Debate - new spiritual food for Vinh city youth

Debate is not argument

In recent years, many debate clubs have been formed in high schools. Photo: Chu Thanh

About 7 or 8 years ago, the debate movement began to enter Vietnam and was quickly welcomed by young people in big cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Although it appeared later, over the past 3 years, the debate movement in Vinh City has gradually become a favorite spiritual food of many young people.

As the first debate club established in Vinh city 3 years ago, Phan Debate Club (PDC) currently has nearly 40 members who regularly participate 1-2 sessions/week. Tran Hoai Thuong - a student of English class 11C5 at Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted, Chairman of PDC said that debate is an intellectual sport that uses the thinking process and expressing thoughts by collecting, analyzing and processing information to build and systematically arrange arguments to make decisions.

The concept of debate that most people understand is a debate, an argument in which more than 2 sides present their opinions on a given issue. The parties will defend their views on that issue.

Debate is divided into many types such as Academic Debate, Public Forum, Presidential Debate, Informal Debate and Debate in MUN (a simulation of conferences in the United Nations). Currently, the debate activities of Vinh city's youth mainly revolve around Academic Debate.

Learning and loving debate since grade 9, Hoai Thuong shared that many people equate the concepts of debate and argument with each other, but in fact this is completely wrong. Both are expressing one's own opinion, but with argument, the speaker can express his opinion as he pleases as long as it supports his point of view, even if the information given may be right or wrong.

While in debate, if the speaker presents his opinion, he must explain it specifically and provide clear evidence and accurate information. The purpose of debate and argument is also different. If debate is to overwhelm the opponent to win for the individual, then debate is to find the best solution to convince everyone to believe and follow for the common good.

As a popular intellectual sport in many developed countries with large and small competitions between teams from different countries, debate has a set of rules governing how to play and determine winners and losers. When coming to Vietnam, the rule often applied by young people in debates is the AP rule.

Hoai Thuong explained that in a debate, there will be 3 parties: the judges; 2 participating teams (each team has 3 people) divided into the supporting team and the opposing team; the audience. When entering the match, each team has two main tasks: presenting their views (3 views corresponding to 3 speaking turns of 3 members) and asking and answering questions between speaking turns. Each presentation only lasts 7 minutes. After the debate ends, the two teams will wait for the judges to give the final result. On average, a debate lasts about 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Spread among young people

A debate session between debate clubs in Vinh city. Photo: Chu Thanh

Nguyen Van Binh, a 12A3 student at Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted, a member of PDC, said he joined the club since 10th grade. At first, Binh did not understand much about debate, but the more he learned, the more he discovered the interesting things about this intellectual sport.

“What I learned from participating in PDC is to increase my ability to think about an issue from many sides; increase my ability to persuade others; and gain confidence in speaking in front of a crowd… Especially for me, I also learned the ability to listen to opposing opinions in debates,” Binh shared. Therefore, although busy with final exams, Binh still tries to arrange time to participate in debates, even though it is not as frequent as before.

If in 2016, there was only the PDC Debate Club of Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted, now there have been new debate clubs such as the Thunder Debate Club of Vinh University High School for the Gifted or the Debate Club of Huynh Thuc Khang High School.

Hoang Thi Hai An, class 11A8, Vinh University High School for the Gifted, Head of Thunder Debate Club, said that the club was newly established in early August 2018 with 8 core members who love debate and nearly 20 new members. Because the club was newly established, not many students know about it.

However, Thunder Debate Club has started organizing the first debate session as well as training members on the rules and concepts of debate. In the coming time, the club plans to hold activities twice a month as well as promote more debate sessions between members, Hai An said.

In general, the debate movement is increasingly developing and spreading in Vietnam through debate programs such as “I Speak Up” and “Teen School” broadcast on VTV6. In Vinh city, although this movement is directly sponsored by the school union, most of the activities are run by the students themselves, from establishing clubs to organizing debates with each other.

Therefore, although debate is an activity that brings many positive aspects to students, the quality and longevity of this activity still depends a lot on the core members of the clubs.

Perhaps, it is time for the debate movement to receive more attention to develop in a more qualitative, quantitative and sustainable direction. From there, it will help Nghe An youth have more opportunities to practice multidimensional thinking and critical thinking not only in studying but also in daily life.