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.

Debates Finals

Colegio Santa Emilia (my school) won the National English Debates of Chile.

To watch (http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2266985#utm_campaign=www.facebook.com&utm_source=2266985&utm_medium=social)

more details to follow ... I wrote a long blog entry on my laptop but I´m still having trouble with schools internet. The short summary though is that my students are amazing and that I´m very proud of them.

Update from Santiago

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile ... internet problems at my school are still a problem.

I'm currently in Santiago with my school's debate team for the English Debate competition. Tomorrow, 18 teams we be whittled down to only 10. The team is definitely nervous and excited. I think they are ready though.

The September 18th celebration at my school was very enjoyable. The students all performed dances from different places and times of Chile. It was very much ceremony that celebrated all the parts of Chile so while their was a lot of cueca (the national dance of Chile) there was also a lot of other dance included many indigenous dances. The most popular dance were dances of the people from Easter island with 3 or 4 different grades doing it. After the ceremony, the teachers got to enjoy a catered bbq with excellent meat, wine, and chi-cha.

Here are the photos from the ceremony <>

National Debates

We finally have our debate topic for the National Debates. It is “This house believes that voting should be compulsory”. If anyone sees anything interesting on this topic definitely send it my way.







PS. I'm happy because I think this will be an interesting topic to study and research.

Assorted events

Last Friday was the regional competition for English Debates . My school colegio Santa Emilia once again performed well receiving first place. (I meant to take pictures but I forgot my camera). This means that we will be going to Santiago at the end of September for the national Eenglish debate competition. Once again I disagreed with the judges decisions … the other team from the Antofagasta region that is advancing to the national competition, I didn't think was the second best school in the region, in fact I didn't have them in my top three schools, because they had mediocre pronunciation and spoke rather flatly, but what can you do but laugh (the judges ended giving them same amount of points as colegio Santa Emilia which is absurd). One of my fears for Santiago is the judging, which I haven't always agreed with.

The other day I was talking to another volunteer who was telling me about the gyms in Chile. Apparently, Chilean guys tend to bring the girlfriends who watch them work out. Then the guys will lift way to much weight trying to impress the girls while displaying horrible technique. Apparently the guys will also often take off their shirt and flex in front of the mirrors. I say guys because in Chile girls almost never go the gym.

Speaking of the other volunteers, several of the volunteers from Antofagasta got badly hurt a week and a half ago when they were visiting San Pedro de Atacama. While traveling to the Tatio Geysers their car went off the road and they flipped. Because they were way out in the middle of nowhere it was 2 hours before an ambulance could reach them and for some of them over 30 hours before they received surgery. Their injuries were pretty serious, a cracked skull, broken vertebrae and a broken ankle but luckily luckily no one died and no one is going to be permanently disabled. Impressively, they are all going to try staying in Antofagasta until the school year ends.

I had a bad experience with a collectivo the other night. I took one back to my house after going out Friday night and when we got to my house the driver asked for 10 mil (about 20 bucks). Usually, I negotiate before I enter the collectivo but this night for reasons I didn't. I was pissed because the cost should have been 4 or six dollars. I argued with the drive for awhile showing that I a) understood Spanish and b) understood collectivo prices, however the most I could get him down to was 7 mil. There was no way I was paying that but the smallest bill I had was a 5 mil so I tossed it at him and left the collectivo slamming the door on my way out. While I was walking the rest of the way to my house the collectivo driver pulled up to yell at me some. I think he told me to be respectful and that people don't do this in Chile but I'm not really sure what he said because I only kind of understand Spanish. I said sorry and walked away.

I was talking to a half-chilean half Japanese man the other day. He told me he had been to Washington DC, considered it the most beautiful city he has seen and started telling me about the cherry blossoms. I do like DC a lot. I wasn't sure what to make of the fact that he got sick off of the seafood and had to spend a day in the hospital.

I've started helping the students practice for the up-coming spelling bee. They are pretty good but sometimes they will say the most random letter combinations in trying to spell a word. For example the word was weather and the student tried beginning it with a 'g' I just started laughing. The have the most problems with the 'v' versus 'b' , 'd' versus 't' and 'sh' versus 'ch'.

Update

Last week one of my students let out the most atrocious fart I have smelt. We decided to hold the class outside the smell was so bad. I went back to my classroom to make sure that there wasn't actually fecal matter hiding somewhere. Kids from the next class 25 minutes later were complaining about the smell. The funniest part was when I told my co-teacher about the incident she said she would have the class's head teacher talk to the students about it. Any ideas about what the head teacher will say?

Yesterday, I shaved my mustache for rugby purposes. Since I am playing with high schoolers, our rugby coach told me I need to look more like a high schooler. I definitely prefer having facial hair. I feel I look a lot younger and less distinguished looking. Since I have shaved, my host mom keeps asking me where Paul is and if I've seen him. In typical Chilean fashion, 24 hours later, the joke has gone on for too long.

On Friday, our school competed in the second round of debates. We did a good job, though we performed better in the first round. (112 points this round compared to 138 points the last round … out of 144 … I felt the judges this round were harder). Based on the combined scores for both rounds, my school easily had the highest score. The next round is the regional competition, which is on August 31. The topic is advertisements. Since the topic is the same as the first round of debates, we aren't going to have to do too much to prepare, just review the speeches and try making them more gripping and dramatic.

I finally climbed the mountain behind my house. Two times actually, once with just my hostmom and the second time with my host mom and another volunteer, Rachel. The first time was really late in the afternoon and by the time we had gotten to the top clouds had come in preventing us from seeing anything. It was very eerie, particularly when you looked at the edge of the cliff and saw nothing but gray clouds, whether you looked down or out. Despite not being far from Antofagasta we couldn't see the city at all from the top of the mountain. The second time, we left earlier, but it still got cloudy and we didn't get the greatest view from the top. About halfway up we could see the portada in the distance.

I'm not sure I've mentioned this before but there are more public displays of affection particularly among the young people in Chile than in the United States. It largely because kids growing up live with their parents for a longer amount of time then they do in the United States (often until they are 30 or so). The current generation is known as generation kangaroo for this reason – because the kids bounce back to their parents as soon as possible. The other day I was walking back from rugby practice and I decided to walk through a park at 9:30 at night and on every bench their was a couple making out.

Debates

So Colegio Santa Emilia did really well at the debate competition this past Friday. We scored 138.5 points out of a possible 144. The next highest score was 116 points. I wish we had gotten a little bit more useful feedback from the judges so that we can perform better when the team goes to the national competition, in part because I'm running out of things to tell them. Some of the team members were definitely nervous because they started speaking really quickly when the were up on stage. One minor curveball was that the debaters used a microphone and we hadn't practiced with one before. However for the most part, they handled it without any problems.

I also had a reasonable amount of fun doing the 4 hour event thanks in large part to my students. Before we debated they had a silly team cheer that we did (give me an s give me an s give me an s what does that spell sssss; give me a h give me a h give me an h what does that spell (silence) (the h in spanish is silent)). We also teased each other throughout the event.

The next regional debate is in 2 weeks. But even though we have a lot of work to do to prepare for it, I feeling pretty confident heading into it.

Debates

Tomorrow is the first round of debates. Wish us luck. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Me as a debate judge

So last Friday, I was one of three judges for a small private school debate competition. One of the reasons, I wanted to be debate judge was to get a better handle on what the judges are looking for, so that I will know how to prepare my students for their upcoming debate competitions.

One of the take aways I got is that it is possible for the judges to watch the same debate and come away with fairly divergent reactions. This is a little troubling because in the regional rounds its the two teams with the highest scores that proceed -- meaning that is possible to win both of your regional debates and still not proceed to the next round. However, for my school its not a problem because we will automatically advance to the national round since we were the national champions last year.

My other take away was that the students should be very dramatic when they are speaking perhaps even over acting a little bit. Both in this competition and in the speaking competitions the winners were the team that should the most emotion.

After the competition, I had a respectful talk with one of the teams who disagreed with the judges ruling and wanted to know why we ruled as we did. They had a decent reason to be upset, they had actually made a really good argument that all of the judges missed. But the reason all the judges missed it is that it wasn't well presented, the impacts of the argument weren't mentioned, and they didn't repeat the argument at all in the rest of the speeches. My lesson from this is to be careful, just because you make an argument does not mean that the argument was heard/understood.

English Debates

So I've started working with the school's debate team on constructing briefs for the upcoming English Debates. The two topics for the first set of debates are:

Technology is killing our work ethic

and 

Advertisements makes people waste money.

If anyone sees any interesting news stories related to these topics definitely forward them to me.