In this competition, students form teams of two to have mini-debates in the style of a single-elimination tournament. Each mini-debate may last 5–10 minutes, however the teacher decides. The topic may be anything, but since I was in a Spanish school at the time, and knowing that Spanish people are typically quite passionate about their food, I decided to have a mini-debate tournament to determine the best Spanish food.
First, I put students into their teams of two and let them decide which Spanish food they wanted to represent. Each team had to represent a different dish. I simply let them call out their dishes and wrote them as I heard them. I wrote them on the board as a tournament bracket. Students could see who they would face against on the first round. I allowed them some time to prepare, explaining to them that they needed an introduction to describe the food and summarize why it is the best. Furthermore, I instructed the students that each team should prepare arguments as to why their dish is the best and arguments as to why their opponent's dish is not the best. Some parameters may be needed here, such as instructing students that they need at least five arguments. This all depends on the teacher.
Next, the first round of mini-debates began. I asked for volunteers to debate; if there were none, I chose randomly. During each mini-debate, I gave each team one minute of speaking without interruptions in order to give introductions. Next, they had 3–4 minutes of open debate. Meanwhile, their classmates acted as the audience while I acted as moderator. Once time ran out, the time came for a vote. I made it clear to the students that the should vote for the team that did the best job in making their arguments, not the team that represents the dish you prefer. After the vote, I wrote the winning team's dish on the advancing spot in the tournament bracket.
After all of the first rounds were completed, we began the second rounds. At this point, teams had no specified time to prepare their arguments beforehand. The second round depended more on improvisation and adaptation since each team had to argue against a different dish. Otherwise, the mini-debate format remained the same, and we repeated the process until one team won the tournament, determining the best Spanish food. The whole tournament took two classes, but it's also an activity that could take up only part of the class time but over the span of several classes. For example, a teacher may decide to have only one or two mini-debates each class. There is much room for adaptation.
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