On 9 January, 2018, PDP Balloon Debate final contest was held at East Teaching Building B408, Chang'an campus.

Personal Development Planning (PDP), lectured by British senior teacher Mattew Potter, is an excellent module with distinctive JEI characteristics. PDP module, mainly aims at improving students' scientific research ability by using English and enhancing students' integrative competence. The Balloon Debate is part of this term's PDP module.  

The topic of the debate was "Who is the Most Important Scientist in the History?" Students debated in groups with PPT presentation to persuade their audience. Each group shall answer questions to prove their viewpoint. At last, audience voted for the best teams.

During preparation period, in order to find the most powerful argumentations, every group tried hard to search for profile of the greatest scientist in their mind. In preliminary session, 6 teams out of 24 teams were elected to advance in the final. All of these teams delivered wonderful presentations and argumentations.    

Final contest was held respectively in both two majors. All of the teams delivered persuasive speech and patiently answered questions advocated by their teacher Matthew Potter. During this session, Matthew became stricter than previous session and pointed out students' mistakes directly.

Both of the teams in final contest were composed of boys. The second team made wonderful presentation from multi-perspectives to illustrate Euler's contributions in science, especially his contribution in applying mathematics.

The third team consisted of Li Yue, Jia Ziteng, Xin Yuepeng, Zhao Xinyi, Liang Huahui and Li Chunyang. All of the members were in black suit.When they were on stage, audience applauded for their serious and rigorous attitude. Their persuasive speech and confident performances impressed audience quite a lot. They finally won the contest with an overwhelming vote of 47.

The teams in final contest of faculty of Polymer Materials and Engineering were all from Class. The first team illustrated Nobel's achievements and influences with explicit PPT.

The second team chose Chinese scientist Yuan Longping as the greatest scientist. After theirexcellent speech, Matthew Potter asked some tricky questions that whether Yuan Longping created or improved the hybrid rice. In returns, boys responded with sufficient answers. Finally, the second team won the contest with a vote of 29.

The third team chose Turing. They illustrated Turing's great achievements made in computer science and artificial intelligence with vivid pictures and words. Their various and sufficient presentation made students at the attendance impressed a lot.

Matthew Potter made concluding remarks after the debate. As part of PDP module of the first semester, the debate provided opportunities for every participant to improve their English expression and team-work, which would help the students to build a more solid foundation for the full English modules in the next semester.

(Reporter/Li Xuanchen, Li Mengqi; Photographer/Ji Xiao; Reviewer/Chen Jun)