Are you more inclined how to avoid debating? Fear that your communication skills will let you down? Are you lookingfor ways to improve your communication skills? Do you want to indulge in rational arguments? Well, joining the debating team will surely help you out.
Parents often glad when their children turn out to be a successful person like in athletes and join the sports team to run the track, play soccer or even play basketball. They think sports help them to develop and learn and maintain their competitive spirit as well learn how to play along with the team.
However, not too many are acquainted with the benefits that an alternative activity that debating would provide. This will offer you to join business organizations and other sectors. If you are one of those students who have aproblem communicating their thoughts or have some speech problem, then joining a debate team would help redress such problems.
Debating improves on various qualities that allow communicating better and makes you rationalize your thoughts. Still wondering how it would help in developing your skill set in a less competitive field? Just read on and get to know the facts!
How does debate help to develop communication skills?
As stated earlier, debating helps you out in different ways that allow enhancing your skills. It instils in you confidence that makes you speak better, pick on cues and put forward your thoughts in a composed manner.
Debating is not all about shouting at your opponents and countering everything that they have to say. It invariably picks up social issues that deserve a much-needed discussion where you get to voice your opinion and put forward your thoughts to resolve such issues. Thus, debate not only improves your communication skills, but it also allows gaining the essential knowledge.
Listed below are the steps how being a part of the debate team could help to boost your communication skills and make you better:
“Communication, the human connection, is the key to personal and career success.â€
- Builds confidence
The biggest problem that a student with communication problem faces is alack of confidence. By being a part of the debate team, this issue can be resolved. Debating helps you to lose your inhibitions and boosts your self-esteem.
Gradually, you will have to speak at the podium and put forward your thoughts and present your arguments. This allows you to improve your speech by fearlessly communicating your thoughts, and pick on learning skills and you become better at communicating.
- Promotes critical thinking
Critical thinking is a large part of communication. While communicating, you should think before you speak and what you speak should be well thought of and should be rational enough for your opponent to perceive.
Debating allows you to develop this as when you put forward your counter argument you need to think critically and come up with something which is backed by evidence and allow you to question on your feet.
- Allows you to interpret social cues
Understanding social cues are an important part of communicating effectively. Knowing when to speak, what to speak and how to speak is anessential part of communication and debate helps you to improve on that.
You learn to use gestures while speaking to emphasize your point. You learn to read body language and gesturesin order to plan a counter attack and you learn to speak humbly in order to win over the panel and the audience.
- It makes you enunciate
With debating, you learn how to enunciate on words and speak clearly. If you are a mumbler, this is a great exercise for you to improve your communication. While debating, you need to speak clearly in order to get your point across. Simply whispering or mumbling will not do and will make you look weak in front of your opponent.
- Allows you to use more words
With debating, you enhance your vocabulary which allows you to speak better. You learn to use better words that makes your arguments more articulated and which puts forward your point clearly. You even learn to use the right words at the right time and avoid malapropism.
However, if you are not too sure about some words, then you can turn to an educational website online in order to understand them and seek help to improve your vocabulary.
- Promotes problem-solving skills
Debating teaches you essential conflict resolving skills which are much-needed in communication. Often you will face such instances while talking where some arguments will ensue and which will deviate from the topic.
Debating allows you to control this. It makes sure that you do not lose your focus from the topic of concern and allows you to develop essential skills to resolve the problem by either thinking on your feet and resolving the issue or by gracefully admitting defeat.
- Develops persuasive skills
Oftentimes, in various situations, you will face a need to convince and persuade a person to do something. Without the proper set of communication skill you won’t be able to do so and debating helps you to develop that. In debating, you need to learn how to persuade the audience. This is done by arguments backed by evidence, which is well thought and articulated and put forward in a convincing but confident way.
- Allows you to collect your thoughts
Debating teaches you an important lesson in communication: to keep your emotions in check and compose your thoughts. Often, during arguments, we say things emotionally which we shouldn’t which doesn’t allow you to win any argument.
Debating helps to practice how to control your emotions and compose your thoughts in order to present an argument which will win the case for you.
- Promotes impromptu thinking
During communication, there are numerous instances when you have to think on your feet and reply back. People, who face communication problem, will be unable to do so. However, with the help of debating this can be improved upon.
Tips to improve your communication skills
So, now you know the benefits of joining debate team will allow you to experience. This helps you to enhance your communication skills effectively and allow you to implement such practices when required. However, if you wish to excel at then listed below are some tips that will allow you to better your skills at debating:
- Research about every topic that might be taken up as an issue for debate. The more knowledge you ain, the better you would be able to counter. Also, update yourself with the current issues that are prevalent and read at length about them.
- Watch debates. It allows you to develop an idea about how to better your techniques so that your arguments are well presented.
- Practice debating in school or in front of the mirror, especially if you have a problem communicating. Practice allows you to better yourself and allows you to improve at several points which require your attention.
- Pay attention to the tone during your debate. The tone reflects a lot and affirms whether your points will be considered or not. Be confident and assert yourself.
- Reflect back on yourself and find out your mistakes. Think about the issues which keep cropping up and ways to redress such mistakes.
So, go ahead and join debating team now and improve your communication skills, remember that confidence is the key to success and the rest of the problem will resolve on its own. Good luck arguing yourself out!
“Don’t raise your voice, improve your arguments.â€