A debate is a discussion of a topic with arguments and controversies. The debate’s participants should discuss and argument fundamentally what is their topic about and to reflect on. In our language class we had two topics, thus two debates. Those debates were “Professional Teaching in the School” and “Voluntary Voting and Automatic Registration”. The first of the debates was a very well-prepared discussion. Both groups, pro and against, were well-informed about what their topics. For instance: "the Against” group had a very good presentation and they provided us with a lot of information from important people in education who are not teachers instead of what we thought about them, such as Paulo Freyre, Rousseau, etc. The “Pro” group responded in the way of the values of being a teacher mean. It really was a debate! Before this debate, I clearly had my position and thoughts about this theme, but the information that both groups gave us made me a change. I think this debate had an unbalance perception of the public in terms of the presentation that each group showed, because the first group showed it by a power point as visual facts, therefore, it looked like more interesting to us that the latter presentation, even though their arguments were very strong. For this little but big reason, the “Pro” group needs to improve the use of the technology or another way to show a topic to make it more balance. However, I do not have a winner; because I think what we really need is people care, interesting, with concerns and love in education issues, people who really want to make a change in our society. I love this profession and also the education issues that is the reason to become a teacher. This I would say.
On the other hand, the last debate topic about “Voluntary Voting and Automatic Registration” had a big confusion, as a result of we were the “Pro” group and the other should be the “Against”, but it was not like this. The other groups made a mistake, they thought they belonged to the “Pro” team but they did not. So this debate changed the way as the firsts, both groups got together and the whole class was against us. Having the information and arguments and the possible contra arguments we could have and our classmates did not have, we could not discuss about our topic and thus we did not have a real winner. I feel if we had not had this problem, we had won. We searched a lot of information about our topic, we made very interesting question about democracy and if people are expressed at all; we had almost all possibilities where we could be in disjunctive with the “Against” team. The problem that we had, especially me, is the way how to express the ideas clearly and secure (our pathos and ethos was a weakness) but, as we could not show our arguments we could not show our logos at all. Actually, we need to improve our English skills. However, this is one of our first experiences on debates and it was not bad! Now, we realized how many possibilities we have on presenting topics whatever it is in a debate. It was a very good experience; I think we learn a lot about us, such as, our skills, about the theme, etc.
On the other hand, the last debate topic about “Voluntary Voting and Automatic Registration” had a big confusion, as a result of we were the “Pro” group and the other should be the “Against”, but it was not like this. The other groups made a mistake, they thought they belonged to the “Pro” team but they did not. So this debate changed the way as the firsts, both groups got together and the whole class was against us. Having the information and arguments and the possible contra arguments we could have and our classmates did not have, we could not discuss about our topic and thus we did not have a real winner. I feel if we had not had this problem, we had won. We searched a lot of information about our topic, we made very interesting question about democracy and if people are expressed at all; we had almost all possibilities where we could be in disjunctive with the “Against” team. The problem that we had, especially me, is the way how to express the ideas clearly and secure (our pathos and ethos was a weakness) but, as we could not show our arguments we could not show our logos at all. Actually, we need to improve our English skills. However, this is one of our first experiences on debates and it was not bad! Now, we realized how many possibilities we have on presenting topics whatever it is in a debate. It was a very good experience; I think we learn a lot about us, such as, our skills, about the theme, etc.
