Level of Debate Skills of Grade 10 and Senior High School Students in the Schools Division of Santa Rosa City: Basis for an Intervention Plan
Gina M. Requina, DEM
Department of Education – Schools Division of Santa Rosa City
Southville IV National High School, Philippines
DOI: https://doi.org/10.54476/iimrj24
ABSTRACT
The primary objective of the educational system is to give opportunities for students to receive practical and useful instruction in order to develop their cognitive skills and to improve their social abilities through speaking and debating. In a classroom context, there is a varied range of learners with varying levels of aptitude and ability to express effectively. Through classroom interaction and oral communication, the teacher encourages students to express themselves freely and share their thoughts and ideas based on how they fully grasped the lesson, observations from the outside surroundings, and experiences based on real-life situations, that were noticed and observed closely. However, not all learners are fluent communicators, particularly when speaking in the English language. Even if they have strong beliefs and can express their thoughts, sentiments, and emotions in various ways, they lack the confidence to say them appropriately. As a result, the learner’s dedication to education, the necessity of learning and practicing English, and the learner’s deep commitment to the learning phase all pose problems to the educational system. The purpose of the study was to determine the level of debating skills of Grade 10 and Senior High School students in the Schools Division of Santa Rosa City in terms of style, content, and strategy. The students were composed of 25 students from the Schools Division of Santa Rosa City. This was essentially a descriptive study in which a survey questionnaire was used in conjunction with the purposive sample technique to gather data. In order to determine the respondent’s demographic profile, the data were statistically handled using the frequency distribution and weighted mean. The t-test was performed to determine whether or not there were statistically significant differences in the degree of debate skills of the respondents when they were divided into groups based on their demographic profile. The data revealed that respondents’ degree of debate skills has a verbal interpretation of good and that there was no statistically significant difference between their demographic profiles. The findings also revealed that the majority of respondents were first-timers in the debate competition environment. It was proposed that students should engage in constant practice and coaching to improve and develop their arguing talents, as well as participate in debate workshops and training to improve their skills and strategy, in order to improve their overall performance. As a result, the intervention strategy is proposed.
Keywords: style, content, strategy, logical, critical thinking skills, reasoning ability