Debates in Detail

So as I mentioned before… my school debate team won Chile's National English Debate Competition. I am very proud of them and happy for them … they definitely are impressive. Two of my students also won individual awards, my host brother who won best use of the English Language (which we think means student who talked most like a native English speaker) and Leslie who won best female performance for her speech in the second round.

The whole week was been pretty emotional and stressful … I was more nervous at these debate events then I have been in a long time … and I wasn't even speaking. On Tuesday, we arrived in Santiago. On Wednesday, we had the first round of competition where they reduced 18 teams to 10 teams. It was a long long day … we had to perform the proposition side twice … we were the first team to debate for the day and the last one. On Thursday, the 10 teams got whittled down to 2 teams. We performed the opposition case against a team that I feel was a good opponent for us because they were a tad weaker and made some easily rebuttable arguments, thus making us look good. On Friday, the final day of competition, we performed in an auditorium in front of the other schools and many people from the English teaching community in Chile. We once again had the opposition side and despite the other team having been able to watch our performance the other day (and thus hear our arguments) we were the dominant team. In all three days but especially the last day my students were amazing. They weren't just able to speak clearly, but also convey a wide a range of emotions such as sarcasm, shock, amazement, anger, and moral indignation. For winning, my students and co-teacher won a free round trip flight to anywhere in continental Chile (they are probably going to Puntas Arenas in Patagonia … I would love to go with them but they are probably going to go during summer vacation when I'm back in the United States)(the funny thing is they would of preferred the second place prize of a notebook).

I am also proud of myself for having coached the team to first place … for coming up with strong arguments, creating dramatic speeches and for showing the students how to be effective speakers. I was though in a good situation, with a group of very motivated talented students who's goal from the very beginning was to be number one. I'm also glad I was able to effective coach them in my own style which is very relaxed and easy going … indeed the students were almost always harder on themselves and each other then I was on them. I've enjoyed hanging out with them, its been fun and rewarding to hang out, to talk with them and to work with them. They are all very open, funny and willing to share their experiences with me. Now that I'm going to have to teach class full time, I'm going to miss spending so much time with them.