When talking about wars, most people think of violence, blood and fire immediately. But can you imagine a kind of war without violence, without deaths, without smoke, but only logic and words?
Yes, and I’m talking about the debate contest. In the debate, the only things you need are strict demonstration and powerful refuting. On Jan. 15, 2004, such kind of activity—The 7th National English Debate Competition For Middle School Students, representing the highest level of English learning among Chinese middle school students, was held in the Reporting Hall of Harbin No. 3 High School by ECP, supported by National Foreign Teaching Research Association and other departments of English teaching and researching.
There were in all 90 competitors in 30 teams with three debaters each in the contest, who were chosen from the 6,000,000 middle school students around
The rules of the contest, which were announced by the chairperson at the beginning, were almost the same as any other high level debate—the first debater of both teams has three minutes to explain their points, then another four minutes is given to free debate, in which the frequency and time of the three debaters in each team are not limited. At last, the third debater in both teams can use two minutes to summarize their opinions.
Having finished the team selection and the honorable judges having been introduced, the exciting debate started at 9 am. Two desks arranged for the contest the day before were on the stage for the two sides. The seven groups of the Junior group were to finish by noon and the whole afternoon would be for the Senior group.
All the judges and audience had to confess that the fifth group, two good debaters in the against side, was one of the most successful ones. The topic was “Should children help their parents to do the housework”. The two teams were more or less of the similar level, which made the debate intense, full of fiery attention. When one side finished their refuting, the other side struck back immediately, leaving no space for their competitors to take a rest. The third debater of the against side, Xiao Qilin, left a deep impression on all by giving the example that “If we ask Bush to clean the road, and if we require Saddam to do the washing, will they manage to do them well? Surely not, because they are trained to be leaders of countries, running all departments with the grand strategy, not be cleaners. All people should do what they are good at and so the society can proGREss.” On hearing those powerful sentences, even the judges said, “This can be called a real debate!” And of course this group was sure of a prize.
The contest for the Senior group started at 1 am in the afternoon, and included more excellent debaters. The topics of the Senior group were drawn only 20 minutes before going on the stage rather than announced by the chairperson the night before. Apparently this made the contest much more difficult, requiring the competitors to find enough materials for refuting in such a short time while organizing their sentences. However, thanks to the GREat ability of the senior competitors, all groups did wonderful jobs, amazing everybody there.
The afternoon contest lasted about 2 hours and finally it was my turn to debate with my team representing
The contest finished at 3 pm and the awarding ceremony was just after it. To conclude, all, no matter whether having taken part in the contest or not, spoke highly of the debate given by the competitors, saying that it was a GREat opportunity both for the debaters to practice, show their high ability and for all the middle school students to learn from. It was a successful and meaningful contest.
The judges included several experts from the
