From Silence to Speech: Building Respectful Disagreement in a Hangzhou Classroom

Emi Ruijs

Chinese International School (Hang Zhou Campus)

The Global Issue Discussed

A motion is presented in a Hangzhou classroom. “This house believes that school uniforms should be banned.” The room stays silent for a moment, and then one student, a girl, rises. Not to recite, but to reason. Not in rapid Mandarin, but in clear, deliberate English, building a case word by word. This is the work of a debate service, one that builds English skills not through grammar drills, but through the dynamic framework of competitive debate. Here, students discover that fluency is not solely about speaking correctly, but about thinking critically, listening actively, and persuading thoughtfully. In a world fueled by misunderstanding and polarization, this classroom has become a workshop for a more essential skill—the art of disagreeing with both logic and respect.

In contemporary China, there exists a shortcoming in English discourse. Conventional language education prioritizes reading from textbooks, memorizing vocabulary, and cramming for tests. This increasingly fosters a superficial understanding of the language, often leaving students able to decode English but underprepared to argue and persuade within it -and, most importantly, to think critically with it. One 2017 article by The Telegraph even suggested that fewer than 1% of Chinese individuals speak English conversationally, although it is a mandatory subject for the national university entrance exams.

Yet this silence reveals a deeper malaise. When students are drilled into rigid recitation and exam survival - a struggle many English-as-a-foreign-language nations face - a cultural aversion to confrontational speech can develop. This unfamiliarity with the active application of language has led many Chinese English speakers to fear natural conversation. A 2022 report indicated that 72% of Chinese college EFL students experience minor to considerable public speaking anxiety, primarily due to a fear of making errors.

Compounding this fear is the challenge of impromptu speaking. With the pressure of the Gaokao, thousands of hours are funneled into passive comprehension, often resulting in even top scorers being tongue-tied in unscripted exchanges. In one survey of high-performing Chinese college students who excelled on the CET-4 exam, over 65% reported “freezing” or becoming “tongue-tied” during impromptu tasks. This trend is mirrored at lower school levels, where a study of middle schoolers in Jinjiang, China, showed moderate-to-high anxiety (affecting 68%) specifically in "unprepared speaking tasks," causing them to stutter or avoid elaborating.

This problem, however, is not a direct accusation of China's education system. In fact, it is a common occurrence across many non-native English-speaking countries that similarly have a heavy focus on final exam scores—something inevitable in many nations like India and Korea.

The Initiative

This is the precise gap the LINKS Greentown Debate service aims to bridge. By inverting traditional forms of language learning, we treat English not as a static body of knowledge to be absorbed, but as a dynamic tool for intellectual thinking and discussion. We give students, particularly those of the younger generation, a platform to be the authors of their own thoughts, dismantling the fear of language errors by rewarding logical soundness over absolute grammatical precision. It also corrodes impromptu anxiety by placing students in a supportive but critically challenging environment, where thinking on one’s feet is the point of the exercise.

Fig 1. Group Discussions

I still remember the first session, with around 10 kids eagerly sitting down waiting for the lesson to begin. It started with a simple introduction, where we asked them to share an opinion they had. “Dogs are better than cats,” one young girl said. The others echoed similar ideas, discussing the beauty of Labradors or their favorite sport.

The most significant shift happened during the core lesson. “Language subjects are better than STEM subjects,” we announced as their motion for the lesson. One by one, the students’ hands would shoot up in the air, eagerly waiting to answer. Though we always continued to pester, “Wait for the final debate!”

During preparation time, the students let their natural English come out, sifting through various ideas, and with our guidance, structuring them in a persuasive format.

Then comes the formal debate. One student, standing at the front of the classroom, a sheet of paper in hand, speaks. “This house believes that STEM subjects are more important than language subjects,” the student says, their crystal-clear voice piercing through the silence of the focused room. The debate flows on, with students arguing that “Although language subjects are important, Math is the universal language that codes our society.”

As the service continues to grow, students have grown ever more confident in their speaking. Some even include “Ladies and gentlemen” and “proud to propose” within their speeches.

This evolution, originating from tentative opinions about pets to defending the philosophy of mathematics in a formal debate, is our real measure of progress. The formal phrases and terminology are more than simple additions to vocabulary, and instead represent the student’s conscious step onto a global stage of ideas. No longer simply learners of English, they use their debate skills to frame their worldview. LINKS Debate aims to do more than fill a gap in language education, instead building the foundation for future leadership - the courage to voice perspectives, the rigor to support it, and the respect to engage with others. In a world often divided by unyielding opinions, these students in Hangzhou are practicing a different way forward, one reasoned argument at a time.

Fig 2. Debate Links Group Photo