Lets start off on this flabbergasting note. My team won second place in Debate Dubai 2014.
Here's the story...
Winning second comes off as a massively big surprise to me if i were to read that in the past. For those who don't know, there is a debate competition that is held in Dubai, with multiple schools taking part. It was hosted by the Jumeirah College (JC). My sixth form team in Sharjah English School comprised of me and two of my friends. We were capable debtors without past experience in an actual competition, therefore we weren't expecting the best. In fact, our English teacher just believed it to be a good experience for us. So we gave it a shot.
It was a little intimidating seeing all the schools, especially the big Dubai schools that were there. The sheer amount of people itself put us all off from having any hopes. People from many different ethnic groups were there, which was nice to see. Our first debate was an unprepared one, which meant that we had 45 minutes of time to prepare from a given topic or motion. Again, i'd like to remind you that we weren't in tune with what we'd have to do. Our first debate was against none other then the host school JC. We lost. Yes, it was a bad start for us. But i'd like to point out that we were just getting 'in tune' with the debating system. We vowed to do better the next round.
Following the loss, we had a debate against another school with a prepped topic, something we had prepared beforehand. Astonishingly, we had won. We believed that we had used all of our days luck there and that the win would be our only victory. Man were we wrong. We followed up with a consecutive three in a row victory after that, making it past the quarter and semi finals. In total we had won FOUR debates in a row and lost, a close one, in the finals. As a result we came in second place. Out of six debates, we won four. Not bad for a first try. Not bad at all. My team spent a total of twelve or more hours participating in the competition. We brought our school back the second place trophy with pride. It was a good day for us, but we weren't complacent, we could and will work harder.
However, now that we know how things go, our team will return next time a lot more lethal than before.
Here's the story...
Winning second comes off as a massively big surprise to me if i were to read that in the past. For those who don't know, there is a debate competition that is held in Dubai, with multiple schools taking part. It was hosted by the Jumeirah College (JC). My sixth form team in Sharjah English School comprised of me and two of my friends. We were capable debtors without past experience in an actual competition, therefore we weren't expecting the best. In fact, our English teacher just believed it to be a good experience for us. So we gave it a shot.
It was a little intimidating seeing all the schools, especially the big Dubai schools that were there. The sheer amount of people itself put us all off from having any hopes. People from many different ethnic groups were there, which was nice to see. Our first debate was an unprepared one, which meant that we had 45 minutes of time to prepare from a given topic or motion. Again, i'd like to remind you that we weren't in tune with what we'd have to do. Our first debate was against none other then the host school JC. We lost. Yes, it was a bad start for us. But i'd like to point out that we were just getting 'in tune' with the debating system. We vowed to do better the next round.
Following the loss, we had a debate against another school with a prepped topic, something we had prepared beforehand. Astonishingly, we had won. We believed that we had used all of our days luck there and that the win would be our only victory. Man were we wrong. We followed up with a consecutive three in a row victory after that, making it past the quarter and semi finals. In total we had won FOUR debates in a row and lost, a close one, in the finals. As a result we came in second place. Out of six debates, we won four. Not bad for a first try. Not bad at all. My team spent a total of twelve or more hours participating in the competition. We brought our school back the second place trophy with pride. It was a good day for us, but we weren't complacent, we could and will work harder.
However, now that we know how things go, our team will return next time a lot more lethal than before.
