The Beginner's Tournament

The Township Debate League (TDL) event ran very smoothly and even resembled debate tournaments from back home – namely a lengthy awards ceremony and too much downtime in between rounds. I suppose debate tournaments share characteristics all over the globe. My learners from Thandokhulu High School even won a round at the Sunday beginner’s tournament. They will describe the weekend experience to the rest of the team at Thursday’s training session.

I realised that TDL and its sponsors reimburse the learners for their public transport costs en route to and from the tournament, as well as provide a sandwich, juice and fruit for lunch. Without this generous assistance, the learners simply would not be able to compete. (Don’t worry: the volunteer adjudicators also got lunch.)

The structure of a debate round consists of two teams of five learners – one takes a proposition (“for”) side and the other argues the opposition (“against”) side. The speakers alternative, and each speaker must present different elements of the team’s overall position. The winning team is chosen as the sum of all its efforts – not based on an individual speaker.

After a few rounds, the quality of debate drastically improved. The learners were speaking for their full time allotment (and not just 45 seconds), engaging each other and using better examples and clearer words. With barely six hours of formal training during the past four weeks, the students remarkably demonstrated how a little training and investment goes a long way to improving confidence, speaking abilities and logical reasoning. I shared in the palpable excitement that lit up the otherwise worn and gray tournament venue.

While the other volunteers and I waited for our bus to fetch us, the tournament organizer read aloud the additional comments recorded on the learner feedback surveys. Overwhelmingly, the learners thanked the volunteers “for being so nice to us.” As the organizer asked, why wouldn’t we be kind to the students? Common decency may not be so common in the lives of the students. The surveys revealed that the debaters enjoyed themselves very much – and wish they could attend a tournament every weekend. One survey even said, “I want to be perfect at debate just like the adjudicators!”

The surveys also made us laugh, especially the comment, “The food was very good, but I’d like another pear.” Or, “The adjudicators were staring at us too much and it made me nervous.” The students put so much passion and energy into everything they do, and it continues to inspire me every week.