Leinster Schools Senior Debating

 

Senior Debating Leinster schools Debating

Introduction

Hey everyone! It's AnaMai and Roisin from TY communications, today we are going to be talking about “how the leinster schools debating went." This is our first blog so we hope you like it and we can write about more  debating competitions and events that happened throughout the year.

Enjoy!!

First Round of UCD Leinster Schools Debate Competition

The motion we were debating on this day was that “This house believes Irish should be a mandatory subject in all schools on the Island of Ireland.”  We were opposing the motion.(this means that we were against it). This was a difficult motion to oppose as we both believe that Irish is part of our culture and so it is important. The points we brought up included; how teaching students Irish doesn’t help us become fluent, how irish is a big commitment of time that may not benefit you in later life and finally that not everyone on the island of ireland considers themselves  to be irish so it would be unfair to ask them to learn the language.

The debate went well except for a few technical difficulties. There were many schools from across leinster in just one debate, this made it really interesting as a debater and as an audience member. We debated 4th (roisin) and 12th (Ana mai). This means that Roisin was bringing up new points and topics. Whereas  I (Ana mai) brought up rebuttal and points of information.

KEY WORDS AND PHRASES;

This house believes that…….. You would often hear this phrase at the start of a debating motion, or you would hear; This house would…. If the motion states this house believes, then you ARE NOT allowed to bring in a model.

Rebuttal After the first speaker has gone the next speaker would put their points of clash into the start of their speech and present their arguments to the previous speaker/speakers, this is called rebuttal.( this can get kinda personal as the debate goes on!)

Points of information (P.O.I) A POI is almost like a rhetorical question put to a speaker during the unprotected time of their speech. This may have a point but can also just be used to pressure the speaker. Ooooh tactical!!

The debate:

The debate had an intriguing atmosphere and there was a diverse range of points brought up. During Roisín’s speech they were given a few points of information to which they responded amazingly and swiftly. During my speech, I was  presidented with only one POI and it was simple to answer. A tip that we would give you guys for answering POIs is DON’T PANIC! When you panic you don’t get to say everything you want to and you blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. If you stay calm and create a strategy for answering any kind of question, a strategy that works for you as an individual, use that and then you will have answered a POI. Now you just have to continue on with the rest of your speech!

Modal The first speaker of the whole debate,    ( 1st prop) is able to create a special focus on a certain area of the topic up for debate.  BUT! This only applies when the motion states that “ this house would” and doesn’t when the motion states that “ this house believes”

Unprotected time During a debate there is a specific time allocated to POIs; it is in the middle of the speech. So in the first and last minutes of the speech DO NOT ask a POI!

In conclusion…..

I hope that you enjoyed reading this piece on our experience debating and about debating in general. I hope that you have learned something new and are maybe thinking about joining the debate club this year or the next. 

Written by: Ana Mai Whelan 

Co-written by:Roisín McCormack

Edited by: Laoisa Stapleton