Debate Competition.

Chairman of the Debate

• Addressed as “Mr Chairman”
• Acts as Speaker of the House, calls on speakers to speak, decides disputes and keeps order
• If the Chairman rings the bell, all Members of the House except the current speaker must resume their seats
• If the Chairman stands, the current speaker must resume his seat.

Other etiquette
• Only one Member of the House may be on his feet at one time; therefore a speaker should sit down on giving way to an interruption or when the Chairman stands
• Cries of “Hear! Hear!” (in agreement) or “Shame!” (in disagreement), and “Order!” (to draw a speaker’s attention to a Member of the House wishing to raise a point, who he has not seen), are permitted but do not overdo it
• Booing or hissing are never acceptable
• Do not refer to another Member by name; use forms of address such as “The Honourable Member from [name of University]” or “The Honourable Proposer/Opposer”.

Time Limits on Speeches
• Must not exceed 8 minutes
• Time signals: 1, 7 and 8-minute intervals.

Defining the Motion
• The Government team defines the motion
• The definition should be reasonable, and clearly and logically linked to the motion and subsequent lines of argument.

No New Matter
• A team may not introduce any new matter after its second speech
• An argument or material is new matter unless:
- it has been previously used in the Debate; or
- it is introduced to rebut or reply to an argument or material previously introduced.

Points of Information
• A “Point of Information” in an interjection which raises a point of importance or is intended to correct a debater
• The Speaker has absolute discretion whether or not to yield to a Member of the House (which includes any members of the floor) who proposes point of information
• No Point of Information may exceed 15 seconds
• No Points of Information are permitted during the 1st or final minute of a speech. (There will be time signals at 1-minute and 7-minute intervals).
• Anyone (other than a speaker from the same side as the speaker making the speech ) may offer a point of information
• A Point of Information is offered by a Member of the House by standing and putting a hand on his or her head otherwise indicating his or her intention.
• A speaker is not obliged to accept any Point of Information. However, continual refusal of proposed Point of Information, or on the other hand, numerous acceptances of Points of Information which adversely affect the speaker’s substantive speech may be regarded unfavourably in the assessment of his or her performance. It is recommended that approximately 2 points of information be accepted in a speech but there is no hard or fast rule.

*****

All the rules stated above was just a short and brief description abt the debate rules. As you know, in every debate, you must have :

1. Your stand
2. Definition of the topic
3. Your arguments/points(thats for sure)
   
4. Point of information (POI)
5. Rebuttles
6. Reply Speech by the 1st/2nd speaker

The 1st speaker
Specify out Stand, Definition of the topic, rebuttles(if ur in the opposition team) and argument/point No.1

2nd Speaker
Refude/accepts opposition's definition. Rebut on 1st or/and 2nd speaker on either sides, present argument no.2 and no.3 and then re-affirm stand.

3rd speaker
Usually the powerful person in the team. He/She will be rubutting all the points/arguments presented by the opponents and re-affirm stand.

The topic of our debate is given 1 or is it 2 weeks earlier before the real competition begins. WE, HAVE to prepare everything for BOTH SIDES, government and opposition side. You do the math how many speeches you'll have to prepare.

Now, back to the debate competition chronology. We've been practising and practising and practising almost everyday in school. During school hours and after school. Its very stressful going in and out of the class every single day when your mind is concentrating on both studies and debate. The only classes I would never wanna miss is during Maths, Add Maths, Physics, Biology and Chemistry as all of these subjects are very important to me. I'm not saying that other subjects are not important. BUT! those other subjects can be done at home and its easy to catch up with them. All these has been going on for almost a month. Now, this thing called "debate" has been glued to my brain. Everyday i wake up, all i can think of is debate..debate..debate..debate.... -.-"

Debating is not easy. It takes up a lot of my time. and when i say a lot mean A LOT! We have to do a lot of research, extract the information and write them down into sentences. We have to prepare so many speeches both for opposition and government side. ughhh... Its frustrating.. After writing the speeches, we'll have to read them out and memorize them and if possible, do it impromptu.

Preparing their speeches. Left-right : Dinish, Dinie on the Mac, Shaz

Shaz rebutting with FIRE.

You know, debating is not as boring and as serious as you people imagine. Its fun, challenging and exciting when you put your heart into it. Well, we are serious when we have to. But most of the time, all of us will be joking, laughing and playing around during our discussions. Its also fun because we get to skip boring classes. =X Anyway, I'll fast forward my post since some people are bugging me when am i finishing. XD be patient....

One more thing i remember.. All of us have to travel all the way to Empress Hotel, in Sepang just to do our debate discussion after school from 2.30p.m untill 10p.m. It was fun and extremely tiring. Imagine being away from home from 6a.m untill 10p.m. 15 freaking hours!!! Well, we did had fun there. I took some pictures but it was deleted due to some problem of my memory card. So, the pictures were deleted and the best part is, I have a video on vinaya and dinie singing the Lollipop song by Mika. well if you don't know how the song goes like. go check it out at imeem. Yeah, they sang exactly like Mika or in other words like girls. XD Too bad the video was also deleted. it was really hilarious.

One day before our debate competition, we worked our head off! All of us skipped all of our classes.

Shaz and I

Dinnish and Dinie

Vinaya. This is what happens when you have 8 speeches to write.

The debate competition was on the 3rd of March at SMK Taman _____. We have 2 debate topics to prepare because both rounds will be held on the same day. The 1st topic is "parents and not the predators are the real villains behind child abduction" 2nd topic is "Owning a car TODAY is a bane not a boon"

The 3rd of March 2008.
The day we'll be facing our worth opponents. Muahahaha!! We're so ready!

When we reached the school, our first impressions were.. "wow..this school is huge..." Then, we went to the school library. We met our opponents there for the first time. Well, technically not for the 1st time as some of us and myself recognise our opponents since some of us are friends/ ex-schoolmates. One thing i hate abt their Library is that theres too many mosquitoes!!! And before we entered the library, there a huge sign saYing "HAPUSKAN DENGGI/NYAMUK AEDES"
We heard some of the ppl from other school insulted our school saying that "aiyah...

In the library, they flipped the coin to determine which side are we in. So, our school got to choose which side we wanted. Ofcourse! we choose the government team saying that parents are the real villains behind child abduction. It may seem hard but its actually easier for us.
Then, our debaters were quarantined in a room for 1 hour. As for me, i wasn't in the quarantine room. I was worried, nervous and kept looking at the time. So, while waiting for them, i went to the school canteen and i saw some cats. I looked at then and they looked at me. then i start playing with it. and no, i did not touch them.

When the debate starts, my hands and finger were freezing cold. I think Im making my friends nervous instead of telling them to be calm.

Before the debate starts...

XD Katuri, our 1st speaker presented her speech. It was very good. The 1st speaker of the opposition side wasn't that good. and he couldn't answer a POI. He said, "My team members will answer that later" omg.. thats bad... really bad... you're not supposed to do that if you wanna win...
Next, vinaya came up are smash their points and suddenly... "POI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" a girl shouted. I was stunned. omg..

Vinaya's temper was heating up.

the 2nd speaker of the opposition presented his speech and all of us felt bad for him because there was so many announcement at that moment and we couldn't really hear what he has to say. Another reason is the unreliable time keepers. They are supposed to ring the bell on the 1st and 7th minute. But, they kept ringing the bell every 1 minute! Aren't you people supposed to know that earlier!!?!?!! and he was rushing with speech as he thought it was almost time.

Now.... comes the 3rd speaker, Shamiq. aiyak..i forgot to take his picture.. nvm..
As many of you people know him, he loves sleepy and loves joking around. But on that day, he was a different person. a TOTALLY different person. He was smashing our opponents arguments like pancakes!
The 3rd speaker of the opposition, who was a girl came up and started her speech quite well. But a few things i dont really like about her is that she keeps saying "helooooo?" in a very you know like in those movies, the bad girls attitude. and on top of that, she was twisting her body and swing her hands at the same time.. we were like... O.O uhhh... and she was very rude. She insulted shazmiq. thats mean. Not good for debate. Its ok tob e sarcastic but dont be rude.

Well, after everything was over.. The adjudicators were calculating the marks and presented the results to the speaker to announce the winner of Round 1. Our hearts were pounding like a running horse. I felt a chill for a moment. The results is determine which word the adjudicators circled. GOVERNMENT...... or... OPPOSITION.

"Therefore I would like to announce that this house....... ACCEPTS the motion that parents are the real villain behind child abduction!"

WoooHOOOOoooooooooooooo!!! We won!!!!!!! *claps*!!!
That is not it... One of our speaker, shazmiq(3rd speaker) won the "best speaker award"
Now, thats a bonus!!! Muahahahaha!!!!

Ok, lets fast forward to the 2nd round...

This time, the debate was help in an air-conditioned computer room. =)
this time, we're debating with the host of the competiton which was SMK__X___
And again, they flipped the coin and out opponents gets to choose which side they want.
They choose opposition saying that owning a car today is a boon(blessing/good) not a bane(curse/bad). Hm... and again it might seem we're on a losing side. But now, we were so prepared for it as we wanted the government side. In addition, there was a Caucasian guy came out from nowhere. All of us saw him being there and our expressions were like "shite...... this is gonna be tough" Most of us almost panicked and we were worried sick. OMG....
And again they were quarantined for 1 hour. While waiting, I was in the computer room waiting for it to start.

*drumrolls*

The debate started with our 1st speaker, Dinnish, who is only A form 3 student but his voice and tone is very clear.

Dinnish
This is when he was answering The POI presented by our opponents.

He handled the POI really well although the POI was not clear at all. She was asking a POI that goes like this "Who benefits from all these things????". Out of the blue that question came out. Dinnish answered "We are not talking about who benifit fromThe speakers of SMK X suck big time. They can't speak proper/simple english, pronunciation is horrible, all of us couldn't understand what in the world is he and she saying and their general knowledge is very weak!!

my gawd!!! How on earth they won the 1st round???? All of us were wondering did the other school that they were debating with is far more worse???
Moreover, they don't remember the rules of the debate.

After dinnish answered the POI, the 1st speaker of the opposition jumped out of her seat and presented him with another question without saying

"POI please"

and dinnish shut her off by saying

" I'm afraid I've already answered your POI" wat the heck....

Next, 1st speaker of the opposition team came up and presented her speech. She did not specify the definition of the topic. Thats a huge mistake and we did not realise it. We couldn't understand what is she trying to say.

She pronounced the word "vehicle" wrongly.. She pronounced it as "vecycle", "ver-hike-kle", "ver-high-kle"... yeah.. "ver-high-kle", she repeated. Everyone in the room laughed at her. Seriously la... How can a debater do not know how to pronounce properly??? When she was rebutting vinaya's points, she was halfway discussing what she wants to say with her team members during the 8-minute speech. haih.... another bad sign. Next, her speech was too short untill theres nothing to POI or rebut. It was only 4 minutes!! what can we rebut??? Dinnish, vinaya and dinie were so engross and waiting to rebut. But it was too short and they were shocked. Infact, all of us were.

That.... is where we know that we're going to win for sure.

Next, vinaya gave his speech. After saying a few lines.....

2nd speaker opposition

"POI please!!!"

WTH?!?!?!?!

Vinaya
I'm sorry, but i'm afraid its not time for POI yet"

she was so embarrassed and apologised. Another bad thing to do. Then she asked for another POI.

2nd speaker opposition
"You said that, a car causes spousal discontentment right??? right???? How can you say that a car causes spousal discontentment??"

Vinaya
AS i said before, i quote an example that when a lady is driving, the man will always criticise the lady at their driving skills, why go through all these just because of a car??"

she continued saying that
"no..thats not what i meant.. i was saying that...imagine if your wife GIVE A BIRTH suddenly and you don't have a car to..."

Vi cut her off by saying
Im afraid you did not say POI so, therefore DENIED!!!

XDXDXD damn hilarious la....

GIve a birth??? whaaaat english is that????? Im starting to laugh harder and harder along with kasturi beside me. XDXDXD how can you ask a questin saying... right???...right??? This clearly shows shes not sure whats shes saying. Moreover, she did not re-affirm her stand before she ended her speech.

Now, our 2rd speaker, Dinie, who was so nervous, worried and scared felt the POWER and FIRE in him as he stomped them! He came up with a rebuttle saying that

Dinie

Did you know, Amsterdam is a car-free state and also a man sold his car that he had saved $65000 without it?"

3rd speaker of the opposition
"POI!! Where did you get your facts saying that Amsterdam was a car-free state??"

Dinie
We got our source from www.wikipedia.com.

I think there was more things here but this is as far as i could remember.

After that, came the 3rd speaker of the opposition team. He look as if he owns everyone of us. I feel like giving him a slap or a punch on his face. kasturi told teacher :

"teacher, better watch out for this guy... he look so confident"
"Nolah... I doubt he can do it"

Turns out, teacher was right.. he was the worst of the worst. He started his greetings too fast like a machine gun. Then he posted a question

Does anyone here owns a car???
Tell me, How many of you drive to school to reach here??
*pauses as if he was waiting for an answer*
A car is a necessity and everyone must have a car.
If we dont own a car today, no one will respect us.
Take for example, our county's economy depends on the production of cars and other countries will look down on us if we do not own a car and therefore we will be put to shame! So, by not having a car, our country will not be respected

POI!!!! (he accepts the POI)
How can you say that?? Tell me, who would you respect, a country with bullet trains, tube systems, tramps, etc or a country with people owning a cars that will only pollute the environment and if Amsterdam can live without a car, WHY CAN'T WE???

He couldnt answer that POI. haha!! In your face!! THE AUDIENCE AND ADJUDICATORS WERE IMPRESSED!
The he continued

The government team also mentioned that a car causes traffic jams. do you know that you can hear the traffic news on the radio and you can also listen to songs on the radio?

POI!!
Have you ever heard some creations called the ipod or the mp3 player???

He answered, Why do you need those stuffs if you have a radio in you car???!

WHAT THE HECK!!!! what crap are you talking?!?!!!! XDXDXDXDXD I cant stop laughing!!

He continued again, this time he asked the audience,
how many of you here in this room know that Amsterdam is a car-free state???
Who knows where is Amsterdam. Its not a famous country.
If Amsterdam is a car-free country, how can a person travel from one state to another???

POI again!!
We said that Amsterdam is a car-free state but NOT a BUS-FREE, PLANE-FREE, TRAMP-FREE, TRAIN-FREE OR PUBLIC-TRANSPORT FREE STATE! Even without a car you still can travel through these things!

I couldn't stop laughing till tears roll down to my cheeks. Joker la that guy.

Then he continued. but halfway through,
POI!!!!

He said,(pointing fingers with peace sign)
I've already answered 2 POI's So, i dont want to take anymore!

POI!!!

(pointing fingers at us)
How many times I wanna tell yah, I've already take 2 POI's. So stop giving more POI's

HAHA! Bang! he was shot dead in the head!

Whhat la.... I thought this debate was going to be more harder but it turned out to be a joke.!
Who wants to hear the radio in the car when you have an ipod or mp3 player?? and if you dont have any of those, who would pay attention to it when your concentrating more on the road?? XD
Why would people look down on other if you dont have a car?? ISHISHISH.
and he's damn rude la... english also tak betul.

Finally, the reply speech.... Vinaya crushed the opposition into pieces. Muahahaha!!! Look at this picture..

That ends with a huge and loud bang!
Muahahahah!!!

We beat the flat!!!
HOnestly i tell you, the 2nd round of debate was so crappy.... the previous school that lost to us were 50X better than SMK X. Anyway, we won obviously.
Another bonus!
The "best speaker award" was awarded to Vinaya.

Congratulations to everyone!! Everyone had the FIRE and CONFIDENCE on that day!
It was fun.. and now.. I shall rest my case....
Till next time..