Speech and debate class become one of important parts of university’s communication education. As a teaching-learning method, debate is highly regarded in terms of cultivating students’ abilities of self-initiated learning, critical thinking, and logical reasoning. Debate education can naturally promote students’ thinking and communication skills by invigorating the process of their reading, writing, listening, thinking, and talking.
This research confirms following educational effects, examining one university’s debate contest case which is linked with “presentation and debate” class. Above all, this research finds out that the debate contest can offer students opportunities of cultivating their thoughtful thinking ability and developing their learning ability like searching, analyzing, and restructuring of data. Debate contest also becomes an actual place where students can form their critical mind and exercise their public speech by attracting them into real issues of community and society.
Like this, the debate contest offers students an important educational opportunity of developing their communication ability. Through written interviews with students who were attending the debate contest, this research empirically confirms that students could gradually upgrade their communication ability, passing through phases like writing, interviewing, and real discussing, which are required in the preparation of the debate contest. Through the debate contest, students can develop their communication and leadership ability as well as learning ability, which is essential in the university, by the process of learning, collecting, organizing various fields’ knowledge and information that are related with discussion topics.
In conclusion, besides debate education, combining communication education with an out of school activity like the debate contest is meaningful in terms of providing opportunities about students can express and share their thinking. In addition, this paper mentions that continuous coaching and/or the role of instructor are important in communication education, which is really helpful for students in the preparation of debate contest or after the contest, and also points out that an effort to expansion of debate education effects to the base is necessary by promoting mutual exchange among universities’ debate clubs. Through this case study, this research paper could find out an important educational implication that students can improve their intrinsic learning motive and boost their confidence by experiencing open and positive learning process through the debate contest.