#5 Debate About Tourism (Mizuki)

Hello everyone, this is Mizuki Yanagisawa. Today I want to introduce you about our debate in order to remember what was going on and what were the strong point, and the weak point at the debate. The topic we discussed was "Tourism helps people in tourist communities".

First of all, I want to tell you about my role in the debate and the points I had made. As there are three different roles, such as agree team, disagree team and a judge, I played a role of being in agree team. In the debate I made four points that support our idea: about affording people’s job, development of tourist area’s economy, improvement of infrastructure and tourist’s benefits (culture, etc). I and my partner, Yui, already had made the script so what we had to do before the debate starts was just to mix and unite our main opinions. It was quite smooth since we have already made up our point precisely. (114words)

Secondly, I want to tell you the best point made by the opposing team. Through all their four points, they mainly focused on environmental problem in tourism community. The point I was especially impressed was that they show a personal example or experience. For example, one of the speakers talked about her mother’s experience that she is a tour conductor and knows much about environmental problem on these areas. Moreover, the other speaker showed me the poster which depicted how Mountain Fuji was polluted by the tourists. As they showed their personal experience and specific example like Mt.Fuji I felt much familiar to this topic and I think it is very good way to assert one’s opinion. (117words)

Finally, I have learned a lot from this debate experience. There are two points that I want to pick up. First point is that, in our debate, we did not talk about the same situation. I mean, the disagree team was talking about the tourism concern in developed countries such as Japan or U.S. However, we, as the agree team, were talking about developing countries such as Thai or Singapore. Therefore, we had have discussed about which country should be focused on so we could discuss about just one country or just one situation. Another point is that I learned is that any posters or personal experiences can make the point (or opinion) much stronger. Even though I was an opponent of the disagree team, I could easily understand their opinion and what is going on at the tourism community right now. Overall, I really enjoyed discussing and debating about this topic and I think it was great experience for me. (161words)