The Energy Dilemma.Let’s debate!

The role of debate as a teaching strategy has a great potential in enhancing learners’ motivation and their language skills, as well as in providing students with the opportunity to work in groups in a cooperative setting. It improves  language learning and soft skills like critical thinking, cooperation,  creativity,  because students discuss, gather information and organize their opinions around the multiple aspects of a topic, putting knowledge into action.

The purpose of this project is to motivate students, promote critical learning, deepen their understanding of the concepts tackled through first-hand action .

The topic on “Earth dynamics and energy resources” was developed with 18/19- year- old students in an Italian secondary school. involving the debate strategy.

 Adopting a task - based approach ( macro tasks and sub- tasks) the topic was investigated to find out which source of energy possessed the best requirements.

The work was arranged into three different steps:

• warming up under the teacher’s guidance,
• a core part
• a final part to summarize the work done

After eliciting their prior knowledge through a  brainstorming discussion on: “Research institutes in developed countries should focus on the direction of nuclear fusion rather than on renewable sources?”, the students were asked to form 2 different teams, each of them agreeing with either point of view, and to provide examples and points to support their opinion.

There followed a series of micro tasks on:

• the structure of the Earth, its systems and the impact of the greenhouse effect at global level;
• the steps leading to the theory of plate tectonics and the role played by geophysicists in enhancing research;
• the energy resources on Earth: differences, use, pros and cons.

Students were then able to identify the advantages and disadvantages of the most important energy sources and to understand the role geoscientists  have in protecting the planet from the dangers it is daily exposed to.

Instead of the traditional debate, the students played a team board game: “The Great Energy Debate.

Each team chose one energy source listing its advantages. while  also highlighting the cons of the source chosen by the opposing teams. The judges had the final say on the matter. The winner was the first team to reach the top of the game board.

Unexpected outcome: no one really won! In fact, evaluations and decisions on energy must consider constantly changing economic, political, environmental and social factors. Therefore, the debate remained open.

 

The experiment was excellent in enhancing  the students’ motivation. The game experience was   uplifting and stimulating.

Project monitoring and results evaluation:

• process-oriented in-itinere diagnostic assessment.
• summative, product-oriented, holistic rubrics.

In conclusion,  debate may be an effective strategy to foster both language skills and soft skills.  Discussion and debate encourage learners to create their own understanding of the content and connect it to their experiences, therefore, critical learning is improved. Besides, it  allows educators to gain better cognitive results and raise the overall quality of education.