Dear parents and students,

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This is Cycle 3 intramural debate opportunity that you have been waiting for!  An 8-year-old child has recitals for her violin lessons, games for her tennis league, and CNY performance for her Chinese dance class.  It is the same thing for the Chinese debate.  These are the debate opportunities for your child to get more serious about their Chinese and debate skill.  The more they participate, the better they get.  No, they are not "ready ready" for debate, but that's perfectly fine.  Nobody is the first few times around.

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Teams are formed from WITHIN the class that your child is in.  Each team is composed of 3 students.  Each student can be in multiple teams within the class for different time slots.  To form a team of three debaters WITHIN your child's class, please let the other parents know of your child's availability for the following slots.  One or two parents can take the lead to figure out which three students can compete at the same time period. Then, you have one team. Once again, each student can be in more than one team to have more opportunity for debate.

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For example, John can be in a team with Jack and Jill for Saturday 12/5 at 3 PM slot and in a second time with Sarah and Sam for Sunday 12/6 at 10 PM time slot and so forth.

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A team that will compete will get to practice with the rest of the students within their own class. If everyone is competing, that would be even better.  This is why it is more difficult logistically to form a team with students from other classes.  When will they meet up with the coach to practice, and against whom?

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I will try to MATCH UP teams of DIFFERENT classes to compete based on their selected time slot.  So, please mark down as many time slots as possible, to maximize the chance that two teams will pick the same slots for a debate to happen.  These will be more of practice debate (練習賽）at this point for these students to learn debate.  I will make a random selection to determine which sides each team will take and notify the team ahead of time.   With the 90 minute format, the coach will be able to provide more detailed instruction on the debate right after.  Once again, a team requires a minimum of three debaters, to be 正ㄧ，正二，正三 or 反ㄧ，反二，and 反三.  One person in each team will make the final focus statement (總結）.  Again, each student can be in different teams within the same class, given students' different availability.

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For last semester, for beginner debate, each debater had 2 minutes of speech and 2 minutes for cross-examining one debater in the opposing team.  There was a 30-second break after each period.  So, each debater had 5 minutes of total time.  With six debaters, that was 30 minutes.  Add in the final focus for both sides, the total debate time should be about 35 minutes.  That left about 50 minutes for instruction afterward.  I will check with the coaches to see if you are reading for 2:30 minute format.

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For intermediate debate, I think it will be 3 or 3:30 minute format but have yet to finalize it with the coaches.

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Other debate or read-aloud class students or parents can request to watch the debate on Zoom. 

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Debate entry form is due by 12PM PST on Sunday 3/7.  I hope to announce the match list on Monday  3/8.

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Entry fee: $18 per debater for each debate participated (but not for the debate moderator/timekeeper).  ​Please note that the coaches are getting up before 3 AM in Taiwan so that students on either US coast can participate for most of the time slots.  After I announce the match list, then parents can submit their payments based on the number of matches their children will participate in.

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