Everything You Need to Know About Debate Coaching

Debate coaching is one of the most useful tools of the debate world. After all, what’s not to love about bettering yourself as an effective, public communicator? 

If you’re looking for speech coaching, look no further. Whatever level of ability you have, our comprehensive guide on debate coaching — coupled with an AI speech coach like Yoodli — will elevate your skills and confidence. 

What Is Debate Coaching?

Debate coaching is the process of building up the debate team’s public speaking skills while also implementing critical debate strategies to improve the team’s chances of winning debates.  

This type of speech coaching can be a tiring but rewarding skill for anyone interested in public speaking and argumentative speech. 

What Does a Debate Coach Do?

A debate coach is someone who aims to improve a person’s debate and public speaking skills through coaching. They typically help guide your progress and teach strategic ways to debate.

A debate coach also has a responsibility to improve your confidence when it comes to communication and public speaking skills. 

What Makes a Good Debate Coach?

A good debate coach will help lead you to victory through their strategic guidance. They often push you out of your comfort zone — especially with regard to public speaking skills — to improve your overall success through debate coaching.

How to Improve with Debate Coaching

If you’re looking to improve your debate skills with debate coaching, it’s not as difficult as you might think. The process of bringing your debate abilities to the next level is twofold: build on your compelling communication skills as well as your confidence.  

Improve Your Public Speaking Skills

If you’re looking to improve via debate coaching, improving your public speaking skills should be high on your list. For a successful debate, everyone involved needs to be confident and comfortable speaking in front of others. 

Unfortunately, mediocre public speaking won’t win you any awards (or debate competitions, for that matter). It doesn’t matter if you have the best strategic debate skills — they’re nothing without effective communication abilities. 

To work on your public speaking skills, take advantage of a speech coach, like Yoodli. Yoodli uses AI to analyze a person’s speech and speaking patterns to then provide them with non-judgmental, personalized feedback in a clear manner. 

You’ll get to see exactly where you need to improve, whether it’s your pace or vocabulary. Here are just a few of the specific analytics you’ll get through Yoodli’s free service: 

• Your word choice, including any non-inclusive language you use 
• Any filler words you use (and how often you use them)
• Any weak words you can improve
• Your pacing
• And even your body language, among other useful insights

Build Your Confidence

If you’re in the market for debate coaching, you should also take a look at your confidence (especially in front of an audience). 

Yoodli can help you out here as well. Although a large part of building your confidence comes from successful public speaking skills, that’s only half the battle. Body language, for example, is a crucial component. 

Think about a time when you were uncomfortable speaking in front of an audience. Many people have nervous habits they resort to when speaking in public. Rubbing your hands together, cracking your knuckles, speaking too fast, and relying on filler words are all common examples. 

To build your confidence, upload or record yourself speaking on Yoodli. To improve your confidence when speaking, take a look at your pacing. Is it faster than average? You’ll also want to examine your body language and filler usage. What percent of your speech was filler words? Luckily, it’s not a guessing game — Yoodli provides users with all these insights, free of charge. 

Feel free to check out the expert-led crash courses, such the below course on improving your impromptu speaking: 

You could also take advantage of an entity like Toastmasters. Toastmasters is an organization that helps people build their effective communication and leadership skills. 

Why Is Debate Coaching Important?

Debate coaching is important because no matter who you are and no matter what your skill level, you can always improve. There’s no ceiling to compelling, effective communication skills. Plus, if debate is close to your heart, you’ll want to keep up with the competition by ensuring you stay sharp and on top of things.

Debate coaching — especially using a speech coach like Yoodli — can inform the ways in which you speak in public, as well as your impromptu speaking skills. 

There’s truly no downside to this type of speech coaching. 

The Bottom Line

Debate coaching is a valuable tool meant to elevate not only your debate skills, but your confidence and expertise in public speaking. 

If you’re looking for debate coaching made easy, explore Yoodli’s many useful analytics, designed specifically to enhance your public speaking skills.