The benefits and costs of participating in competitive debate activities: Differences between Japanese and American college students

For over decades now, debate (dibeeto in Japanese) has been the focus of much attention in Japan. This is reflected in the frequency of the word" debate" in major Japanese newspapers, which shows a clear increase for a period of about twenty years. As Table 1 and Figure 1 show, the number of articles containing the word" debate" was zero in 1987. In 2003, however, this figure had risen to 349 (Inoue, 1994; Nakano, 2004, p. 1). This shows that" debate" has rapidly gained popularity in Japanese society. One reason for this rise in popularity is that debate has been recognized as an important skill for Japanese to communicate effectively in the globalized world. Much has been discussed over the use of debate in classroom activities in such courses as sciences and social studies as well as language courses of Japanese and English from elementary school to university.