“Engaged Citizen” Course of Game-Exercise for Developing Debating Skills of Participants

The participants of “Engaged Citizen,” a month long university course, had an opportunity to present their abilities. Remember  that the course took place with a joint initiative of PAARA, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Armenian Office of the International Foundation for Electoral System (IFES).

The discussion was extremely topical.  “How far can the rights of freedom of speech spread online?” The topic for discussion chosen  was “Government actions of limiting the false, misleading or inflammatory statements on social media, which are not an infringement of freedom of speech and association.” 

Trainers Gayane Hovhannisyan and Armen Yezekyan had presented the methodology of the discussion in advance. After the presentation, the participants were divided into two teams. “Supporter” (confirming) and “Against”(denying). Participants had to defend their opinion, giving supporting arguments, and then reach a conclusion.

Three of the participants evaluated the activities- argumentation, presentation and topic perception of the debating groups. After that, the trainer qualified the work of evaluation groups and mentioned that their function was the most difficult, as they are the participants in the same course and they had to evaluate their friends.

Gayane Hovhannisyan, the supervisor of the training stressed, that despite the assessments, there were no winners and losers and the main goal of the game-exercise was to form a debating culture  and develop discussion skills.