Reported by:
Khoo Xin Yi Sr1ScA
On the 15th of March, Kuen Cheng High School’s Chinese-English Debate Club organized a Member Recruitment Event in order to recruit new members. The new Junior Middle 1 students of 2022 were invited to join the event via Zoom.
Before the recruitment event, the committee members of the Debate Club worked hard to create informative slides and posters in order to attract more students. They even organized quick games for them to try out.
Since the club consists of a Chinese group and an English group, the Zoom meeting was split into two breakout rooms for each side, allowing the students to choose which they would prefer to join. Meanwhile, two committee members remained in charge of the main session and ensured everything went accordingly.
For the Chinese group, the Club President, Soo Zi Ming started the recruitment off with the club details, including what club members would learn during activity sessions, such as language expressions, general knowledge, critical thinking, understanding other peoples’ perspectives, team building etc. Zi Ming then introduced their coach along with the achievements the club earned in the past years.
Club Details
Next up was some information regarding Chinese debating. The explanation included how each side would give their opinions on the topic matter. Zi Ming also spoke about the differences between arguing and debating before moving on to the history of debate which originated in Ancient Greece, even bringing up Aristotle’s influence on the debating community. The final section of the introduction to debate was an explanation on the Chinese debating format. A Q&A session was held right after.
Differences Between Arguing & Debating
Then came the games session where students were encouraged to play two games together with the committee members. The first game was “You Describe, I’ll Guess” 《你说我猜》. A student would be given a phrase that they had to describe to the group while the others would have to guess the phrase. The second game was “Storytelling” 《讲故事》. A student would be given a simple scenario (e.g. “canteen”, “graduation”, “forest”) and they would have to start telling a story while others had to type random phrases into the meeting chat. The storyteller would then have to include all the given words in their story. Both games were well-received and the students had fun too.
After the games, Zi Ming repeated the club details and introduction to debate for students who joined half way through. Before ending the session, the committee played a video of a debate session for the students’ reference.
Reasons to Join the Debate Club
For the English group, the Vice President of the Club, Lee Ke Yin kickstarted the recruitment with a quick introduction to the club and their coach. She also stated the vision and mission of the club, wanting to harness the true potential of each club member and build a presence within the debating circuit. Ke Yin talked about what students would learn during activity sessions, including the soft skills and exposure earned from debating. Students were also briefed on the club’s plans for the year.
Benefits of Debating
Moving on, students were introduced to the realm of debating along with the benefits that come with it. Ke Yin explained the 2 major formats of debating, namely British Parliamentary Debate and Asian Parliamentary Debate/World Schools Debating Championship. The committee then played a video regarding a presidential debate and an academic debate.
Afterwards, the Activity Coordinators of the Club hosted 2 games. The first game was “I Couldn’t Disagree More”, a game where a student would have to make a random statement and the next person would have to respond with “I couldn’t disagree more” before giving their rebuttal. The second game was “If I Ruled the World”, a game where the first student would have to say their name and what they would do if they ruled the world. The second student would then have to repeat what the first person said before giving their take on what they would do if they ruled the world. The game would continue on with more and more students until someone messed up.
Game Rules for “If I Ruled the World”