What are the Benefits of Debate for Students? Global Experiences.

Speech and debate offers many benefits - lifelong improvement in critical thinking ability, heightened academic performance, and key communication skills. But speech and debate also offers another benefit that’s hard to find elsewhere; a genuinely global experience for young people.

LearningLeaders works with students from multiple regions of the world. Our tournaments regularly attract participants from over a dozen countries and territories, with judges from a dozen more. Our regular debate classes often comprise students from multiple nations.

Debate allows students to engage in discussion and competition with students across the world. As an activity that is genuinely without borders, debating is great for helping teens to learn about the world around them, not just from textbooks but by meeting their peers from other countries around the globe.

This “global mindset” is a key benefit of debate, and one that it’s hard to find in other contexts. Even international schools don’t always offer a genuinely multinational experience. On the other hand, in debate class it’s almost guaranteed for any student who takes part in the activity for a period of a few months – especially when they start competing.

Competitive Speech and Debate as a Global Experience for Students

In the period since early 2020, a lot of global debating tournaments have moved online. In the post-Covid situation, what we see is a healthy mixture of [sometimes expensive] in-person tournaments and cheaper, more accessible online competition.

At LearningLeaders we’ve long prided ourselves on having one of the most experienced competitive coaching teams of any speech and debate academy in the world. Our past and present coaches include national, regional and world champions, and together we’ve trained students who have won a similar range of debate trophies – up to and including the 2018 World Schools Debating Championships (WSDC)!

For students and families who want to experience the best possible competition preparation, there’s no better option than the LearningLeaders Competitive Debate program.

Competitive Speech and Debate as a Travel Experience

What’s better than a debate competition? Travelling to a debate competition!

With the resumption of in-person competition, debating and public speaking allows students to travel around the world. LearningLeaders exclusively selects and prepares students around Asia for one of the largest and most prestigious global speech and debate tournaments in the world, the World Championships of Debating and Public Speaking (WIDPSC). Get in touch with us to find out more about how you can apply for WIDPSC from your country.

Conclusion

Speech and debate offers a unique international experience for students that it’s hard if not impossible to replicate elsewhere. Learning alongside students from other countries, or competing against them in debate tournaments, offers a unique perspective on global affairs and helps to truly build out students’ experiences as “global citizens”.

Whether you’re part way through your speech and debate adventure, or just considering starting out – we hope you’ll embrace that adventure with LearningLeaders.