One of the key advantages at Speakers’ Corner is that our teaching methods have been developed and implemented by a team with combined decades of experience in coaching. We have drawn on our experience working in both private coaching and schools to figure out precisely what works, and ensure that our coaches are staying true to our proven teaching methods.
Often, without guidance, coaches will spend lesson after lesson placing their students into practice debates, followed by a feedback session at the end. While continuous practice is important, does this method really work? At Speakers’ Corner, we believe in the ‘active intervention’ method. That means that when we place our students into a practice debate during our sessions, our coach is expected to play an ‘active’ and ‘interventionist’ role. What does this involve?
During prep: our coaches actively guide our students and engage in a socratic method of teaching, where they ask questions that lead the students to the right case theory.
During debates: our coaches will often pause debates and directly intervene. This method of teaching is used in sports coaching, where for example a football player is in the ‘wrong position’. The coach will pause the game and show the player where they should be moving. This allows the player in the moment to realise where they are going wrong, so that they can identify a common error in the future. Debating is no different! We will often pause the debate and explain to our students where they are going wrong.
Comments