Debate is a valuable way to practice communicating. It can also bring long-lasting rewards, especially for people working with Western businesses. The main activity of debate is presenting one's opinion and supporting it with evidence, such as statistics or facts. It is a way of persuasive communication.
    Charles Lebeau helped create the "Discover Debate" method. He says debate is important to understanding how people communicate in Western business. Successful debaters learn how to give their opinion, reasons and support. "What we are trying to do is to develop a kind of thinking or approach to discussion and how to interact (交流) with someone else's opinion, rather than brush their opinion aside."

    Debate skills are also important in selling a product, he says. In that situation, the judges are the customers. "So on Monday, for example, one company may come in and present their case to the customer and they'll make as strong a case as they can. On Tuesday, the next day, another company will come in and present their case to the customer. Usually the party that can present the strongest case wins."
    Debate also strengthens critical thinking. In other words, it helps students learn to ask questions and try to understand someone's reasons and evidence.
    Mr. Lebeau points out that successful debaters learn to listen carefully to what other people are saying. Then, they look for the weak points in someone else's opinion or argument. He says debate teaches a systematic way of questioning.
    Successful debaters also learn to think from someone else's point of view. Mr. Lebeau says debate can help broaden the mind. "There's an expression in English: don't criticize another person before you have walked in their shoes. I think the wonderful thing about debate is, it puts us in another person's shoes."

        "When one of the doctors criticizes (批评) me, I get defensive: I feel like a child again, being scolded, and I want to explain that I'm not wrong." says Viola, a nurse. This is a common reaction(反应)to criticism, but not a good one. There are better ways of dealing with criticism.
        (1)Try to be objective (客观的). When Sol was criticized by his new employer for not having made a sale, Sol's reaction was to feel sorry for himself. "I had put everything I had into making that sale," Sol says, "and I felt that I had failed as a person.I had to learn through experience not to react like that to each failure."
        (2)Take time to cool down. Rather than reacting immediately to criticism, take some time to think over what was said. Your first question should be whether the criticism is fair from the other person's position. The problem may be a simple misunderstanding of what you did or your reasons for doing it.
        (3)Take positive(积极的) action. After you cool down, consider what you can do about the situation. The best answer may be "nothing". "I finally realized that my boss was having personal problems and taking them out on me because I was there," says Sheila. "His criticisms didn't really have anything to do with my work, so nothing I said or did was going to change them." In Sheila's case, the best way to deal with it was to leave her job. However, that's an extreme reaction. You may simply explain your opinion without expecting an in-depth discussion. You may even decide that the battle isn't worth fighting this time. The key, in any case, is to have a reasonable plan.

        Men have traveled ever since they first appeared on the earth.
        In primitive times they did not travel for pleasure but to find new places where their herds could feed, or to escape from hostile neighbors, or to find more favorable climates. They traveled on foot. Their journeys were long, tiring, and often dangerous. They protected themselves with simple weapons, such as wooden sticks or stone clubs, and by lighting fires at night and, above all, by keeping together.
        Being intelligent and creative, they soon discovered easier ways of traveling. They rode on the backs of their domesticated animals; they hollowed out tree trunks and, by using bits of wood as paddles, were able to travel across water.
        Later they traveled, not from necessity, but for the joy and excitement of seeing and experiencing new things, This is still the main reason why we travel today.
        Traveling, of course, has now become a highly organized business. There are cars and splendid roads, express trains, huge ships and jet airliners, all of which provide us with comforts and security. This sounds wonderful. But there are difficulties. If you want to go abroad, you need a passport and a visa, ticket, luggage, and a hundred of other things. If you lose any of them, your journey may be ruined.

        Couples are restricting the size of their families in the UK because of cash worries brought on by the financial crisis and the subsequent decline. We’ re now up to nearly 3.7 million families where there is an only child, a rise from about 3.3 million in 2005. That means nearly half of all parents have only one child.
　　Financial worries aren’ t the only driver. The trend towards later motherhood has been mentioned as a cause, as have soaring costs of raising a child, which have been calculated as $222,500 from birth to 21 years of age. This is an increase of nearly 40% in 10 years.
　　The increasing availability of IVF(试管婴儿)is also a factor and an interesting one. Couples who might have remained childless in the past now invest in IVF and get pregnant. And because of the cost they stop after one child.
　　It may not be a bad thing; there are outstanding examples of talented only children. Some argue that being an only child promoted their success. These include actors Natalie Portman and AI Pacino, golfer Tiger Woods and even Queen Victoria. A study from the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex also showed that the fewer brothers and sisters a child has, the happier they are. It seems fighting for parental attention and affection—which sometimes descends into physical fights—is more stressful than any adult had previously thought. And it’ s not compensated(弥补)by having a playmate.

      Ann Curry is a famous news presenter of the NBC News “Today” show. When she was 15 she happened to walk into a bookstore in her hometown and began looking at the books on the shelves. The man behind the counter, Mac McCarley, asked if she’d like a job. She needed to start saving for college, so she said yes.
      Ann worked after school and during summer vacations, and the job helped pay for her first year of college. During college she would do many other jobs: She served coffee in the student union (学生会), was a hotel maid and even made maps for the US Forest Service. But selling books was one of the most satisfying jobs.
      One day a woman came into the bookstore and asked Ann for books on cancer. The woman seemed anxious. Ann showed her practically everything they had and found other books they could order. The woman left the store less worried, and Ann has always remembered the pride she felt in having helped her customer.
      Years later, as a television reporter in Los Angeles, Ann heard about a child who was born with problems with his fingers and his hand. His family could not afford a surgical (外科的) operation, and the boy lived in shame, hiding his hand in his pocket all the time.
      Ann persuaded her boss to let her do the story. After the story was broadcast, a doctor and a nurse called, offering to perform the surgical operation for free.
      Ann visited the boy in the recovery room after the operation. The first thing he did was to hold up his repaired hand and say "Thank you." What a sweet sense of satisfaction Ann Curry felt!
      At McCarley’s bookstore, Ann always sensed she was working for the customers, not the store. Today it’s the same. NBC News pays her, but she feels as if she works for the people who watch the programs, helping them make sense of the world.

      Tom had once worked in a city office in London, but he was out of work．He had a large family to support, so he often found himself in difficulty．He often visited Mr．White on Sundays, told him about his troubles, and asked for two or three pounds．
      Mr．White, a man with a kind heart, found it difficult to refuse to give the money, though he himself was poor．Tom had already received more than thirty pounds from Mr．White, but he always seemed to be in need of some more．
      One day, after telling Mr．White a long story of his troubles, Tom asked for five pounds.
      Mr．White had heard this sort of thing before, but he listened patiently to the end．Then he said,“I understand your difficulties, Tom．I’d like to help you．But I’m not going to give you five pounds this time．I’ll lend you the money, and you can pay me back next time you see me．”
      Tom took the money, but he never appeared again.

      The first European stock exchange was established in Antwerp, Belgium(比利时) , in 1531. There were no stock exchanges in England until the 1700’ s. A man wishing to buy or sell shares of stock had to find a broker(agents) to transact his business for him. In London, he usually went to a coffee house, because brokers often gathered there. In 1773, the brokers of London formed a stock exchange.
      In New York City, brokers met under an old button-wood tree on Wall Street. They organized the New York Stock Exchange in 1792. The American Stock Exchange, the second largest in the United States, was formerly called the Curb Exchange because of its origin on the streets of New York City.
      A stock exchange is a market place where member brokers buy and sell stocks and bonds (债券) of American and foreign businesses on behalf of the public. A stock exchange provides a market place for stocks and bonds in the same way a board of trade does for commodities. The stockbrokers receive a small commission on each transaction they make.
      The stockholder may sell his stock wherever he wants to unless the corporation has some special rule to prevent it. Prices of stock change according to general business conditions and the earnings and future prospects(前景) of the company. If the business is doing well, the stockholder may be able to sell his stock for a profit. If it is not, he may have to take a loss.

        Like any teenagers, the face of One Teen Story is changing fast. Just a year old, the monthly magazine of short fiction for young people is getting a new editor-in-chief: Patrick Ryan, 47, the associate editor of Granta from 2009 to 2013. He left the London-based literary journal last month.
　　Editing One Teen Story—the younger sibling(姊妹篇)of One Story magazine—will offer Ryan a chance to reach a whole new audience. “It’ s really the only magazine for young adult short fiction,” he says from his office in New York. “It’ s tremendously exciting that there are younger people out there who have subscriptions and look forward to getting these stories once a month. That form is usually only presented when it’ s forced upon them in schools.”
　　Designed for readers 14 and up, One Teen Story publishes nine issues a year. Like its sibling magazine, it doesn’ t carry photographs or advertising. It’ s just exactly what it says: one story per issue.
　　Ryan says young people are “looking for engaging reads about people whom they can identify with. It’ s not about having a message or positive spin(说教). It always starts on a character level, and it has to have an interesting story. If you look at the ‘Twilight’ characters and the ‘Harry Potter’ characters, they feel very contemporary.”
　　Ryan also sees the magazine as a way to encourage talented authors. “I would love to make One Teen Story the first publication for writers who then go on and keep at this business. I just really love the idea that this magazine would be the starting point for somebody—would be the push to make a talented writer feel that it was worth keeping at this.”

      Lawn tennis is a good sport, being based on the ancient game of court tennis, which probably came up in Egypt or Persia some 2500 years ago. Major Walter Wingfield thought that something like court tennis could be played outdoors on lawns, and in December 1873, he introduced his new game, which he called Sphairistike, at a lawn party in Wales. The sport became popular very rapidly, but the strange, difficult name disappeared almost at once, being replaced by the very simple and logical term "lawn tennis".
      By 1874 the game was being played by British soldiers in Bermuda, and in the early months of that year a young lady named Mary Outerbridge returned from Bermuda to New York, bringing with her the equipment necessary to play the new game. With the help of one of her brothers, she laid out a court on the grounds of the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club, and there, in the spring of 1874, Miss Outerbridge and some of her friends played the first game of lawn tennis in the United States.
      And just two years later, in 1876, the first United States lawn tennis tournament(锦标赛) was held--at Nahant near Boston.

      Ann Curry is a famous news presenter of the NBC News “Today” show. When she was 15 she happened to walk into a bookstore in her hometown and began looking at the books on the shelves. The man behind the counter, Mac McCarley, asked if she’d like a job. She needed to start saving for college, so she said yes.
      Ann worked after school and during summer vacations, and the job helped pay for her first year of college. During college she would do many other jobs: She served coffee in the student union (学生会), was a hotel maid and even made maps for the US Forest Service. But selling books was one of the most satisfying jobs.
      One day a woman came into the bookstore and asked Ann for books on cancer. The woman seemed anxious. Ann showed her practically everything they had and found other books they could order. The woman left the store less worried, and Ann has always remembered the pride she felt in having helped her customer.
      Years later, as a television reporter in Los Angeles, Ann heard about a child who was born with problems with his fingers and his hand. His family could not afford a surgical (外科的) operation, and the boy lived in shame, hiding his hand in his pocket all the time.
      Ann persuaded her boss to let her do the story. After the story was broadcast, a doctor and a nurse called, offering to perform the surgical operation for free.
      Ann visited the boy in the recovery room after the operation. The first thing he did was to hold up his repaired hand and say "Thank you." What a sweet sense of satisfaction Ann Curry felt!
      At McCarley’s bookstore, Ann always sensed she was working for the customers, not the store. Today it’s the same. NBC News pays her, but she feels as if she works for the people who watch the programs, helping them make sense of the world.

      The first European stock exchange was established in Antwerp, Belgium(比利时) , in 1531. There were no stock exchanges in England until the 1700’ s. A man wishing to buy or sell shares of stock had to find a broker(agents) to transact his business for him. In London, he usually went to a coffee house, because brokers often gathered there. In 1773, the brokers of London formed a stock exchange.
      In New York City, brokers met under an old button-wood tree on Wall Street. They organized the New York Stock Exchange in 1792. The American Stock Exchange, the second largest in the United States, was formerly called the Curb Exchange because of its origin on the streets of New York City.
      A stock exchange is a market place where member brokers buy and sell stocks and bonds (债券) of American and foreign businesses on behalf of the public. A stock exchange provides a market place for stocks and bonds in the same way a board of trade does for commodities. The stockbrokers receive a small commission on each transaction they make.
      The stockholder may sell his stock wherever he wants to unless the corporation has some special rule to prevent it. Prices of stock change according to general business conditions and the earnings and future prospects(前景) of the company. If the business is doing well, the stockholder may be able to sell his stock for a profit. If it is not, he may have to take a loss.

      It was Ann's first experience of flying.She had always been afraid of heights and so was prepared to be frightened.Only the fact that she was going to meet her son who she had not seen for three years had given her the courage to make the flight.

      She sat in her seat,her hands gripping the arms,her seat belt already fastened.The air hostess was talking,telling everyone what to do in case of emergency showing them where their life-jackets were.The plane was crowded,and every seat was full.From her window seat,getting out in a hurry would be impossible,thought Ann.In any case who would want to get out of a plane in mid-air?

      The engines began to shake-the noise increased till it was like a great rushing wind.She looked out to see the runaway slip past at astonishing speed.She wanted to cry out-to stop the plane before it left the ground,but she knew she was trapped in this great roaring machine."I can't scream,"she told herself,and put her hands over her eyes.

      There was a strange feeling as if she were going up in a lift.The noise died down.Carefully she opened her eyes.Through the window she saw a great carpet of cloud above,so beautiful that she stared in wonder,hardly turning away from the window till they touched down.

        Like any teenagers, the face of One Teen Story is changing fast. Just a year old, the monthly magazine of short fiction for young people is getting a new editor-in-chief: Patrick Ryan, 47, the associate editor of Granta from 2009 to 2013. He left the London-based literary journal last month.
　　Editing One Teen Story—the younger sibling(姊妹篇)of One Story magazine—will offer Ryan a chance to reach a whole new audience. “It’ s really the only magazine for young adult short fiction,” he says from his office in New York. “It’ s tremendously exciting that there are younger people out there who have subscriptions and look forward to getting these stories once a month. That form is usually only presented when it’ s forced upon them in schools.”
　　Designed for readers 14 and up, One Teen Story publishes nine issues a year. Like its sibling magazine, it doesn’ t carry photographs or advertising. It’ s just exactly what it says: one story per issue.
　　Ryan says young people are “looking for engaging reads about people whom they can identify with. It’ s not about having a message or positive spin(说教). It always starts on a character level, and it has to have an interesting story. If you look at the ‘Twilight’ characters and the ‘Harry Potter’ characters, they feel very contemporary.”
　　Ryan also sees the magazine as a way to encourage talented authors. “I would love to make One Teen Story the first publication for writers who then go on and keep at this business. I just really love the idea that this magazine would be the starting point for somebody—would be the push to make a talented writer feel that it was worth keeping at this.”

        Men have traveled ever since they first appeared on the earth.
        In primitive times they did not travel for pleasure but to find new places where their herds could feed, or to escape from hostile neighbors, or to find more favorable climates. They traveled on foot. Their journeys were long, tiring, and often dangerous. They protected themselves with simple weapons, such as wooden sticks or stone clubs, and by lighting fires at night and, above all, by keeping together.
        Being intelligent and creative, they soon discovered easier ways of traveling. They rode on the backs of their domesticated animals; they hollowed out tree trunks and, by using bits of wood as paddles, were able to travel across water.
        Later they traveled, not from necessity, but for the joy and excitement of seeing and experiencing new things, This is still the main reason why we travel today.
        Traveling, of course, has now become a highly organized business. There are cars and splendid roads, express trains, huge ships and jet airliners, all of which provide us with comforts and security. This sounds wonderful. But there are difficulties. If you want to go abroad, you need a passport and a visa, ticket, luggage, and a hundred of other things. If you lose any of them, your journey may be ruined.

        "When one of the doctors criticizes (批评) me, I get defensive: I feel like a child again, being scolded, and I want to explain that I'm not wrong." says Viola, a nurse. This is a common reaction(反应)to criticism, but not a good one. There are better ways of dealing with criticism.
        (1)Try to be objective (客观的). When Sol was criticized by his new employer for not having made a sale, Sol's reaction was to feel sorry for himself. "I had put everything I had into making that sale," Sol says, "and I felt that I had failed as a person.I had to learn through experience not to react like that to each failure."
        (2)Take time to cool down. Rather than reacting immediately to criticism, take some time to think over what was said. Your first question should be whether the criticism is fair from the other person's position. The problem may be a simple misunderstanding of what you did or your reasons for doing it.
        (3)Take positive(积极的) action. After you cool down, consider what you can do about the situation. The best answer may be "nothing". "I finally realized that my boss was having personal problems and taking them out on me because I was there," says Sheila. "His criticisms didn't really have anything to do with my work, so nothing I said or did was going to change them." In Sheila's case, the best way to deal with it was to leave her job. However, that's an extreme reaction. You may simply explain your opinion without expecting an in-depth discussion. You may even decide that the battle isn't worth fighting this time. The key, in any case, is to have a reasonable plan.

      There is a popular belief among parents that schools are no longer interested in spelling. No school I have taught in has ever ignored spelling or considered it unimportant as a basic skill. There are, however, vastly different ideas about how to teach it, or how much priority it must be given over general language development and writing ability. The problem is, how to encourage a child to express himself freely and confidently in writing without holding him back with the complexities of spelling?
      If spelling becomes the only focal point of his teacher's interest, clearly a bright child will be likely to "play safe". He will tend to write only words within his spelling range, choosing to avoid adventurous language. That's why teachers often encourage the early use of dictionaries and pay attention to content rather than technical ability.
      I was once shocked to read on the bottom of a sensitive piece of writing about a personal experience: "This work is terrible! There are far too many spelling errors and your writing is illegible." It may have been a sharp criticism of the pupil's technical abilities in writing, but it was also a sad reflection on the teacher who had omitted to read the essay, which contained some beautiful expressions of the child's deep feelings. The teacher was not wrong to draw attention to the errors, but if his priorities had centered on the child's ideas, an expression of his disappointment with the presentation would have given the pupil more motivation to seek improvement.

      There is no creature that does not need sleep or complete rest every day.
      If you want to know why, just try going without sleep for a long period of time. You will discover that your mind and body would become too tired to work properly. You would become irritable and find it hard to think clearly or concentrate on your work. So sleep is quite simply the time when the cells of your body recover from the work of the day and build up supplies of energy for the next period of activity.
      One of the things we all know about sleep is that we are unconscious in sleep. We do not know what is going on around us. But that doesn’t mean the body stops all activity. The important organs continue to work during sleep, but most of the body functions are slowed down.
      For example, our breathing becomes slower and deeper. The heart beats more slowly, and the blood pressure is lower. Our arms and legs become limp(柔软的) and muscles are at rest. It would be impossible for our body to relax to such an extent if we were awake. So sleep does for us what the most quiet rest can not do.
      Your body temperature becomes lower when you are asleep, which is the reason people go to sleep under some kind of covers. And even though you are unconscious, many of your reflexes(习惯性思维) still work. For instance, if someone tickles(使觉得痒) your foot, you will put it away in your sleep, or even brush a fly from your forehead. You do these things without knowing it.

      Tom had once worked in a city office in London, but he was out of work．He had a large family to support, so he often found himself in difficulty．He often visited Mr．White on Sundays, told him about his troubles, and asked for two or three pounds．
      Mr．White, a man with a kind heart, found it difficult to refuse to give the money, though he himself was poor．Tom had already received more than thirty pounds from Mr．White, but he always seemed to be in need of some more．
      One day, after telling Mr．White a long story of his troubles, Tom asked for five pounds.
      Mr．White had heard this sort of thing before, but he listened patiently to the end．Then he said,“I understand your difficulties, Tom．I’d like to help you．But I’m not going to give you five pounds this time．I’ll lend you the money, and you can pay me back next time you see me．”
      Tom took the money, but he never appeared again.

      Lawn tennis is a good sport, being based on the ancient game of court tennis, which probably came up in Egypt or Persia some 2500 years ago. Major Walter Wingfield thought that something like court tennis could be played outdoors on lawns, and in December 1873, he introduced his new game, which he called Sphairistike, at a lawn party in Wales. The sport became popular very rapidly, but the strange, difficult name disappeared almost at once, being replaced by the very simple and logical term "lawn tennis".
      By 1874 the game was being played by British soldiers in Bermuda, and in the early months of that year a young lady named Mary Outerbridge returned from Bermuda to New York, bringing with her the equipment necessary to play the new game. With the help of one of her brothers, she laid out a court on the grounds of the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club, and there, in the spring of 1874, Miss Outerbridge and some of her friends played the first game of lawn tennis in the United States.
      And just two years later, in 1876, the first United States lawn tennis tournament(锦标赛) was held--at Nahant near Boston.

        We can make mistakes at any age. Some mistakes we make are about money. But most mistakes are about people. "Did Jerry really care when I broke up with Helen?" "When I got that great job, did Jim really feel good about it, as a friend? Or did he envy my luck?" When we look back, doubts like these can make us feel bad. But when we look back, it' s too late.
        Why do we go wrong about our friends or our enemies? Sometimes what people say hides their real meaning. And if we don' t really listen closely we miss the feeling behind the words. Suppose someone tells you, "You' re a lucky dog." That' s being friendly. But "lucky dog" ? There' s a bit of envy in those words. Maybe he doesn' t see it himself. But bringing in the "dog" puts you down a little. What he may be saying is that he doesn' t think you deserve your luck.
       "Just think of all the things you have to be thankful for" is another noise that says one thing and means another. It could mean that the speaker is trying to get you to see your problem as part of your life as a whole. But is he? Wrapped up in this phrase is the thought that your problem isn' t important. It' s telling you to think of all the starving people in the world when you haven' t got a date for Saturday night.
        How can you tell the real meaning behind someone' s words? One way is to take a good look at the person talking. Do his words fit the way he looks? Does what he says agree with the tone of voice? His posture? The look in his eyes? Stop and think. The minute you spend thinking about the real meaning of what people say to you may save another mistake.