Parliamentary debate – role play
In this activity, extreme (and shocking) statements are subjected to a critical examination by the students. After all, democracy is a sometimes difficult balance between freedom of expression and respect for the rights of others. Through role play, students stage extreme statements and analyse the argumentation, with specific attention to fallacies. In this group activity, students go into depth with their arguments and explain them in detail.
Objectives
To train the method of democratic dialogue and to discuss sensitive topics.
To collaborate with others
To examine the opinion(s) of others and express opinions in a constructive way.
To gain insight into arguments and fallacies that often lead to discussions.
To empathise with the beliefs and values of the others.
To gain self-confidence.
Indicative time
45-60 minutes
Facilitator & target group
Facilitator: teacher
Target group: students
Methodology – steps for the facilitator
Setting:
- Set up the room in the right organisation. The speeches are given from behind the table which stands between the supporters and opponents and directly in front of the jury.
- The jury – also behind a table- sits in a place where they can see both the proponents and the opponents.
- The observants: in the backside of the room where they can follow the debate
Roles:
- The jury (students) has two important, challenging rules. First of all, they are not allowed to give their personal opinion about the statement. The jurors judge only what was said during the debate: alone what has been said and heard counts in the debate. During the debate, the jury pays attention to two things: the presentation of the debaters, and the argumentation.
- The supporters (students) of a statement use every argument to defend their point of view
- The opponents (students) use also every argument to defend their point of view
- The instructor (teacher) provides supporters and opponents with challenging political statements.
1
Explain the instructions of the Parliamentary debate exercise. The debate has to play with 2 students against 2. The debate consists of 2 speaking turns for the proponents and for the opponents. Each speaking turn therefore has its own function and in this one debate format, each speaker has a fixed speaking time.
2
The instructor writes a political statement on the whiteboard that everyone can see. The proponents are supposed to invent as many pro-arguments as they can pro-arguments to defend their point of view. The same for the opponents. If necessary, the instructor can write some roles and hand them out in advance. Each person gets 2 minutes for his/her speech. The jury moderates between the two teams.
3
Conclusion with everyone in the classroom. Collective reflection on the exercise.
Materials & Resources – tools
- hand-outs with roles
- white-board and political statements
- classroom