Chapter 2

British Parliamentary Debating System

Introduction

In applying the Communicative Language Teaching you may use the British Parliamentary (BP) debating system in the class. This technique may be will fit your students in improving their speaking skill. Here they are the terminology, and the roles, of the BP debating system.

Because of the style's origins in British Parliamentary procedure, the two sides are called the Government and Opposition. The speakers are similarly titled:

1.     Opening Government (first faction):

1.   Prime Minister

2.   Deputy Prime Minister

2.     Opening Opposition (second faction):

1.   Leader of the Opposition

2.   Deputy Leader of the Opposition

3.     Closing Government (third faction):

1.   Member for the Government

2.   Government Whip

4.     Closing Opposition (fourth faction):

1.   Member for the Opposition

2.   Opposition Whip

Speaking alternates between the two sides and the order of the debate is therefore:

1.     Prime Minister

2.     Leader of the Opposition

3.     Deputy Prime Minister

4.     Deputy Leader of the Opposition

5.     Member for the Government

6.     Member for the Opposition

7.     Government Whip

8.     Opposition Whip

As British Parliamentary debates take place between four teams their roles are split into two categories, those for the Opening factions, and those for the Closing faction

1. Opening faction
The first faction on each Government and Opposition team, known as the Opening Factions, has four basic roles in a British Parliamentary debate. They must:

·         Define the motion of the debate.

·         Present their case.

·         Respond to arguments of the opposing first faction.

·         Maintain their relevance during the debate.

The Opening Government team has the semi-divine right of definition, preventing the opposition from challenging their definition of the motion unless it is clearly unreasonable.

2.  Closing factions

The roles of the second two factions are to:

·         Introduce a case extension.

·         Establish and maintain their relevance early in the debate.

·         Respond to the arguments of the first factions.

·         Respond to the case extension of the opposing second faction.

In addition, the final two speakers of the debate (known as the Whips) take a similar role to the third speakers in Australia-Asian debating:

• The opposition whip may not introduce new arguments for his faction, the government's whip may add new positive material as long as it's "small" and does not start a new line of argumentation. This is a relatively new standard that has become the standard at the Worlds University Debating Championship, as well as the European University Debating Championship;
• They must respond to both opposing factions' arguments;
• They should briefly sum up their Opening Faction's case;
• They should offer a conclusion of their own faction's case extension.

In every debate, there is Point of Information that supposed to be there in order to make the debate goes absolutely flying. The style demands that all speakers offer Point of Information (POIs) to their opposition. POIs are important in British Parliamentary style, as it allows the first two factions to maintain their relevance during the course of the debate, and the last two factions to introduce their arguments early in the debate. The first and last minute of each speech is considered "protected time", during which no Point of Information  may be offered.

AREL will be the student’s guide in making a logically acceptable argumentation to deliver in order to pursue the adjudicators, or the one who score the debate. AREL is Assertion, Reasoning, Evidence, and Link back.  Assertion is related to the way the debater identify the motion; moreover, the debater have to explain the motion, convey their opinion which will be sum up as a good reasoning. Evidence will help the debater so much in order to prove that their argumentation is based on fact. Link back will be thing that makes the adjudicators believe that both the reason and the evidence is related to the topic.