Debating: skills gym Erasmus Project

Project Title

Debating: skills gym

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); Teaching and learning of foreign languages; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

The debate is not a clash between people, which unfortunately our society is getting used to. Debate is a constructive exchange of ideas. If well conducted, the debate is a highly educational interaction experience, in which it prevails, not the common opinion, but the best motivated speech. In this project context, the Italian school “IISS PIETRO SETTE” and the Slovenian school “Gimnazija Ptuj” had the common strategic objective of developing very high citizenship skills, such as education in legality, responsible and peaceful participation in a dialogue between people, the improvement of communication skills in the mother tongue and in a foreign language (English).
The “Debate: a gym of skills” project taught students and teachers the art of debate. Each institution involved: 12 or 14 students of different classes, aged between 16 and 18 and 5 teachers, of any discipline.
Basically it was implemented through two working steps: one aimed to training students and teachers, organized with differentiated working groups and conducted by a Slovenian teacher expert in Debate and the other one with a practical implementation of Debate, in which the two delegations , Italian and Slovenian met for an exciting tournament. In addition to these two fundamental steps, other significant activities were added, such as a tournament within each institution to involve as many students as possible, participation in national and international tournaments, demonstrative debates in neighbouring schools and a demonstration debate in the Municipality, open to citizenship.
The program of activities, shared between the two schools, was the following:
• exercises on the World School Debate format
• structure of the arguments
• refutation techniques
• characteristics of public speaking
• evaluation of the debate
• student debate tournaments
The results obtained were flattering:
– marked improvement in written and oral communication skills and an improvement in reading and
understanding ability (in mother tongue and in English)
– development of critical thinking skills
– personal and emotional growth thanks above all to teamwork and increased self-confidence
– development to tolerance
– curiosity about concrete problems of society (the debate pushed the students to be politically active with a high level of civic commitment).
– promotion and dissemination, in teachers, of innovative teaching methods
The project had a wide and positive resonance, also testified by the live interest of television, newspapers and the web. Also for this reason, the path taken by the Pietro Sette Institute will not end with the Erasmus experience, but will continue over the years to achieve the following long-term benefits:
for students:
– development of transversal skills that will allow them to enter the world of work more easily
– development of greater attention to current and international issues
for teachers:
– more frequent use of the practice of debate in curricular activities
for local institutions:
– use of the debate as a motivational tool for involving young people in the local reality (establishment of the Youth Council in the Municipality of our town)

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 37230 Eur

Project Coordinator

IISS PIETRO SETTE & Country: IT

Project Partners

• Gimnazija Ptuj