Lesson #1 is now in the books. Getting the kids to speak out was like pulling teeth. Their understanding is that this is a "discussion seminar" not a debate seminar. None of them are planning to compete in any national competitions. Nevertheless, the Otoko Gakuen boys are pretty uncommon.

I would almost liken the lesson to a business class of new hires at Goldman Sachs. There was a lot of despair in the room amongst the boys about whether or not they were going to be able to do this, but there was no need to sell these kids on the worth-while-ness of giving this a try.

I arrived at Otoko Gakuen and learned that there are actually two debate seminars. One is run by one of the full-time teachers. Nice guy named Jim. Jim gave me the choice of the higher-proficiency kids and the lower-proficiency kids.

I always choose the lower-proficiency classes. More opportunities to score points. It’s like opting for the down position in wrestling.

Here is the Activity Module for this first lesson.

I am going to have them read an interesting article about how in Italy, the courts have recently ruled that theft of food motivated by hunger is no longer illegal.

Here is the article that the kids will be reading for next week.

If these boys are really going to be able to debate each other in English, I will need to provide a lot of scaffolding.

Next lesson, my plan is to start my making sure everyone understands the article well enough to talk about it. Then I will focus in on rhythm, melody, and pronunciation. Then I will give them a very structured activity, relating to the article, that pushes them to express an opinions about the article in 4 sentences. This 4-sentence opinion motif is going to recur throughout the course.