 5, strongly agree, to 1, strongly disagree)
and one comment question on the debate activity. Though the instructor chose the first topic, "Is
it better to have a pet or not?”, students selected the other three topics after finishing the first
The eight students were divided into two groups with four students each. Factors such as
grades, oral communication ability, personality, and gender differences were not taken into
consideration when dividing the students into groups, because it was impossible to consider all
of them. Therefore, groups were created randomly by drawing straws each time. Four debating
activities were conducted. All of the students took a turn as group leader once during the
semester. Leaders were required to lead their group in preparing for the debate. Additionally,
each leader was required to state the strongest opinion first in the actual debate, make a
vocabulary list of the difficult words, and show the list to the other group on the day, which
ensured that all of the members could have an equal opportunity for utterances in the actual
debating. In the interest of fairness, the side that groups had to argue for was decided by drawing
straws.
At the outset of the actual debate, one of the two leaders stated the strongest opinion, and
then one member of the opposing group stated an opinion in response. All of the students were
required to state their opinions at least three times. In the middle of debates, the instructor
PAC Postscript Kato: Integrating a Debate Activity 10
into an Intermediate Japanese Class: A Practice Report Through Learner's Reflection
reminded each group of which students had not yet achieved the three-time utterance rule. Each
In total, six classes (25 minutes each) were used to prepare for the debate activity for
each topic. The instructor facilitated the following tasks for students in six preparation sessions:
write down counterarguments to opposing opinions, 4) add more opinions to tasks 1 - 3, both 5)
and 6) practice debating by further dividing into two subgroups within each group. In tasks 1 - 3
of these preparation sessions, all of the students were required to write their own opinions in
their notes in Japanese and to submit their notes after the debate. This task was conducted in
order to confirm if students had performed the activity seriously, to motivate students to write in
the target language, and to foster students to transfer their written target language into speaking
in the debate. Moreover, this activity increased students’ writing abilities as they wrote various
opinions in Japanese (utilizing all three writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji)2.
Students received one out of 100 points (the class score) for this task by submitting their notes
for each topic, and thus received 4 points in total for the four topics during the semester. The
writing task was assessed in terms of effort, and one point was awarded if they wrote several
pages and 0.5 points if they wrote far less than other students.
The scores for the debate activity itself comprised approximately a quarter of the 100
points for the semester (24/100: 5 points for each debate session, 1 point for each note taking in
four debate sessions; (5+1) x 4 = 24). As there were quite large disparities in the oral abilities of
the eight students, their debate scores were determined not by the quality of their utterances, but
the quantity. Students received a full score if they achieved the three-utterance rule. This was
done in order to prevent anxiety and uneasiness in students with low oral communicative
PAC Postscript Kato: Integrating a Debate Activity 11
into an Intermediate Japanese Class: A Practice Report Through Learner's Reflection
competencies. Only two students did not achieve the three-utterance rule, and thus received four
out of five points in the first debate. All of the students received full scores during the rest of the
actual debates. Worthen and Pack said that the aim of a debate activity is not for one side to win,
but for students to investigate a topic and analyze outcomes (10). Thus, winning was considered
unimportant, and the outcome of debates, i.e., win or lose, was intentionally undefined, in order
to prevent the defeated from becoming demotivated. Instead, all student participants were
required to reflect and review the debate. The instructor took notice of the preparation, e.g.,
effectiveness of writing down and taking notes of various views, strategizing to overcome
4. Outcomes
Questionnaires (not anonymous3) were conducted on the last day of the semester. One of
the eight participants was sick and could not take the questionnaire, so seven responses were
Table 1
Agree Disagree
Q.1 Enjoyed 2 3 1 1 0
As table 1 shows, five out of seven students (71 %) agreed with the first statement, “I enjoyed
conducting a debate activity.” The one student who disagreed with this statement was able to
speak Japanese better than his classmates. He wrote in the comment section, “I don't like
debating itself because some people became very passionate and emotional. I don't want to make
people angry.” However, he also wrote, “These topics were fun, though. Also, a good exercise
for talking about subjects in more depth than ordinary would [sic]. It is a good way to practice
speaking and thinking.” The students’ responses to the second statement showed that all
participants, except one, agreed that they were satisfied with the challenge of the activity.
Statement No. 3 was, “Writing opinions on the topics in Japanese with using kanji for
preparation helped me to increase my Japanese writing ability,” and all of the respondents agreed
except for one. The student who selected, “Neither,” did not write many opinions in his notebook
in the preparation stage and did not receive a full score for the note-taking task; perhaps he did
not feel that he could improve his writing ability. In order to confirm whether or not participants
could improve their teamwork abilities through their collaborative work, as suggested by Iberri-
Shea (132) and Zare and Othman (1508), statement No. 4 asked whether or not the participants
liked the collaborative group work. Two participants responded, “Neither.” These two students
studied effectively by themselves and may have felt that collaborative tasks sometimes did not
progress promptly and efficiently, and preferred to work at their own pace.
PAC Postscript Kato: Integrating a Debate Activity 13
into an Intermediate Japanese Class: A Practice Report Through Learner's Reflection
raise my critical thinking ability.” Although no participants disagreed, two responded, “Neither.”
As reported by Liu et al. (54), perhaps only practicing these activities four times during the
semester was not enough to have a significant impact their critical thinking skills. As easy topics
were intentionally selected in consideration of the learners’ oral abilities, No. 6 and No. 7
inquired about students’ preferences regarding the degree of difficulty of the topics. All students
except for one agreed with No. 6, “Topics utilized for the debating activities were easy enough to
discuss in Japanese.” The student who disagreed with statement No. 6 agreed with statement No.
7, “I prefer to talk about more difficult topics in Japanese.” In the comment section, this student
noted that he wanted to talk about politics. Further in the questionnaire, this student strongly
agreed with the statements that he enjoyed the activity (No. 1), was satisfied with the challenges
(No. 2), and improved his writing (No. 3) and critical thinking abilities (No. 5). In terms of topic
selection, this debate activity, which was specifically targeted to students with lower oral
competencies, perhaps did not meet the expectations of this student with high motivation and
In the comment section, which required students to write their comments about the debate
activity freely, five out of seven students expressed their thoughts about debating using the word,
“fun.” One of them noted, “Very fun, favorite part of class. … It is the most difficult part of the
class, but also the most effective in improving speaking skills.” Another student wrote, “The
debating was fun and worthwhile, even if [it was] hard at times.” Furthermore, three students
including the above two students used the word, “hard.” This indicates that the debating activity
was “hard” but “fun,” and that the majority of the participants were satisfied with the challenge,
with the exception of one participant, who wanted more challenging topics.
PAC Postscript Kato: Integrating a Debate Activity 14
into an Intermediate Japanese Class: A Practice Report Through Learner's Reflection
5. Discussion
Iberri-Shea noted that debate activities are suitable for Intermediate-high or Advanced
level foreign language learners when introduced at the college level (134). However, this study
shows that it can also be integrated into Intermediate-low or Intermediate-mid level learner
classes if careful consideration is given to the procedures. The outcomes of this study, where
intermediate students were introduced to a debate activity using several strategies, turned out to
The primary justification of this outcome is that most of the learners agreed with the
statement that they enjoyed the activity. Furthermore, the majority of learners used the word,
“fun,” to describe the activity in the comment section of the questionnaire, indicating that their
intrinsic motivation was raised (Kato, “Efficacy” 62; Kato, “A Comparative” 107). When it
comes to teaching and learning foreign languages, reducing negative factors, e.g., anxiety,
disappointment (Aida 164; Kato, “Efficacy” 62; Kato, “A Comparative” 107), and increasing
intrinsic motivation of students are the key issues (Kato, “Efficacy” 62; Kato, “A Comparative”
107; Tremblay and Gardner 516). It was found that the debate activity in this study played a role
Some participants wrote in the comment section that this debate activity is an effective
method to increase speaking opportunities, which was one of the aims of this course. Before
introducing the debate activity into the course, one concern was whether or not the activity
would be too difficult for learners with Intermediate-low and Intermediate–mid level oral
competencies, and if it would increase learners’ anxiety, frustration, and uneasiness. The
strategies carried out in this activity, such as selecting easy topics, choosing topic sides at the
PAC Postscript Kato: Integrating a Debate Activity 15
into an Intermediate Japanese Class: A Practice Report Through Learner's Reflection
outset, stating opinions without order after having a leader state an opinion, and providing a
relaxed atmosphere, seemed to be effective. Iberri-Shea endorses putting debate activities into
practice (136). Utilizing these strategies, introducing a debate activity in intermediate or even
One student stated, “It was difficult to insist on the idea which is not actually my own
idea,” in a reflection session after the debate. Talking about opposing views is a practice to
increase one’s critical thinking, and talking about content separate from language itself is CBI.
Furthermore, after finishing the first debate, participants who realized the value of writing
opinions in Japanese during the preparation stage also tried to write their notes and opinions in
Japanese more after the first debate. As they were required to write Japanese sentences in
Japanese characters, students searched for difficult words using their cell phones not only to find
words, but also to find out how to write them in kanji characters possessing many strokes. This
was excellent practice to increase their vocabulary and help them to learn how to write Japanese
characters. They then needed to use the words in the preparation stage and in the actual debating
session. Similar to the results of Aclan and Aziz, the participants’ reflections in this study
6. Conclusion
A debate activity was introduced as one of the class activities in an intermediate Japanese
increasing opportunities to converse in Japanese. The aim of this paper was to decide whether a
debate activity is appropriate for intermediate level learners. There is a range of research about
integrating debate activities into English conversation classes. However, there is little specific
PAC Postscript Kato: Integrating a Debate Activity 16
into an Intermediate Japanese Class: A Practice Report Through Learner's Reflection
research about introducing debate activities into intermediate Japanese oral communication
classes, especially in a region where Japanese language is seen as a minor foreign language. This
paper clarifies the procedures and strategies of integrating debate activities into an intermediate
Japanese language class and suggests the possibilities and applicability of such activities on the
basis of qualitative analysis of participants’ reflections. The results from intermediate learners
showed that affirmative opinions were collected from the majority of the participants. These
opinions determined that the debate activity helped to increase utterances in the classroom and
raise learners’ intrinsic motivation, and therefore integration of such activities at the intermediate
level was found to be appropriate. One clear issue with the present study is the limited number of
participants. However, this couldn’t be avoided due to the limited number of Japanese language
learners at the intermediate level in the southeastern region of the United States. In future
replications of this study, classes with more participants should be observed, and quantitative
analyses could be incorporated to see the degree to which students’ oral competency increased.
PAC Postscript Kato: Integrating a Debate Activity 17
into an Intermediate Japanese Class: A Practice Report Through Learner's Reflection
Notes
Kato found that intrinsic motivation is one of the essential factors to “accomplish the difficult
2. There are three kinds of written symbols in Japanese: hiragana (phonetic scripts),
3. Questionnaires were conducted after completing all of the tasks for grading purposes,
so students did not have to worry about whether their responses would influence their grades.
PAC Postscript Kato: Integrating a Debate Activity 18
into an Intermediate Japanese Class: A Practice Report Through Learner's Reflection
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PAC Postscript Kato: Integrating a Debate Activity 21
into an Intermediate Japanese Class: A Practice Report Through Learner's Reflection
Note: English translation of closing. “Dear all, please speak Japanese in future as well.