T1 112009008 Full text
Sufficient Rebuttals in Public Speaking Class Debate Activities
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
of Sarjana Pendidikan
Pratiwi Pamularsih
112009008
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
2013
Sufficient Rebuttals in Public Speaking Class Debate Activities
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
of Sarjana Pendidikan
Pratiwi Pamularsih
112009008
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
2013
i
Sufficient Rebuttals in Public Speaking Class Debate Activities
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
of Sarjana Pendidikan
Pratiwi Pamularsih
112009008
Approved by:
Petrus Ari Santoso, M.A.
Examiner
Christian Rudianto, M. Appling.
Supervisor
ii
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Copyright@ 2013. Pratiwi Pamularsih and Christian Rudianto, M.Appling.
All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the
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Language and Literature, Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga.
Pratiwi Pamularsih:
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Approved by:
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Supervisor
Petrus Ari Santoso, M.A.
Examiner
iv
SUFFICIENT REBUTTALS
IN PUBLIC SPEAKING CLASS DEBATE ACTIVITIES
Pratiwi Pamularsih
ABSTRACT
Debate is the final activity in Public Speaking Class. In debate activity, students are not only
presenting their team arguments but also attacking their opponents’ arguments by delivering
rebuttal. Rebuttal as many experts says is a vital part of a debate as a sign that interaction is
happening in the debate. This study analyzes and evaluates the students rebuttals presented
during the debate activity. The two debate activities from two different classes of Public
Speaking are recorded and transcribed as the data to be analyzed to answer the question how
sufficient is the students’ rebuttals presented during the debate activity. Content analysis is used
to analyze the students’ rebuttals deeper, because it enables researcher to study human behavior
indirectly (Wallen, 2007). The study groups the students’ rebuttals into three categories which
are (1) weak rebuttal; (2) average rebuttal; and (3) strong rebuttal. The domination of weak
rebuttals in the data shows that students are aware about the importance of rebuttal in the debate,
but still have difficulties analyzing the opponents’ arguments to later deliver the rebuttal to prove
that their opponent is wrong. The finding suggests additional time preparation and more
intensive debate practice are needed to familiarize the students in delivering rebuttal during their
debate.
Keywords: public speaking, debate, rebuttals, sufficient rebuttal
INTRODUCTION
Public Speaking Class as the highest level of Speaking Course in English Department has
debating project as one of the activity in the course. In this activity the students debate upon a
motion, as an issue that must be debated. There are two teams in the debate activity, the first one
is the affirmative as a team that proposes and agrees with the motion. The second one is the
negative team as a team that opposes and disagrees with the motion. The two sides of the team
will meet in the debate and defend their own team cases, presenting arguments and rebuttals to
prove that their team case is the best. There will be adjudicators who value the debate and decide
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the winner based on both of the teams’ the performances and make the judgment based on
regulations existing in the debate.
Based on the writer experiences involving in some debate competition like in JOVED
(Java Overland Varsities English Debate) and IVED (Indonesia Varsities English Debate) the
writer got the chance to know deeper about the debate itself. One main problem that a debater or
a debate team deals with in the debating world usually is delivering rebuttal. Adjudicators often
said that the writer team is trapped into simply defending our own team case and neglecting the
case of our opponent. This condition is bad since the adjudicator cannot find the clash and the
interaction among the arguments. This is supported by Quinn who said that two opposing cases
do not make a debate, however important they are. Not only presenting arguments, debaters also
must attack opponent arguments by delivering rebuttals to create the interaction between cases
(Quinn, 2005). It means debate is not only about presenting idea of a team, but directly clashing
the idea to other and proving that a team’s idea is better becomes the essence of the debate, thus
the adjudicators always concern about the existence of rebuttal is in the debate.
From the experience above, the writer is interested in observing the debate activity in
Public Speaking Class. The debate in this class is using the Asian Parliamentary system, the
same debating format that JOVED has. There will be three persons in each affirmative and
negative team that will do the debate, agreeing and disagreeing upon a motion given. In the
debate activity, the students create arguments upon a controversial issue and try to win the debate
by providing convincing reasonable arguments and attacking opponents’ opinion. The writer is
interested in knowing what kind of rebuttals that the students have during the class. Since the
writer experiences during the debate competition shows that rebuttal as the essence of debate is
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often neglected by a debating team, the main thing that the writer wants to know is whether or
not the Public Speaking students deliver rebuttals and how sufficient their rebuttals are.
What seemingly happens to our debating activities in Public Speaking is they debate by
simply throwing their opinion without trying to attack the opponent’s opinion. They become
dismissive with the opponent opinion and simply continuing the debate by directly explaining
their arguments. Casey (2005) says that clash between teams is the essence of a debate and the
clash will be achieved through delivering effective rebuttals. It means if both teams are too busy
to defend their own idea without trying to analyze or compare which idea is the best, there will
be no clash in the debate among the arguments. Moreover, clashing arguments and showing to
other that your arguments are the best compare to your opponents will be the main point of
debate which can be seen from the rebuttals made by the students during the debate.
This study aims to find out how sufficient the students’ rebuttals during the debate
activities as one significant thing to be analyzed later. It is important to analyze the debate of the
Public Speaking students since when a teacher teaches the students about debate, the teacher has
to know how deep the students’ understanding about debate activity. The teacher has to teach
debate as a whole. The finding on this research can help the teacher to focus more on what is
lack from the students’ debate and try to find the best way to overcoming the lack of student’s
debate.
LITERATURE REVIEW
A.
WHAT IS DEBATE?
Freeley and Steinberg (2008) says that debates refer to the process of analyzing and
supporting issues to arrive at a reasoned conclusion, which makes individual able to think and
therefore convince others to agree with his or her arguments. The more logical the speech is, the
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more convincing it is to others. This means that debates involve reasoned arguments for and
against a given motion to achieved rational decision making (Freeley and Steinberg, 2008 as
cited in Saraswati, 2010 and in Kurniawati 2012). Quinn explains that there will be two teams in
a debate, affirmative and negative with three people in the each team (Quinn, 2005). Both teams
will debate upon a motion given. Motion is the topic to be debated. Affirmative will agree upon
the motion and negative will oppose the motion.
Debate activity becomes one of activities in Public Speaking Course ED303A and
ED303G in the Faculty of Language and Literature Satya Wacana Christian University. Students
are learning about the rules of debate and skills to create arguments, where finally they will do
the debate itself during the course. What the students do is the example of educational debate. It
is conducted under the direction of an educational institution for the purpose of providing
educational opportunities for students (Freeley and Steinberg, 2008). The debate activity in
Public Speaking Class is conducted to provide the learning time for the students to train their
skill in speaking English through the debate activity. Students also learn to create also defend
their arguments upon a motion during the debate. Freely (1969) also says that educational debate
is viewed as a valuable method for teaching the principles of argumentation. The debate activity
will help the students to learn how to make argumentation, including constructing their
arguments and defending their arguments upon objection.
B.
WHAT KIND OF DEBATE IS DESIRABLE?
Quinn (2005) states to have a debate, we need interaction between the cases delivered by
the affirmative and negative team. A team is not only required to present and support its own
arguments but also attack the opponents’ arguments by delivering rebuttal. It means, to create a
desirable debate, both the affirmative and the negative team are required to defend their
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arguments from their opponents and try to defeat their opponent’s arguments through presenting
rebuttal. Without rebuttal, a debate can be a sharing opinion session only, where there is no
interaction among the arguments. It can be concluded that rebuttal play a significant role in a
debate, even a debate cannot be called as a debate until rebuttals presented by the affirmative and
negative teams. Both teams must attack each other by valuing each other arguments in their
rebuttals.
To support the idea that rebuttal is vital to create a debate, Freeley and Steinberg (2008)
explains that debate does not take place in vacuum, but in the presence of opposition where the
debater is always confronted with the necessity of overcoming objections that are raised by his
opponent. They also explained that the process of overcoming these objections is known as
refutation or rebuttal. In other words, the objection will not exist in the debate if the debaters do
not make any rebuttal. When both the affirmative and negative teams simply neglect each other
case and busy explaining each own case, the objection in the form of rebuttal will not appear.
Without the existence of rebuttals, the debate is not valid to be called as a debate, instead simply
a vacuum condition where the affirmative and negative share their opinion.
C.
HOW TO CREATE A SUFFICIENT REBUTTAL?
According to Quinn (2005) destroying the opponent’s case is the goal of delivering
rebuttal. The ultimate goal in rebuttal is to attack opposition’s case. It means simply building a
case for the team is not enough. To win a debate, beside presenting arguments and proving that
the argument is right, the team has to say that the opponent is wrong and unconvincing. To prove
that the other team is wrong precisely become the ultimate goal of delivering rebuttals. The
speakers of the team have to create rebuttal that will destroy the opponent’s case. A team cannot
win a debate if the speakers give no responses toward the opponent’s case.
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Rybold (2006) says that rebuttal almost always involves countering the evidences from
the opposition presented, blurring the link between its evidence and arguments, and ripping apart
the arguments’ reasoning. Consequently, simply saying that the opponent’s argument is wrong
without giving further explanation will not be enough. There are things to be done in delivering a
rebuttal. The speakers have to countering the opponent’s evidence they have to create
contradiction in the rebuttal. In blurring the link between the evidence and arguments the
speakers have to show how unrelated the evidence and arguments are. In ripping apart the
arguments’ reasoning, the speakers from affirmative and negative team have to explain how the
reasoning is insignificant, illogical, or wrong.
Sonnreich (2010) explains that in a debate, we mainly do two things. The first thing is
constructing argument with three main elements of an argument, consisting of idea, analysis, and
evidence. The second thing is deconstructing argument by destroying all the three main elements
of an argument, consisting of idea, analysis, and evidence. Therefore, in rebutting speakers from
both affirmative and negative team will destroy all the three elements which are the idea,
analysis, and evidence through giving explanation and reasoning on how and why saying that
those ideas, analysis, and evidence given by opponent team are all wrong.
The idea about rebutting means deconstructing the opponent argument is supported by
Sonnreich (2010) further explanation, that rebuttal requires both teams to locate and exploit the
mistakes and weaknesses in opponent’s arguments. It means that speaker in the debate have to be
aware of the opponents’ mistakes and weakness in delivering their arguments. Then, the speakers
have to point out and state clearly the weakness and mistakes in your rebuttal. The rebuttal also
requires clear explanation and reasoning to exploit all the faults done by the opponent to show
that the speaker team is the right one.
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Sonnreich (2010) states that in rebutting speakers from the affirmative and negative team
will deconstruct the opponent’s arguments. Based on his book “Monash Association of Debaters
Members Training Handbook”, here is the anatomy of an argument and the value of each
element to be rebutted:
Best and most
1. IDEA
effective part to attack
2. ANALYSIS
Excellent part
to attack
Weakest link in the chain
3. EVIDENCE
and the easiest target,
but not as effective
FIGURE 1. Anatomy of an argument
Figure 1 about the anatomy of an argument above shows that how to deconstruct
opponent’s arguments can be done in various ways. Different point of attack will also give
different effect. Just attacking the evidence will leave the idea and analysis of the opponent stand
still. It means the attack is not really strong. Destroying opponent’s analysis will be excellent, but
still the idea is still there. The best choice will be attacking opponent’s idea and then the attack
will break the arguments construction. Making no rebuttal means letting the opponent’s
arguments stand until the end of the debate without any attack or objection. Stating the
disagreement to the opponents is required by delivering rebuttal and deconstructing opponent’s
arguments.
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Quinn explains that the essence of rebuttal is obviously the ”Why the opponents’
argument is wrong”, and affirmative also negative speakers should almost always spend most
of the time here (Quinn, 2005). It can be concluded that in rebutting the speakers cannot simply
claim that the opponent argument is wrong. Therefore, to answer the question why, the speakers
have to state the analysis, explanation and reasoning upon the opponents’ arguments by
delivering rebuttals. People cannot simply accept a claim that the opponent is wrong if there is
no analysis in what way the rebuttal is wrong.
Sonnreich (2012) says that to create a valid argument speakers cannot simply give an
assertion, or something that is stated as true, without enough analysis to demonstrate that it
is reasonable to believe that a claim is true and convincing. It means assertion is just a point of
idea without further analysis. It just likes a topic sentence in a paragraph without supporting
sentences or further explanation. Thus, to create a valid and convincing idea the speakers have to
state the idea, the analysis of the idea, and the example to support the idea. It will be just a
statement, without proof of its validity.
The rule on how to make a meaningful argument also can be applied in making rebuttals.
In rebutting, both affirmative and negative teams actually want to prove that their team is right
and the opponent is wrong. To prove that an argument is wrong, both teams cannot simply said
that an argument is wrong without the analysis, reasoning, and also the evidence. Affirmative
and negative team speakers also have to answer the question why the argument is wrong. In
conclusion, a rebuttal will destroy the opponent’s case and remain meaningful if a team
successfully answers the question why the argument is wrong by giving explanation and
reasoning.
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Freeley and Steinberg also add that demonstrating the effect of rebuttal toward both
teams’ cases is the most critical and is the one most frequently overlooked. Much of the effect of
refutation is lost unless it is clearly related to the case of opposition or to advocate’s own case
(Freeley and Steinberg, 2008). It can be concluded from that the core of rebuttal is to
demonstrate the effect of rebuttal. It will not be sufficient to say that the opponent is wrong
without giving clear explanation on how your rebuttal can weaken the opponent’s case or
strengthen your case.
Quinn (2005) also states that a good rebuttal point will always demonstrate a number of
key characteristics, they are:
1. First, it is important to identify the argument or idea that you are attacking.
2. Second, you obviously have to show what is wrong with that argument or idea.
3. Third, you need to bring your case into the picture.
From all of the experts’ opinions above, it can be summarized that there are three
significant principles in discussing about whether a rebuttal is sufficient or not. The two
principles are:
1. Whether or not the ultimate goal of delivering rebuttal is achieved.
As Quinn (2005) states that the ultimate goal in rebuttal is to attack and destroy the
opponent’s case. In debate, proving that you are right is not enough. If you are right,
you have to say that your opponent is wrong. Not only build your own case and
arguments, as a debater you have to listen to your opponents’ case also. You have to
destroy your opponents by proving that their arguments are wrong and the one that is
right is your team arguments.
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2. Whether or not the rebuttal successfully analyzes and destroys the underlying or
significant issue in the arguments.
As Freeley and Steinberg (2008) explain that you need to spend more rebuttal time
dealing with particularly important and significant issue in the arguments or the major
issues. It means if the speakers from the affirmative and negative team simply rebut
the trivial point the rebuttal will have less value to destroy or defeat the opponent
arguments. Rebutting is only about attack what is easy to be attacked but attack the
key point in the argument to destroy the case of the opponents.
Based on the two principles of desirable rebuttals derived from three experts about what
rebuttal actually is and what requirements needed to deliver a rebuttal, then rebuttals can be
classified into the following categories:
LEVELS OF REBUTTAL
STRONG REBUTTAL
AVERAGE REBUTTAL
WEAK REBUTTAL
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DESCRIPTIONS
The rebuttal attacks the underlying
argument or the significant argument.
Explaining clearly the weakness or
mistake of the opponents’ by answering
the question why the argument is wrong
The rebuttal does not attack the
underlying argument or the significant
argument.
Explanation about the weakness or
mistake of the opponents’ by answering
the question why the argument is wrong
is confusing.
The rebuttal does not touch the
important and significant argument.
The rebuttal is simply assertion that
cannot answer the question why the
argument is wrong.
Those levels of rebuttals will later be used to identify what level of rebuttals delivered by
the students in two Public Speaking classes. Those criterions will help the writer to analyze the
rebuttals given by the students.
THE STUDY
Context of study
The setting of the study was in two groups of Public Speaking Class (ED303A and
ED303G), English Department Satya Wacana Christian University. In the Public Speaking
Course ED303 students are expected to acquire the basic skill of speaking and use their skill to
speak in public. One activity to train the students’ speaking skills in Public Speaking Class is
debate, where the students creating and defending their own arguments, and in the same time try
to defeat the opponents’ arguments.
Focusing on the debate activity with four debate teams and two debate activities from two
different classes, the writer analyzed how sufficient the rebuttals presented by the students.
Quinn says that since making rebuttals considered more difficult since it requires attacking
opponents’ arguments, usually the beginner debaters do not deliver rebuttals (Quinn, 2005). In
order to answer the research question “How sufficient is students rebuttal in the debating
activity in Public Speaking Class?”, the writer focused on the students’ rebuttal so it can be
analyzed how sufficient the students’ rebuttals are and if there is any phenomena where the
students reluctant to do their rebuttal or deliver insufficient rebuttal, then the research can be
used as a reference to improve the teaching and learning process of debate activity in Public
Speaking Class.
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Methodology
Since the writer needs to observe an actual debate activity for the research and the
debating activity is only can be observed in Public Speaking class purposive sampling is used by
the writer to gather the data. Audio recording of the debate activities was done during the
debating time. All the result of the audio recording was analyzed to show how sufficient the
rebuttals delivered by the students during their debate. The writer discussed how sufficient the
rebuttal for a debate based on two principles of a sufficient rebuttal, which are (1) Whether or not
the rebuttal the rebuttal answer the question why the argument is wrong and (2) Whether or not
the rebuttal successfully analyze and destroy the underlying or the significant issue in the
rebuttal. The rebuttals of the students were categorized into three categories which are (1) strong
rebuttal, (2) average rebuttal, and (3) weak rebuttal.
Time variable which is how many minutes the students spent to deliver their rebuttals is
not considered to be analyzed in this research because the data showed that all of the students in
the debate activities actually had already allocated the time properly to deliver their rebuttal.
There is no significant problem related to the time variable. The significant thing to be analyzed
is the content of the rebuttal itself which is the quality of rebuttal that actually the students
delivered during the time they used to deliver rebuttal. The sufficiency of the rebuttal related to
whether the students delivered rebuttals based on the requirement of sufficient rebuttals is the
main focus significantly to be discussed in the research.
Data Collection
The writer gained the data for this research by recording the debate of 4 debate teams
from Public Speaking ED303A and ED303G that performed 2 debate activities. The two debate
activities were recorded during the debate and transcribed to be used as the data to be analyzed in
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the research. The rebuttals from the two debate activities were gathered and analyzed to decide
how sufficient the rebuttals made by the students based on the three categories, which are (1)
Weak rebuttal, (2) Average rebuttal, and (3) Strong rebuttal.
Procedure
The writer transcribed the recording of the debate activities from the four teams. Using
Clean Transcription, the writer focused on the rebuttals made by the students. The writer use the
clean transcription to focus on the content of the rebuttals only since the focus of the writer is not
on the manner or the attitude of the debaters in delivering their speech but the research wants to
focus on the content of the rebuttals, as Zacharias (2011) says that by using clean transcription
you only focus on the content of the data.
Data Analysis
The writer used Content Analysis to analyze the rebuttals gathered from the audiotape
debate. Based on Fraenkel and Wallen (2007), content analysis enables researchers to study
human behavior in an indirect way. Content Analysis will support the writer research by
accommodating the need of the research to study the students’ way in making their rebuttal
during the debate through recording after the debate over. Indirect study using Content Analysis
will make the writer easier in analyzing deeper the students’ rebuttals.
The rebuttals of the students appeared in three categories. Based on the levels of (1)
Strong Rebuttal, (2) Average Rebuttal, and (3) Weak Rebuttal, the writer then grouped the
rebuttals made by the students. Content analysis involves identifying and coding key topics from
the data (Mckay, 2006). The writer grouped the data gathered to the three categories made based
on the experts’ opinion summarized which are (1) strong rebuttal, (2) average rebuttal, and (3)
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weak rebuttal. Those three categorizations would show what kind of rebuttal the students of
Public Speaking made in their debate activity in Public Speaking ED303A and ED303G.
FINDING AND DISCUSSION
Rebutting means to overcome opposing evidence and reasoning by introducing other
evidence and reasoning that will destroy its effect (Freeley and Steinberg, 2008). The existence
of rebuttals in the debate is becoming the vital part of debating. The communication, where both
affirmative and negative teams are proving not only that they are the right one, but also that their
opponent is wrong, will create a desirable debate, since both affirmative and negative teams
fulfill the requirements of debating by constructing their team case and also deconstructing their
opponent case through presenting rebuttals.
From 2 debating activities that the writer have observed and recorded, actually, the
communication is happening during the debate. The affirmative and negative team offered their
rebuttal during the debate. Both teams tried to evaluate arguments brought by their opponents.
None of the team directly jumped to their own arguments without valuing their opponents’
arguments first. However, the writer cannot simply take for granted that their rebuttals are
sufficient to create the communication during the debate.
Quinn (2005) said that affirmative and negative teams will not create a debate until they
create interaction between their cases by attacking the opponent through delivering rebuttal. It
means that when rebuttal becomes the key point of interaction process, it is vital to analyze
deeper what kind of rebuttals appear during the debate to value whether the interaction is
actually qualified to be categorized as sufficient interaction to create the desirable debate.
Referring to the standard of rebuttal, which is categorized as sufficient or not that the writer have
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explained earlier, the speakers’ rebuttals delivered during the debate are analyzed whether the
rebuttal is (1) weak rebuttal, (2) average rebuttal or (3) strong rebuttal, the analysis focuses on
two main principles of rebuttal, they are:
1. Whether or not the rebuttal successfully analyzes and destroys the important or
significant issue in the arguments.
2. Whether or not the rebuttal answers the question why the argument is wrong.
There are two motions that were analyzed from the students’ rebuttals that were transcribed.
The two motions are:
1. This House Would erase English from Primary School
2. This House Would ban beauty contest
However, the data from one motion only, which is “This House would erase English from
Primary School” discussed in the data analysis, since the rebuttals of this motion that can be
categorized into weak rebuttals, average rebuttals, and strong rebuttals also were found in the
second motion. So, presenting the data from the first motion has portrayed the rebuttals that the
two debates had.
In the following discussion, there will be analysis and discussion about the big three
themes appears in the debate. The first theme to be discussed is Weak Rebuttal, second is
Average Rebuttal, and the third is Strong Rebuttal.
1.
WEAK REBUTTAL
Like what have been explained before in the literature review, a weak rebuttal is the
rebuttal that (1) cannot attack and destroy the opponent’s significant case (Quinn, 2005) and (2)
cannot answer the question why the argument is wrong (Freeley and Steinberg, 2008). The
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following discusses some examples of weak rebuttal delivered by the students of Public
Speaking ED303A and ED303G.
Two classifications of weak rebuttal are discussed: rebuttal with assertion only and
rebuttal to trivial point. 18 out of 36 rebuttals from the data gathered are classified as the weak
rebuttals. The following discussion talked about two examples of weak rebuttals from the
students’ debate.
Motion : THW erase English from primary school
A. Rebuttal with assertion only
Extract 1
Argument
: Learning English start from primary school will build the strong
foundation to learn English. The linguistic experts say that primary school ages is the
best period to learn language acquisition. Because their brain is still fresh and they can
receive the new language easily. And then learning English in primary school is a
natural process when the children area to learn, play, and explore by the games or
materials given by the teachers. Erasing English from primary school will erase the
chance for the children to learn English in the best period. (Original Speech delivered by
1st speaker of the negative team)
Rebuttal
: Responding to the first negative speaker, she said about she agree to
keep English in the school, in the curriculum of primary school, and I agree that she said
that the sooner we learning English the better we understand. And because we look from
linguistic aspect. I agree that in that age is their critical period of acquiring language.
That is the easier, because their brain is still capable to achieve that. But, we have to
learn and look from the social aspect. (Original Speech delivered by the 2 nd speaker of
affirmative team)
The rebuttal above fits the first criteria of weak rebuttal which is a rebuttal that fails to
analyze and destroy the significant point upon the opponent argument. In the argument delivered
by the 1st speaker of negative team, the main point is about primary school is the best period for
the students to learn English. In the rebuttal, the 2nd speaker of affirmative team admitted and
kept agreeing that primary school is the best period for students to learn English. None of the
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rebuttal attacked the main idea from the argument. The 2nd speaker lack of analyzing why
teaching English in their best period still cannot stop the government to erase English from
primary school. As Freeley (1969) says that a speaker must be selective and need to spend more
rebuttal time dealing with that important issue. Simply end the rebuttal by saying that social
aspect needs to be more considered is not enough to destroy the main point in the argument. The
rebuttal above showed that the 2nd speaker of the affirmative team did not spend more time
explaining the important issue about the social aspect itself, but spending more time agreeing to
the argument.
The rebuttal also fits to the second criteria of a weak rebuttal, which is a rebuttal that does
not answer the question why the argument is wrong. In the rebuttal, the reason why the idea
about primary school as the best period to teach English is wrong is never discussed. The only
statement of the rebuttal that shows disagreement diverts from the topic of best period or age. By
saying “But, we have to learn and look from the social aspect.”, the 2nd speaker wanted to say
that social aspect is more important to be considered rather than teaching English in the best
period like what linguists say. However, he simply shifted to other view to approach the topic
and left it unexplained. The rebuttal failed to prove that the opponent’s argument is wrong. There
is no further reasoning on why the idea of teaching English in primary school is wrong. It means
that the rebuttal above actually has no value in proving that the opponent argument is wrong. It is
supported by Quinn (2005) statement that failure in giving reason will cause the rebuttal left
unexplained and loose the essence of the rebuttal itself.
The rebuttal above is a weak rebuttal since it fit with the two main categories of weak
rebuttal. The argument point about primary school as the best period to learn English is still
stand even the rebuttal is delivered. The rebuttal above does not have any power to defeat the
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argument or to convince the people that the argument is wrong. The 2nd speaker of the
affirmative team simply claim that social aspect is more important but without further
explanation. The rebuttal even kept agreeing to the argument idea. The rebuttal failed to destroy
the significant point in the argument and left the claim without reasonable explanation.
B. Rebuttal to Trivial Point in the argument
Extract 2
Argument
: In Indonesia English learning process in primary school actually is very
fun, but government does not have clear goal in teaching English. Government actually
didn’t have a clear and good concept in making curricula for learning English process
in elementary school. Moreover, government also does not have clear rules about the
recruitment for the teachers that will teach the students in elementary school. So if the
government did not have a good concept about the curricula and government did not
have clear rule about the recruitment of English teacher, how can students learn well in
English? Those factors also make the learning process is not maximum and students
cannot get best output from learning process. That is why we must erase English from the
primary school. (Original speech delivered by the 1st speaker of affirmative team)
Rebuttal
: We as the negative team do not agree that the house would erase English
from primary school. Here are my rebuttals, now we cannot deny that English is more
fun than learning Bahasa Indonesia. The fault is not English itself. Usually English
teacher can make the class more fun. And they can make it into levels. That you can see
Bahasa Indonesia class, there is no levels, there’s no games. So, the students, the primary
school students can choose which things they want to learn.(Original speech delivered by
the 1st speaker of negative team)
The rebuttal above fits the first criteria of a weak rebuttal, failing to analyze and destroy
the underlying point of the argument. The main point from the rebuttal is about unclear goal and
curriculum that the government has for teaching English in primary school. However, the
rebuttal is actually talking about the fun things in learning English that cannot be the reason why
to erase English from primary school. The rebuttal indeed tried attack the argument but it does
not attack the key point to win that argument. The rebuttal actually needs to focus more on how
even there is unclear goal and curriculum, but still English must not be erased from primary
18
school. D’Cruz (2003) said that a rebuttal will effective when it identifies and attacks the
important strategic issues in the debate. It means the rebuttal above failed to identify the
important strategic issue to be rebutted then the team loses the chance to destroy the main
argument which will create great destruction toward the cases.
The rebuttal also fits with the second criteria of a weak rebuttal which cannot answer the
question why the argument is wrong. The rebuttal tried to say that this idea is wrong by stating
that if English is fun, then it is not the fault of the students to choose English over the other
lesson. However, there is no further explanation on why if English is fun, then it is better to keep
English as a lesson in primary school. The level in the rebuttal also is not supported by sufficient
explanation so then people will understand what the level meant in the rebuttal and why the
levels are good. Freeley and Steinberg (2008) say that a rebuttal must introduce the counter
evidence and reasoning to support the objection. By doing so, the rebuttal will have the power
and answer the question why the argument is wrong and can prove that the objection is true. The
rebuttal above actually has no evidence and reasoning on why if there is unclear goal and
curriculum of English in primary school then it is still better to keep English in primary school.
As Quinn (2005) says defeating opponent case must be the goal of a rebuttal. The rebuttal
failed to attack the significant point of the argument, and the rebuttal also does not successfully
explain what is so wrong with erasing English that has no clear goal and curriculum from
primary school. It can be concluded that the rebuttal is weak since it fits with the two
characteristics of a weak rebuttal.
2. AVERAGE REBUTTAL
Average rebuttals are the rebuttals that have some of the three principles of good rebuttal,
which are (1) successfully attack and destroy the opponent’s significant case (Quinn, 2005) and
19
(2) successfully answer the question why the argument is wrong (Freeley and Steinberg, 2008).
Having only one of two principles cannot fulfill those three elements. Loosing clarity and
consistency in delivering rebuttal will decrease the value of the rebuttal. This kind of rebuttal is
called as average rebuttal. 11 out of 36 rebuttals founded in the two debates are classified as
average rebuttals. The following discussion will show one example of average rebuttal.
Extract 3
Argument
: Language is a part of culture. And now, we have also survive our culture
in the globalization era, including our language itself. It is our national language,
bahasa Indonesia. And bahasa Indonesia have to be taught and built in strong foundation
first in that age, that is in primary school. So, about including English in primary school
curriculum, the question is that how can they learn 2 nd language, while they still learn
about Indonesian language? We believe learning English in primary school will make
te students forget about Indonesian language. The children have to be expert in national
language first to learn the 2nd language and preserve their national language.(Original
speech delivered by the 2nd speaker of affirmative team)
Rebuttal
: Let me deliver my rebuttal. I think studying two languages in one time is
possible. And if someone masters English then they can speak English, it does not
mean that someone cannot speak in Indonesia or someone forgets about Bahasa
Indonesia. They still can maintain their Indonesian by doing interaction with their family
in home and friends outside the class. I will give example in the other situation, as we
know that students in school spend long time with the school activities. Usually the
school start at 7 and the students back to home at 4 pm. They spend long time for their
school activities to study, but they only have few hours to gather with their family. But if
they spend long time for their school activities they still think that the family is there for
them. If we study English it does not mean that we forget about Indonesia, because
Indonesia still becomes our mother tongue. (Original speech delivered by the 2nd
speaker of negative team)
The 2nd speaker actually understands how to defeat the point of the argument about the
students lose the competence of speaking Indonesian. The rebuttal attacks the main point by
showing that the students still have interaction with the family and the friends outside the
English lesson. The interaction done by primary school students outside the English lesson uses
20
Indonesian language, so that the students will not lose their national language even they learn
English from primary school.
However, the context of the rebuttal above is not clear and is not developed well. The
portrayal of the primary school students is unclear and confusing. The duration of time the
students spent with the parents and also the presence of the family were not explained clearly in
the context of the debate to be the reason why students will not lose their mother tongue. Freeley
and Steinberg (2008) say that if a rebuttal is not developed within the context of the debate, then
it has little value. The main point from the argument is about learning English in primary school
will decrease the capability to learn Indonesian language. In the rebuttal the 2nd speaker of
negative team actually can analyze deeper on how the interaction between students and their
family also their friends will keep their ability to speak in Indonesia even if they learn English
since primary school.
The further example about the duration the students spent in school and in house is
confusing. It cannot significantly support the rebuttal point about interaction with family will
maintain the capability to speak Indonesian. Smith says that the purpose of rebuttal is to
demonstrate clash between cases (Smith, 2011). Inconsistency of clarity and relevancy will
reduce the power of rebuttal. Losing the consistency and clarity in explaining why the argument
is wrong made the rebuttal above less convincing. The rebuttal is an average rebuttal since it
does not fully fit with two characteristics of a strong rebuttal which is attacking the main
significant point of an argument and explaining why the argument is wrong.
3. STRONG REBUTTAL
A strong rebuttal is the rebuttal that (1) successfully attacks and destroys the opponent’s
significant case (Quinn, 2005) and (2) successfully answers the question why the argument is
21
wrong (Freeley and Steinberg, 2008). Only 7 rebuttals out of 36 rebuttals in the two debates are
classified as strong rebuttals. One example of strong rebuttal will be discussed in the following
explanation.
Extract 4
Argument
: And next my argument is, we can look also from the evidence why we
agree that erasing English from primary school curriculum, we can see from general
evidence that in primary school in the city, there is quite long gap in English competence.
And the solution is that we erase the English lesson in primary school. Why? Because we
can focus more first in our national language. And it will remove the gap of English
competence in primary school. And also it will make a balance competence between our
primary school in the city and primary school in the village.(Original Speech delivered
by the 2nd speaker of the affirmative team)
Rebuttal
: Second rebuttal, if the English is erased from the primary school it will
give the bad impact for students in the city and the village. The fact is if the English
erased in the school lesson, the students that realized that studying English is important
and there is the importance of globalization, they should find another way to study
English because the school does not provide English lesson. So, to study English they
should study in English course maybe. It needs more money. For the students in the
village that they want to study English, the facilities in village and city is different. In
village there is no English course or it is very limited. The only way to learn English for
village students is learning English at school. So, if English lesson is erased from
primary school, it will make a big differential for the students in the city and the village
in English skill. The gap is become bigger. (Original Speech delivered by the 2 nd speaker
of the negative team)
Reducing the gap of English competence between the village and the city is the main idea
in the argument. The rebuttal successfully attacks that point by saying that erasing English is
even created bigger gap among the students in the village and in the city. The explanation about
different condition in the village and in the city, also how actually students in the village will
lose their only access to learn English, directly confronts the idea about erasing gap of English
competence. The rebuttal attacks and destroys the argument by clearly showing how actually the
argument failed to reach the goal, as Quinn (2005) says that effective rebuttal is when it attacks
22
the underlying argument of the opponent, the rebuttal above fits with the first criteria of a strong
rebuttal.
The rebuttal above also fits with the second criteria of a strong argument, answering the
question why the argument is wrong. In the rebuttal, it can be seen that the idea about erasing
English from the primary school to reduce the gap of skill between village and city students is
actually unacceptable idea. The rebuttal analyzes how actually it creates more burdens toward
students in the city to take English course outside school and pay more for that. Moreover, there
is also analysis on how the condition is different between the city and the village, also the
statement that the only way village students can learn English is from school also explain clearly
on how erasing English will create harm toward villages students. Sonnreich (2012) explains that
deconstructing all of an arguments element from the idea, the analysis, to the evidence will
create effective destruction toward the opponents’ case. The explanations in the rebuttal support
the conclusion about the gap of students in the village and in the city even bigger if English is
erased from the primary school. It can be concluded that the reasoning in term of analysis toward
the argument in the rebuttal above successfully attacks the argument about erasing the gap of
English skill.
The rebuttal made by the 2nd speaker of the negative team directly clashes the main idea
of the argument. The underlying idea about the effort to erase gap of skills between the students
in the city and in the village cannot stand anymore under the rebuttal delivered by the second
speaker of the negative team. The rebuttal in Extract 4 directly focuses on the main point of the
argument about erasing English means erasing the only access of the village students to learn
English can show that the idea of erasing gap is not true. Fulfilling the two characteristics of
strong rebuttal, which are attacking the significant point of argument and answering the question
23
on why the argument is wrong, the example of rebuttal in Extract 4 above is classified as a strong
rebuttal.
CONCLUSION
The students from two debate activities in Public Speaking ED303A and ED303G are
already aware and understand toward the importance of delivering rebuttal during a debate. It is
proven by the data showed none of the speakers suddenly jumped to their own team arguments
and simply neglected the opponents’ arguments. From the existing rebuttals, it can be seen that
each team not only presenting their own arguments but also claiming and proving that their
opponents’ arguments are wrong that created the clashes in the debate which formed of the
communication in the debate.
However, there are still many rebuttals that actually do not fulfill the two principles to
create a strong rebuttal like (1) Attacking and analyzing the main significant point argument and
(2) Answering the question why the argument is wrong. The content analysis showed that most
of the students produce weak rebuttals. 18 weak rebuttals out of 36 rebuttals dominate the
findings, with 11 average rebuttals, and only 7 strong rebuttals were found. It indicates that
students in Public Speaking Course still lack of capability to make a strong rebuttal that explain
clearly why an argument is wrong and touch the significant point of an argument.
Those problems with students who delivered the weak and average rebuttals indicate the
pedagogical implication in form of suggestion for the teacher in Public Speaking in teaching
debate. First, the teacher is suggested to add more time to practice and prepare for the debate.
More practices in debating is suggested to train the skill and understanding of the students
related to debate, as Rybold (2006) said that as debaters practice thinking about the ideas and
explaining those ideas to others, debaters will gain confidence and ideas more clearly when they
24
speak. It means the more a speaker do the practice, the more the speaker is able to perform
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
of Sarjana Pendidikan
Pratiwi Pamularsih
112009008
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
2013
Sufficient Rebuttals in Public Speaking Class Debate Activities
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
of Sarjana Pendidikan
Pratiwi Pamularsih
112009008
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
2013
i
Sufficient Rebuttals in Public Speaking Class Debate Activities
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
of Sarjana Pendidikan
Pratiwi Pamularsih
112009008
Approved by:
Petrus Ari Santoso, M.A.
Examiner
Christian Rudianto, M. Appling.
Supervisor
ii
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
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best of my knowledge and my belief, this contains no material previously published or written by
any other person except where due reference is made in the text.
Copyright@ 2013. Pratiwi Pamularsih and Christian Rudianto, M.Appling.
All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the
permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Department, Faculty of
Language and Literature, Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga.
Pratiwi Pamularsih:
iii
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Approved by:
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Supervisor
Petrus Ari Santoso, M.A.
Examiner
iv
SUFFICIENT REBUTTALS
IN PUBLIC SPEAKING CLASS DEBATE ACTIVITIES
Pratiwi Pamularsih
ABSTRACT
Debate is the final activity in Public Speaking Class. In debate activity, students are not only
presenting their team arguments but also attacking their opponents’ arguments by delivering
rebuttal. Rebuttal as many experts says is a vital part of a debate as a sign that interaction is
happening in the debate. This study analyzes and evaluates the students rebuttals presented
during the debate activity. The two debate activities from two different classes of Public
Speaking are recorded and transcribed as the data to be analyzed to answer the question how
sufficient is the students’ rebuttals presented during the debate activity. Content analysis is used
to analyze the students’ rebuttals deeper, because it enables researcher to study human behavior
indirectly (Wallen, 2007). The study groups the students’ rebuttals into three categories which
are (1) weak rebuttal; (2) average rebuttal; and (3) strong rebuttal. The domination of weak
rebuttals in the data shows that students are aware about the importance of rebuttal in the debate,
but still have difficulties analyzing the opponents’ arguments to later deliver the rebuttal to prove
that their opponent is wrong. The finding suggests additional time preparation and more
intensive debate practice are needed to familiarize the students in delivering rebuttal during their
debate.
Keywords: public speaking, debate, rebuttals, sufficient rebuttal
INTRODUCTION
Public Speaking Class as the highest level of Speaking Course in English Department has
debating project as one of the activity in the course. In this activity the students debate upon a
motion, as an issue that must be debated. There are two teams in the debate activity, the first one
is the affirmative as a team that proposes and agrees with the motion. The second one is the
negative team as a team that opposes and disagrees with the motion. The two sides of the team
will meet in the debate and defend their own team cases, presenting arguments and rebuttals to
prove that their team case is the best. There will be adjudicators who value the debate and decide
1
the winner based on both of the teams’ the performances and make the judgment based on
regulations existing in the debate.
Based on the writer experiences involving in some debate competition like in JOVED
(Java Overland Varsities English Debate) and IVED (Indonesia Varsities English Debate) the
writer got the chance to know deeper about the debate itself. One main problem that a debater or
a debate team deals with in the debating world usually is delivering rebuttal. Adjudicators often
said that the writer team is trapped into simply defending our own team case and neglecting the
case of our opponent. This condition is bad since the adjudicator cannot find the clash and the
interaction among the arguments. This is supported by Quinn who said that two opposing cases
do not make a debate, however important they are. Not only presenting arguments, debaters also
must attack opponent arguments by delivering rebuttals to create the interaction between cases
(Quinn, 2005). It means debate is not only about presenting idea of a team, but directly clashing
the idea to other and proving that a team’s idea is better becomes the essence of the debate, thus
the adjudicators always concern about the existence of rebuttal is in the debate.
From the experience above, the writer is interested in observing the debate activity in
Public Speaking Class. The debate in this class is using the Asian Parliamentary system, the
same debating format that JOVED has. There will be three persons in each affirmative and
negative team that will do the debate, agreeing and disagreeing upon a motion given. In the
debate activity, the students create arguments upon a controversial issue and try to win the debate
by providing convincing reasonable arguments and attacking opponents’ opinion. The writer is
interested in knowing what kind of rebuttals that the students have during the class. Since the
writer experiences during the debate competition shows that rebuttal as the essence of debate is
2
often neglected by a debating team, the main thing that the writer wants to know is whether or
not the Public Speaking students deliver rebuttals and how sufficient their rebuttals are.
What seemingly happens to our debating activities in Public Speaking is they debate by
simply throwing their opinion without trying to attack the opponent’s opinion. They become
dismissive with the opponent opinion and simply continuing the debate by directly explaining
their arguments. Casey (2005) says that clash between teams is the essence of a debate and the
clash will be achieved through delivering effective rebuttals. It means if both teams are too busy
to defend their own idea without trying to analyze or compare which idea is the best, there will
be no clash in the debate among the arguments. Moreover, clashing arguments and showing to
other that your arguments are the best compare to your opponents will be the main point of
debate which can be seen from the rebuttals made by the students during the debate.
This study aims to find out how sufficient the students’ rebuttals during the debate
activities as one significant thing to be analyzed later. It is important to analyze the debate of the
Public Speaking students since when a teacher teaches the students about debate, the teacher has
to know how deep the students’ understanding about debate activity. The teacher has to teach
debate as a whole. The finding on this research can help the teacher to focus more on what is
lack from the students’ debate and try to find the best way to overcoming the lack of student’s
debate.
LITERATURE REVIEW
A.
WHAT IS DEBATE?
Freeley and Steinberg (2008) says that debates refer to the process of analyzing and
supporting issues to arrive at a reasoned conclusion, which makes individual able to think and
therefore convince others to agree with his or her arguments. The more logical the speech is, the
3
more convincing it is to others. This means that debates involve reasoned arguments for and
against a given motion to achieved rational decision making (Freeley and Steinberg, 2008 as
cited in Saraswati, 2010 and in Kurniawati 2012). Quinn explains that there will be two teams in
a debate, affirmative and negative with three people in the each team (Quinn, 2005). Both teams
will debate upon a motion given. Motion is the topic to be debated. Affirmative will agree upon
the motion and negative will oppose the motion.
Debate activity becomes one of activities in Public Speaking Course ED303A and
ED303G in the Faculty of Language and Literature Satya Wacana Christian University. Students
are learning about the rules of debate and skills to create arguments, where finally they will do
the debate itself during the course. What the students do is the example of educational debate. It
is conducted under the direction of an educational institution for the purpose of providing
educational opportunities for students (Freeley and Steinberg, 2008). The debate activity in
Public Speaking Class is conducted to provide the learning time for the students to train their
skill in speaking English through the debate activity. Students also learn to create also defend
their arguments upon a motion during the debate. Freely (1969) also says that educational debate
is viewed as a valuable method for teaching the principles of argumentation. The debate activity
will help the students to learn how to make argumentation, including constructing their
arguments and defending their arguments upon objection.
B.
WHAT KIND OF DEBATE IS DESIRABLE?
Quinn (2005) states to have a debate, we need interaction between the cases delivered by
the affirmative and negative team. A team is not only required to present and support its own
arguments but also attack the opponents’ arguments by delivering rebuttal. It means, to create a
desirable debate, both the affirmative and the negative team are required to defend their
4
arguments from their opponents and try to defeat their opponent’s arguments through presenting
rebuttal. Without rebuttal, a debate can be a sharing opinion session only, where there is no
interaction among the arguments. It can be concluded that rebuttal play a significant role in a
debate, even a debate cannot be called as a debate until rebuttals presented by the affirmative and
negative teams. Both teams must attack each other by valuing each other arguments in their
rebuttals.
To support the idea that rebuttal is vital to create a debate, Freeley and Steinberg (2008)
explains that debate does not take place in vacuum, but in the presence of opposition where the
debater is always confronted with the necessity of overcoming objections that are raised by his
opponent. They also explained that the process of overcoming these objections is known as
refutation or rebuttal. In other words, the objection will not exist in the debate if the debaters do
not make any rebuttal. When both the affirmative and negative teams simply neglect each other
case and busy explaining each own case, the objection in the form of rebuttal will not appear.
Without the existence of rebuttals, the debate is not valid to be called as a debate, instead simply
a vacuum condition where the affirmative and negative share their opinion.
C.
HOW TO CREATE A SUFFICIENT REBUTTAL?
According to Quinn (2005) destroying the opponent’s case is the goal of delivering
rebuttal. The ultimate goal in rebuttal is to attack opposition’s case. It means simply building a
case for the team is not enough. To win a debate, beside presenting arguments and proving that
the argument is right, the team has to say that the opponent is wrong and unconvincing. To prove
that the other team is wrong precisely become the ultimate goal of delivering rebuttals. The
speakers of the team have to create rebuttal that will destroy the opponent’s case. A team cannot
win a debate if the speakers give no responses toward the opponent’s case.
5
Rybold (2006) says that rebuttal almost always involves countering the evidences from
the opposition presented, blurring the link between its evidence and arguments, and ripping apart
the arguments’ reasoning. Consequently, simply saying that the opponent’s argument is wrong
without giving further explanation will not be enough. There are things to be done in delivering a
rebuttal. The speakers have to countering the opponent’s evidence they have to create
contradiction in the rebuttal. In blurring the link between the evidence and arguments the
speakers have to show how unrelated the evidence and arguments are. In ripping apart the
arguments’ reasoning, the speakers from affirmative and negative team have to explain how the
reasoning is insignificant, illogical, or wrong.
Sonnreich (2010) explains that in a debate, we mainly do two things. The first thing is
constructing argument with three main elements of an argument, consisting of idea, analysis, and
evidence. The second thing is deconstructing argument by destroying all the three main elements
of an argument, consisting of idea, analysis, and evidence. Therefore, in rebutting speakers from
both affirmative and negative team will destroy all the three elements which are the idea,
analysis, and evidence through giving explanation and reasoning on how and why saying that
those ideas, analysis, and evidence given by opponent team are all wrong.
The idea about rebutting means deconstructing the opponent argument is supported by
Sonnreich (2010) further explanation, that rebuttal requires both teams to locate and exploit the
mistakes and weaknesses in opponent’s arguments. It means that speaker in the debate have to be
aware of the opponents’ mistakes and weakness in delivering their arguments. Then, the speakers
have to point out and state clearly the weakness and mistakes in your rebuttal. The rebuttal also
requires clear explanation and reasoning to exploit all the faults done by the opponent to show
that the speaker team is the right one.
6
Sonnreich (2010) states that in rebutting speakers from the affirmative and negative team
will deconstruct the opponent’s arguments. Based on his book “Monash Association of Debaters
Members Training Handbook”, here is the anatomy of an argument and the value of each
element to be rebutted:
Best and most
1. IDEA
effective part to attack
2. ANALYSIS
Excellent part
to attack
Weakest link in the chain
3. EVIDENCE
and the easiest target,
but not as effective
FIGURE 1. Anatomy of an argument
Figure 1 about the anatomy of an argument above shows that how to deconstruct
opponent’s arguments can be done in various ways. Different point of attack will also give
different effect. Just attacking the evidence will leave the idea and analysis of the opponent stand
still. It means the attack is not really strong. Destroying opponent’s analysis will be excellent, but
still the idea is still there. The best choice will be attacking opponent’s idea and then the attack
will break the arguments construction. Making no rebuttal means letting the opponent’s
arguments stand until the end of the debate without any attack or objection. Stating the
disagreement to the opponents is required by delivering rebuttal and deconstructing opponent’s
arguments.
7
Quinn explains that the essence of rebuttal is obviously the ”Why the opponents’
argument is wrong”, and affirmative also negative speakers should almost always spend most
of the time here (Quinn, 2005). It can be concluded that in rebutting the speakers cannot simply
claim that the opponent argument is wrong. Therefore, to answer the question why, the speakers
have to state the analysis, explanation and reasoning upon the opponents’ arguments by
delivering rebuttals. People cannot simply accept a claim that the opponent is wrong if there is
no analysis in what way the rebuttal is wrong.
Sonnreich (2012) says that to create a valid argument speakers cannot simply give an
assertion, or something that is stated as true, without enough analysis to demonstrate that it
is reasonable to believe that a claim is true and convincing. It means assertion is just a point of
idea without further analysis. It just likes a topic sentence in a paragraph without supporting
sentences or further explanation. Thus, to create a valid and convincing idea the speakers have to
state the idea, the analysis of the idea, and the example to support the idea. It will be just a
statement, without proof of its validity.
The rule on how to make a meaningful argument also can be applied in making rebuttals.
In rebutting, both affirmative and negative teams actually want to prove that their team is right
and the opponent is wrong. To prove that an argument is wrong, both teams cannot simply said
that an argument is wrong without the analysis, reasoning, and also the evidence. Affirmative
and negative team speakers also have to answer the question why the argument is wrong. In
conclusion, a rebuttal will destroy the opponent’s case and remain meaningful if a team
successfully answers the question why the argument is wrong by giving explanation and
reasoning.
8
Freeley and Steinberg also add that demonstrating the effect of rebuttal toward both
teams’ cases is the most critical and is the one most frequently overlooked. Much of the effect of
refutation is lost unless it is clearly related to the case of opposition or to advocate’s own case
(Freeley and Steinberg, 2008). It can be concluded from that the core of rebuttal is to
demonstrate the effect of rebuttal. It will not be sufficient to say that the opponent is wrong
without giving clear explanation on how your rebuttal can weaken the opponent’s case or
strengthen your case.
Quinn (2005) also states that a good rebuttal point will always demonstrate a number of
key characteristics, they are:
1. First, it is important to identify the argument or idea that you are attacking.
2. Second, you obviously have to show what is wrong with that argument or idea.
3. Third, you need to bring your case into the picture.
From all of the experts’ opinions above, it can be summarized that there are three
significant principles in discussing about whether a rebuttal is sufficient or not. The two
principles are:
1. Whether or not the ultimate goal of delivering rebuttal is achieved.
As Quinn (2005) states that the ultimate goal in rebuttal is to attack and destroy the
opponent’s case. In debate, proving that you are right is not enough. If you are right,
you have to say that your opponent is wrong. Not only build your own case and
arguments, as a debater you have to listen to your opponents’ case also. You have to
destroy your opponents by proving that their arguments are wrong and the one that is
right is your team arguments.
9
2. Whether or not the rebuttal successfully analyzes and destroys the underlying or
significant issue in the arguments.
As Freeley and Steinberg (2008) explain that you need to spend more rebuttal time
dealing with particularly important and significant issue in the arguments or the major
issues. It means if the speakers from the affirmative and negative team simply rebut
the trivial point the rebuttal will have less value to destroy or defeat the opponent
arguments. Rebutting is only about attack what is easy to be attacked but attack the
key point in the argument to destroy the case of the opponents.
Based on the two principles of desirable rebuttals derived from three experts about what
rebuttal actually is and what requirements needed to deliver a rebuttal, then rebuttals can be
classified into the following categories:
LEVELS OF REBUTTAL
STRONG REBUTTAL
AVERAGE REBUTTAL
WEAK REBUTTAL
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DESCRIPTIONS
The rebuttal attacks the underlying
argument or the significant argument.
Explaining clearly the weakness or
mistake of the opponents’ by answering
the question why the argument is wrong
The rebuttal does not attack the
underlying argument or the significant
argument.
Explanation about the weakness or
mistake of the opponents’ by answering
the question why the argument is wrong
is confusing.
The rebuttal does not touch the
important and significant argument.
The rebuttal is simply assertion that
cannot answer the question why the
argument is wrong.
Those levels of rebuttals will later be used to identify what level of rebuttals delivered by
the students in two Public Speaking classes. Those criterions will help the writer to analyze the
rebuttals given by the students.
THE STUDY
Context of study
The setting of the study was in two groups of Public Speaking Class (ED303A and
ED303G), English Department Satya Wacana Christian University. In the Public Speaking
Course ED303 students are expected to acquire the basic skill of speaking and use their skill to
speak in public. One activity to train the students’ speaking skills in Public Speaking Class is
debate, where the students creating and defending their own arguments, and in the same time try
to defeat the opponents’ arguments.
Focusing on the debate activity with four debate teams and two debate activities from two
different classes, the writer analyzed how sufficient the rebuttals presented by the students.
Quinn says that since making rebuttals considered more difficult since it requires attacking
opponents’ arguments, usually the beginner debaters do not deliver rebuttals (Quinn, 2005). In
order to answer the research question “How sufficient is students rebuttal in the debating
activity in Public Speaking Class?”, the writer focused on the students’ rebuttal so it can be
analyzed how sufficient the students’ rebuttals are and if there is any phenomena where the
students reluctant to do their rebuttal or deliver insufficient rebuttal, then the research can be
used as a reference to improve the teaching and learning process of debate activity in Public
Speaking Class.
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Methodology
Since the writer needs to observe an actual debate activity for the research and the
debating activity is only can be observed in Public Speaking class purposive sampling is used by
the writer to gather the data. Audio recording of the debate activities was done during the
debating time. All the result of the audio recording was analyzed to show how sufficient the
rebuttals delivered by the students during their debate. The writer discussed how sufficient the
rebuttal for a debate based on two principles of a sufficient rebuttal, which are (1) Whether or not
the rebuttal the rebuttal answer the question why the argument is wrong and (2) Whether or not
the rebuttal successfully analyze and destroy the underlying or the significant issue in the
rebuttal. The rebuttals of the students were categorized into three categories which are (1) strong
rebuttal, (2) average rebuttal, and (3) weak rebuttal.
Time variable which is how many minutes the students spent to deliver their rebuttals is
not considered to be analyzed in this research because the data showed that all of the students in
the debate activities actually had already allocated the time properly to deliver their rebuttal.
There is no significant problem related to the time variable. The significant thing to be analyzed
is the content of the rebuttal itself which is the quality of rebuttal that actually the students
delivered during the time they used to deliver rebuttal. The sufficiency of the rebuttal related to
whether the students delivered rebuttals based on the requirement of sufficient rebuttals is the
main focus significantly to be discussed in the research.
Data Collection
The writer gained the data for this research by recording the debate of 4 debate teams
from Public Speaking ED303A and ED303G that performed 2 debate activities. The two debate
activities were recorded during the debate and transcribed to be used as the data to be analyzed in
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the research. The rebuttals from the two debate activities were gathered and analyzed to decide
how sufficient the rebuttals made by the students based on the three categories, which are (1)
Weak rebuttal, (2) Average rebuttal, and (3) Strong rebuttal.
Procedure
The writer transcribed the recording of the debate activities from the four teams. Using
Clean Transcription, the writer focused on the rebuttals made by the students. The writer use the
clean transcription to focus on the content of the rebuttals only since the focus of the writer is not
on the manner or the attitude of the debaters in delivering their speech but the research wants to
focus on the content of the rebuttals, as Zacharias (2011) says that by using clean transcription
you only focus on the content of the data.
Data Analysis
The writer used Content Analysis to analyze the rebuttals gathered from the audiotape
debate. Based on Fraenkel and Wallen (2007), content analysis enables researchers to study
human behavior in an indirect way. Content Analysis will support the writer research by
accommodating the need of the research to study the students’ way in making their rebuttal
during the debate through recording after the debate over. Indirect study using Content Analysis
will make the writer easier in analyzing deeper the students’ rebuttals.
The rebuttals of the students appeared in three categories. Based on the levels of (1)
Strong Rebuttal, (2) Average Rebuttal, and (3) Weak Rebuttal, the writer then grouped the
rebuttals made by the students. Content analysis involves identifying and coding key topics from
the data (Mckay, 2006). The writer grouped the data gathered to the three categories made based
on the experts’ opinion summarized which are (1) strong rebuttal, (2) average rebuttal, and (3)
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weak rebuttal. Those three categorizations would show what kind of rebuttal the students of
Public Speaking made in their debate activity in Public Speaking ED303A and ED303G.
FINDING AND DISCUSSION
Rebutting means to overcome opposing evidence and reasoning by introducing other
evidence and reasoning that will destroy its effect (Freeley and Steinberg, 2008). The existence
of rebuttals in the debate is becoming the vital part of debating. The communication, where both
affirmative and negative teams are proving not only that they are the right one, but also that their
opponent is wrong, will create a desirable debate, since both affirmative and negative teams
fulfill the requirements of debating by constructing their team case and also deconstructing their
opponent case through presenting rebuttals.
From 2 debating activities that the writer have observed and recorded, actually, the
communication is happening during the debate. The affirmative and negative team offered their
rebuttal during the debate. Both teams tried to evaluate arguments brought by their opponents.
None of the team directly jumped to their own arguments without valuing their opponents’
arguments first. However, the writer cannot simply take for granted that their rebuttals are
sufficient to create the communication during the debate.
Quinn (2005) said that affirmative and negative teams will not create a debate until they
create interaction between their cases by attacking the opponent through delivering rebuttal. It
means that when rebuttal becomes the key point of interaction process, it is vital to analyze
deeper what kind of rebuttals appear during the debate to value whether the interaction is
actually qualified to be categorized as sufficient interaction to create the desirable debate.
Referring to the standard of rebuttal, which is categorized as sufficient or not that the writer have
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explained earlier, the speakers’ rebuttals delivered during the debate are analyzed whether the
rebuttal is (1) weak rebuttal, (2) average rebuttal or (3) strong rebuttal, the analysis focuses on
two main principles of rebuttal, they are:
1. Whether or not the rebuttal successfully analyzes and destroys the important or
significant issue in the arguments.
2. Whether or not the rebuttal answers the question why the argument is wrong.
There are two motions that were analyzed from the students’ rebuttals that were transcribed.
The two motions are:
1. This House Would erase English from Primary School
2. This House Would ban beauty contest
However, the data from one motion only, which is “This House would erase English from
Primary School” discussed in the data analysis, since the rebuttals of this motion that can be
categorized into weak rebuttals, average rebuttals, and strong rebuttals also were found in the
second motion. So, presenting the data from the first motion has portrayed the rebuttals that the
two debates had.
In the following discussion, there will be analysis and discussion about the big three
themes appears in the debate. The first theme to be discussed is Weak Rebuttal, second is
Average Rebuttal, and the third is Strong Rebuttal.
1.
WEAK REBUTTAL
Like what have been explained before in the literature review, a weak rebuttal is the
rebuttal that (1) cannot attack and destroy the opponent’s significant case (Quinn, 2005) and (2)
cannot answer the question why the argument is wrong (Freeley and Steinberg, 2008). The
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following discusses some examples of weak rebuttal delivered by the students of Public
Speaking ED303A and ED303G.
Two classifications of weak rebuttal are discussed: rebuttal with assertion only and
rebuttal to trivial point. 18 out of 36 rebuttals from the data gathered are classified as the weak
rebuttals. The following discussion talked about two examples of weak rebuttals from the
students’ debate.
Motion : THW erase English from primary school
A. Rebuttal with assertion only
Extract 1
Argument
: Learning English start from primary school will build the strong
foundation to learn English. The linguistic experts say that primary school ages is the
best period to learn language acquisition. Because their brain is still fresh and they can
receive the new language easily. And then learning English in primary school is a
natural process when the children area to learn, play, and explore by the games or
materials given by the teachers. Erasing English from primary school will erase the
chance for the children to learn English in the best period. (Original Speech delivered by
1st speaker of the negative team)
Rebuttal
: Responding to the first negative speaker, she said about she agree to
keep English in the school, in the curriculum of primary school, and I agree that she said
that the sooner we learning English the better we understand. And because we look from
linguistic aspect. I agree that in that age is their critical period of acquiring language.
That is the easier, because their brain is still capable to achieve that. But, we have to
learn and look from the social aspect. (Original Speech delivered by the 2 nd speaker of
affirmative team)
The rebuttal above fits the first criteria of weak rebuttal which is a rebuttal that fails to
analyze and destroy the significant point upon the opponent argument. In the argument delivered
by the 1st speaker of negative team, the main point is about primary school is the best period for
the students to learn English. In the rebuttal, the 2nd speaker of affirmative team admitted and
kept agreeing that primary school is the best period for students to learn English. None of the
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rebuttal attacked the main idea from the argument. The 2nd speaker lack of analyzing why
teaching English in their best period still cannot stop the government to erase English from
primary school. As Freeley (1969) says that a speaker must be selective and need to spend more
rebuttal time dealing with that important issue. Simply end the rebuttal by saying that social
aspect needs to be more considered is not enough to destroy the main point in the argument. The
rebuttal above showed that the 2nd speaker of the affirmative team did not spend more time
explaining the important issue about the social aspect itself, but spending more time agreeing to
the argument.
The rebuttal also fits to the second criteria of a weak rebuttal, which is a rebuttal that does
not answer the question why the argument is wrong. In the rebuttal, the reason why the idea
about primary school as the best period to teach English is wrong is never discussed. The only
statement of the rebuttal that shows disagreement diverts from the topic of best period or age. By
saying “But, we have to learn and look from the social aspect.”, the 2nd speaker wanted to say
that social aspect is more important to be considered rather than teaching English in the best
period like what linguists say. However, he simply shifted to other view to approach the topic
and left it unexplained. The rebuttal failed to prove that the opponent’s argument is wrong. There
is no further reasoning on why the idea of teaching English in primary school is wrong. It means
that the rebuttal above actually has no value in proving that the opponent argument is wrong. It is
supported by Quinn (2005) statement that failure in giving reason will cause the rebuttal left
unexplained and loose the essence of the rebuttal itself.
The rebuttal above is a weak rebuttal since it fit with the two main categories of weak
rebuttal. The argument point about primary school as the best period to learn English is still
stand even the rebuttal is delivered. The rebuttal above does not have any power to defeat the
17
argument or to convince the people that the argument is wrong. The 2nd speaker of the
affirmative team simply claim that social aspect is more important but without further
explanation. The rebuttal even kept agreeing to the argument idea. The rebuttal failed to destroy
the significant point in the argument and left the claim without reasonable explanation.
B. Rebuttal to Trivial Point in the argument
Extract 2
Argument
: In Indonesia English learning process in primary school actually is very
fun, but government does not have clear goal in teaching English. Government actually
didn’t have a clear and good concept in making curricula for learning English process
in elementary school. Moreover, government also does not have clear rules about the
recruitment for the teachers that will teach the students in elementary school. So if the
government did not have a good concept about the curricula and government did not
have clear rule about the recruitment of English teacher, how can students learn well in
English? Those factors also make the learning process is not maximum and students
cannot get best output from learning process. That is why we must erase English from the
primary school. (Original speech delivered by the 1st speaker of affirmative team)
Rebuttal
: We as the negative team do not agree that the house would erase English
from primary school. Here are my rebuttals, now we cannot deny that English is more
fun than learning Bahasa Indonesia. The fault is not English itself. Usually English
teacher can make the class more fun. And they can make it into levels. That you can see
Bahasa Indonesia class, there is no levels, there’s no games. So, the students, the primary
school students can choose which things they want to learn.(Original speech delivered by
the 1st speaker of negative team)
The rebuttal above fits the first criteria of a weak rebuttal, failing to analyze and destroy
the underlying point of the argument. The main point from the rebuttal is about unclear goal and
curriculum that the government has for teaching English in primary school. However, the
rebuttal is actually talking about the fun things in learning English that cannot be the reason why
to erase English from primary school. The rebuttal indeed tried attack the argument but it does
not attack the key point to win that argument. The rebuttal actually needs to focus more on how
even there is unclear goal and curriculum, but still English must not be erased from primary
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school. D’Cruz (2003) said that a rebuttal will effective when it identifies and attacks the
important strategic issues in the debate. It means the rebuttal above failed to identify the
important strategic issue to be rebutted then the team loses the chance to destroy the main
argument which will create great destruction toward the cases.
The rebuttal also fits with the second criteria of a weak rebuttal which cannot answer the
question why the argument is wrong. The rebuttal tried to say that this idea is wrong by stating
that if English is fun, then it is not the fault of the students to choose English over the other
lesson. However, there is no further explanation on why if English is fun, then it is better to keep
English as a lesson in primary school. The level in the rebuttal also is not supported by sufficient
explanation so then people will understand what the level meant in the rebuttal and why the
levels are good. Freeley and Steinberg (2008) say that a rebuttal must introduce the counter
evidence and reasoning to support the objection. By doing so, the rebuttal will have the power
and answer the question why the argument is wrong and can prove that the objection is true. The
rebuttal above actually has no evidence and reasoning on why if there is unclear goal and
curriculum of English in primary school then it is still better to keep English in primary school.
As Quinn (2005) says defeating opponent case must be the goal of a rebuttal. The rebuttal
failed to attack the significant point of the argument, and the rebuttal also does not successfully
explain what is so wrong with erasing English that has no clear goal and curriculum from
primary school. It can be concluded that the rebuttal is weak since it fits with the two
characteristics of a weak rebuttal.
2. AVERAGE REBUTTAL
Average rebuttals are the rebuttals that have some of the three principles of good rebuttal,
which are (1) successfully attack and destroy the opponent’s significant case (Quinn, 2005) and
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(2) successfully answer the question why the argument is wrong (Freeley and Steinberg, 2008).
Having only one of two principles cannot fulfill those three elements. Loosing clarity and
consistency in delivering rebuttal will decrease the value of the rebuttal. This kind of rebuttal is
called as average rebuttal. 11 out of 36 rebuttals founded in the two debates are classified as
average rebuttals. The following discussion will show one example of average rebuttal.
Extract 3
Argument
: Language is a part of culture. And now, we have also survive our culture
in the globalization era, including our language itself. It is our national language,
bahasa Indonesia. And bahasa Indonesia have to be taught and built in strong foundation
first in that age, that is in primary school. So, about including English in primary school
curriculum, the question is that how can they learn 2 nd language, while they still learn
about Indonesian language? We believe learning English in primary school will make
te students forget about Indonesian language. The children have to be expert in national
language first to learn the 2nd language and preserve their national language.(Original
speech delivered by the 2nd speaker of affirmative team)
Rebuttal
: Let me deliver my rebuttal. I think studying two languages in one time is
possible. And if someone masters English then they can speak English, it does not
mean that someone cannot speak in Indonesia or someone forgets about Bahasa
Indonesia. They still can maintain their Indonesian by doing interaction with their family
in home and friends outside the class. I will give example in the other situation, as we
know that students in school spend long time with the school activities. Usually the
school start at 7 and the students back to home at 4 pm. They spend long time for their
school activities to study, but they only have few hours to gather with their family. But if
they spend long time for their school activities they still think that the family is there for
them. If we study English it does not mean that we forget about Indonesia, because
Indonesia still becomes our mother tongue. (Original speech delivered by the 2nd
speaker of negative team)
The 2nd speaker actually understands how to defeat the point of the argument about the
students lose the competence of speaking Indonesian. The rebuttal attacks the main point by
showing that the students still have interaction with the family and the friends outside the
English lesson. The interaction done by primary school students outside the English lesson uses
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Indonesian language, so that the students will not lose their national language even they learn
English from primary school.
However, the context of the rebuttal above is not clear and is not developed well. The
portrayal of the primary school students is unclear and confusing. The duration of time the
students spent with the parents and also the presence of the family were not explained clearly in
the context of the debate to be the reason why students will not lose their mother tongue. Freeley
and Steinberg (2008) say that if a rebuttal is not developed within the context of the debate, then
it has little value. The main point from the argument is about learning English in primary school
will decrease the capability to learn Indonesian language. In the rebuttal the 2nd speaker of
negative team actually can analyze deeper on how the interaction between students and their
family also their friends will keep their ability to speak in Indonesia even if they learn English
since primary school.
The further example about the duration the students spent in school and in house is
confusing. It cannot significantly support the rebuttal point about interaction with family will
maintain the capability to speak Indonesian. Smith says that the purpose of rebuttal is to
demonstrate clash between cases (Smith, 2011). Inconsistency of clarity and relevancy will
reduce the power of rebuttal. Losing the consistency and clarity in explaining why the argument
is wrong made the rebuttal above less convincing. The rebuttal is an average rebuttal since it
does not fully fit with two characteristics of a strong rebuttal which is attacking the main
significant point of an argument and explaining why the argument is wrong.
3. STRONG REBUTTAL
A strong rebuttal is the rebuttal that (1) successfully attacks and destroys the opponent’s
significant case (Quinn, 2005) and (2) successfully answers the question why the argument is
21
wrong (Freeley and Steinberg, 2008). Only 7 rebuttals out of 36 rebuttals in the two debates are
classified as strong rebuttals. One example of strong rebuttal will be discussed in the following
explanation.
Extract 4
Argument
: And next my argument is, we can look also from the evidence why we
agree that erasing English from primary school curriculum, we can see from general
evidence that in primary school in the city, there is quite long gap in English competence.
And the solution is that we erase the English lesson in primary school. Why? Because we
can focus more first in our national language. And it will remove the gap of English
competence in primary school. And also it will make a balance competence between our
primary school in the city and primary school in the village.(Original Speech delivered
by the 2nd speaker of the affirmative team)
Rebuttal
: Second rebuttal, if the English is erased from the primary school it will
give the bad impact for students in the city and the village. The fact is if the English
erased in the school lesson, the students that realized that studying English is important
and there is the importance of globalization, they should find another way to study
English because the school does not provide English lesson. So, to study English they
should study in English course maybe. It needs more money. For the students in the
village that they want to study English, the facilities in village and city is different. In
village there is no English course or it is very limited. The only way to learn English for
village students is learning English at school. So, if English lesson is erased from
primary school, it will make a big differential for the students in the city and the village
in English skill. The gap is become bigger. (Original Speech delivered by the 2 nd speaker
of the negative team)
Reducing the gap of English competence between the village and the city is the main idea
in the argument. The rebuttal successfully attacks that point by saying that erasing English is
even created bigger gap among the students in the village and in the city. The explanation about
different condition in the village and in the city, also how actually students in the village will
lose their only access to learn English, directly confronts the idea about erasing gap of English
competence. The rebuttal attacks and destroys the argument by clearly showing how actually the
argument failed to reach the goal, as Quinn (2005) says that effective rebuttal is when it attacks
22
the underlying argument of the opponent, the rebuttal above fits with the first criteria of a strong
rebuttal.
The rebuttal above also fits with the second criteria of a strong argument, answering the
question why the argument is wrong. In the rebuttal, it can be seen that the idea about erasing
English from the primary school to reduce the gap of skill between village and city students is
actually unacceptable idea. The rebuttal analyzes how actually it creates more burdens toward
students in the city to take English course outside school and pay more for that. Moreover, there
is also analysis on how the condition is different between the city and the village, also the
statement that the only way village students can learn English is from school also explain clearly
on how erasing English will create harm toward villages students. Sonnreich (2012) explains that
deconstructing all of an arguments element from the idea, the analysis, to the evidence will
create effective destruction toward the opponents’ case. The explanations in the rebuttal support
the conclusion about the gap of students in the village and in the city even bigger if English is
erased from the primary school. It can be concluded that the reasoning in term of analysis toward
the argument in the rebuttal above successfully attacks the argument about erasing the gap of
English skill.
The rebuttal made by the 2nd speaker of the negative team directly clashes the main idea
of the argument. The underlying idea about the effort to erase gap of skills between the students
in the city and in the village cannot stand anymore under the rebuttal delivered by the second
speaker of the negative team. The rebuttal in Extract 4 directly focuses on the main point of the
argument about erasing English means erasing the only access of the village students to learn
English can show that the idea of erasing gap is not true. Fulfilling the two characteristics of
strong rebuttal, which are attacking the significant point of argument and answering the question
23
on why the argument is wrong, the example of rebuttal in Extract 4 above is classified as a strong
rebuttal.
CONCLUSION
The students from two debate activities in Public Speaking ED303A and ED303G are
already aware and understand toward the importance of delivering rebuttal during a debate. It is
proven by the data showed none of the speakers suddenly jumped to their own team arguments
and simply neglected the opponents’ arguments. From the existing rebuttals, it can be seen that
each team not only presenting their own arguments but also claiming and proving that their
opponents’ arguments are wrong that created the clashes in the debate which formed of the
communication in the debate.
However, there are still many rebuttals that actually do not fulfill the two principles to
create a strong rebuttal like (1) Attacking and analyzing the main significant point argument and
(2) Answering the question why the argument is wrong. The content analysis showed that most
of the students produce weak rebuttals. 18 weak rebuttals out of 36 rebuttals dominate the
findings, with 11 average rebuttals, and only 7 strong rebuttals were found. It indicates that
students in Public Speaking Course still lack of capability to make a strong rebuttal that explain
clearly why an argument is wrong and touch the significant point of an argument.
Those problems with students who delivered the weak and average rebuttals indicate the
pedagogical implication in form of suggestion for the teacher in Public Speaking in teaching
debate. First, the teacher is suggested to add more time to practice and prepare for the debate.
More practices in debating is suggested to train the skill and understanding of the students
related to debate, as Rybold (2006) said that as debaters practice thinking about the ideas and
explaining those ideas to others, debaters will gain confidence and ideas more clearly when they
24
speak. It means the more a speaker do the practice, the more the speaker is able to perform