Important Note: The purpose of these debates are to challenge yourself to think about difficult topics in English, and expand your understanding on a topic. The purpose of these debates is not to ‘argue’ or ‘win’ the debate. The debate topics are not fixed, and depend on the students' personal interests, but may include topics such as 'globalisation', 'taxes' and 'socio-economic programmes'. During the class, we will decide together 3-4 topics to debate about, in order, based on what the students have read in preparation. Then, we will start debating the first topic. One student will start with one argument, then I will give my response and ask one or two questions before opening it up to the rest of the students. From then, my primary task as host is to facilitate the debate and make sure we keep on that. After the 1st debate, we will move on to the 2nd. It’s unlikely that we will have time to do all 4, so that’s why it’s important that we order the debate topics at the beginning. Personally, I have a 1st class honours degree in International Business and a Masters degree in International Relations. Therefore, I thoroughly enjoy and have had many debates such as these.

This is an advanced class and students should already have a good grasp of the language and/or economics. Students will be challenged to use persuasive language to debate their point of view, practice ways to defend, support or oppose an idea in a respectful way in English, as well as hopefully learn something new about economics and the economy!