Finally, after weeks of planning and preparation, the VRG Djursholm Debating Society is ready to open! Every Tuesday at 16:00, starting March 18th, practise debates in the WSDC-format will be held in HB. The society will be open to anyone interested in rhetorics and debating; meaning you do not necessarily have to take rhetorics as a course to join the club.
The WSDC (World Schools Debating Championships)-format, is a certain style of debating that is used in international high school debate competitions. Instead of having debates in an open forum, where the speakers argue freely, the three debaters of each team hold eight minute long speeches. The debate always has two sides, the so called team proposition and opposition, to a motion that is presented. The aim of team proposition is to ensure that the motion will be passed by the judges, while the goal of team opposition is to make the motion fall. During the speeches, members of the opposite team may ask so called “points of informations” to the presenting speaker, which he/she can accept or deny. After all the debaters have held their speeches, the first or second speaker of each team holds a four minute long reply speech to conclude the debate. During practise debates the speeches will be shorter so it will be easier to get used to the format. Regular speeches will be four minutes and reply speeches will be two minutes long. More information will be given at the meetings!
VRGD Debate Society decides to use this format and have the debates in English, because it enables us students to participate in both national- and international debating competitions. In October 2013, VRG Djursholm had a team at the Swedish nationals in Gothenburg and personally I got to participate in the ESDC (Eurasian Schools Debating Championships) this year in January with a team consisting of debaters from different schools in Stockholm. Both of the competitions have been amazing experiences for me and for many different reasons. Not only have they been great opportunities to improve my public-speaking skills, but they also allowed me to make new friends from all over the world! For future competitions we want to send even more VRGD students, so make sure to join the society and come to the practise debates if you are interested!
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to e-mail me or contact me on Facebook!
Sara Tabari, chairwoman of the VRGD Debating Society
sara.taba-2015@vrg.se