Types of Parliamentary Debate

Generally when people think of the word "debate", they will think that it is like normal conversation but with different opinions. They believe that it is more like banter of views and thoughts, throw out one argument after another argument. Lastly, they would imagine that the situation where debate takes place must be chaotic like yelling at each other. Those are not wrong though. Debate is essentially an act where there are two parties or more have different point of views. It happens in meetings, discussions, or simply in our daily regular conversation. However, "parliamentary debate" isn't quite like normal casual every day debate. There are specific rules that must be obliged by all the parties involved.

There are 3 types of parliamentary debate. Before I elaborate each type, I need to mention that parliamentary debate is not similar as petty debate or coachman debate or even like presidential debate we have in Indonesia. Parliamentary debate has more specific rules to follow and that depends on each type.

1. Australian and Asian Parliamentary

In Australian and Asian Parliamentary debate, there are two teams competing each other for every rounds. One team is usually called positive team or affirmative team or government team or proposition team. While the other one called negative team or opposition team. The other way to say "team" for example in "positive team" is "positive side of the house". So the team itself was like "side of the house". "The house" is common term to use. It generally means the side that the team is in, positive side of the house of negative side of the house. Each team consists of 3 speakers. There are first speaker, second speaker, and third speaker. 

This is the illustration of Australian and Asian Parliamentary

Source: slideplayer.com

Reply speaker is either 1st or 2nd speaker from each team. The 3rd speaker may not be the reply speaker.

Here's the link if you would like more explanation regarding this form of debate. I could explain them myself but I doubt it will be different. Australasian Parliamentary English Debate

The differences between Australian and Asian parliamentary are In Australian Parliamentary there are no POI at all, meanwhile in Asian the opponent can give POI or Point of Information during speech. For example when the speaker from affirmative team delivers the speech, any member in opposition house can stand up and say "Point, Ma'am!" or "Point, Sir!" It can also be "POI, Ma'am!" or "POI, Sir!" There are no exact way to ask for POI. We can be creative like "To help you case, Ma'am!" POI can be anything. It can be questions or statements or clarification, but it can only be delivered in maximum 20 seconds. So whoever stated their POI must do it quickly. POIs can only be given during minute 2 until minute 7. 

The duration for each substantive speaker (1st until 3rd speaker, except reply speaker) is minimum 5 minutes and maximum 8 minutes  20 seconds. For reply speaker the speaking duration is minimum 3 minutes and maximum 5 minutes 20 seconds. If any speaker do not stop speaking after pass the maximum time, then anything he/she says beyond maximum duration will be penalized. 

2. British Parliamentary 

This type of debate is more complicated yet more fun and interesting. The rule of the speaker regarding speech duration is same as Australian and Asian Parliamentary. There are also 2 sides of the house like in Australasian. But, each side will then divided again into 2 sides. Here's the illustration.

Here's the suggested material regarding BP debate British Parliamentary Debate (BP)

How Parliamentary Debate Can Make One Speak English Faster

General Overview of Parliamentary Debate.

According to Cambridge English Dictionary, debate is a serious discussion of a subject in which many people take part. It is a competition in which teams of people, often students, discuss a subject and the team that is judged to make the best arguments wins. Cambridge Dictionary - English - Debate Meanwhile parliamentary debate referred to an academic debate event. The most well-known world wide debate events are World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC) and European Universities Debating Championship (EUDC). 

Some countries have their own national level events, in Indonesia especially there is National Universities English Debate Championship (NUEDC) held annually. The winners of NUEDC are to be sent off to WUDC to represent Indonesia with full accommodation provided by the national ministry of education. Participants of NUEDC are consist of representative from different regions all around the nation. Prior to the national event, there is regional event where university students of their respective region can enroll and they must pass to semifinal round so that they can join at the national event. Both regional and national level of NUEDC are accommodated by Ministry of Education and Culture of Indonesia. There is the same type of tournament meant specifically only for polytechnic students called National Polytechnic English Olympics (NPEO). Other famous national level competitions are Java Open Varsity English Debate (JOVED) and Indonesia Varsity English Debate (IVED). Java regions might have the most number of events compared to the rest area in Indonesia.

Do you have to participate any competition when you join an English debating club?

The answer is no, you don't have to. However, having just regular practices might not affect your English skills that much rather than participating in a competition. Coaches mostly will have different method of practice between regular trainings and pre-competition trainings or what we used to call it intensive trainings. Moreover, being in a competitive environment will expose you and motivate you more. You will meet many other debaters, adjudicators, coaches, and those can increase your knowledge plus improve your skills. It's a whole another level of practice by itself. When you just stay inside your club and not competing, you'd only get regular practice. Not that it doesn't help you because it does, but the impact won't be as significant as competing.

How debate makes for easier and faster English speaking skill?

Disclaimer: The following contents are written based on my personal experiences. They represent general activities of English debate from training until competition, but they also might not be exactly the same with what another debaters had went through or are going through. If there are some points that you find not true then they are just matters of different personal background, environment, and experiences. Nothing is absolute here, so no need to get stressed on deciding which one is right or wrong. Just take these points as they are, they are aimed to share and inform. Who knows? You might learn something new and be able to apply them accordingly to your situation. 

1. Experiencing consistent English environment

Debate is one of the forms of public speaking, meaning that you are definitely going to stand up, take the center stage, and speak English in front of other people. There are your team mates, your team opponent, your adjudicators, chair person, time keeper, and another audiences who are in the room. The entire training process are all led to what and how you speak when it's your turn. The goals are to be able to deliver your speech the best you can. 

Training is crucial. Even when you already have experiences before, once you're participating in another event, you need to keep practicing. If you have a coach or a senior at your club, the training method would be depend on said coach or senior. If you don't have a coach, it doesn't mean you can't have training. You can still practice together among your club members or your team mates. Training is all about your commitment. It's no pain no gain, literally. Do you like to sing? Or maybe you're an athlete? Or you have a certain hobby? How much times do you spend on those activities? It's the same as debate training or any other forms of English public speaking.

Next, what do we do exactly during training? Many things. Sometimes we do brainstorming on a topic, do speeches, have simulation, spar with other teams, do team bonding exercise, even watch movies/videos, and many more. The one similar thing is that all of those are done using English. I'd say 80% of one training session, whatever it is that we do, we do that in English, 80% using English. It's the same as when we are in the middle of a competition. 

That is why we keep having exposure on English, we dive ourselves into an English environment consistently.  

2. Get used to think in English

Think before speak. To be able to deliver a good and convincing speech, we must think on what we're going to speak, as in the content of our speech as well as some strategies that we come up with that can help us during our speech. Everything comes from inside our brain. We think all the time. Our brain is like doing constant exercise. Now because the final outcome is English speech, and our brain picks up that we need to speak in English, so unknowingly we are getting used to think in English. Do you like to think out loud? Or talk to yourselves? Or just really think of anything? Those would be done in English when you get used to speak in English. 

Of course it takes time. It's different with one person and another. At first we might still do translating from Bahasa to English and vice versa, but as long as you keep on going forward, you will get there eventually. 

3. Get rid of "fear" of speaking English anytime anywhere

Next step once you are able to think in English, believe it or not, you'll no longer experience those "fears" that you used to be associated English with. Anytime there's an opportunity to speak in English you'd be easily switch it on and speak, just like that. It's not only in debate setting or training or competition. Another examples are job interview, class presentation, courses, and more. This works for other languages too. As far as speaking in public goes, whatever the language is, whenever the time comes, you will have no problem to speak. 

Learning English Language through English Debate

This is a story that I submitted in an English anthology book titled "A Kick-start with English". It is unedited and I took out the biography part because it has my personal contact there. The book itself is about all writers' unforgettable moments with English language. I hope you enjoy my story.

Basically, I’m going to tell you about my “Unforgettable Time with English”. To be honest, it is not my first time telling or in this case writing about English. I had so many great experiences and wonderful memories when it comes to this particular language. I think I’d like to start with the very beginning.

I was interested in English since junior high because I thought it was very important that I could do well in it. It's a multinational language used by many countries if not all countries in the world. Since junior high I liked everything in English, like literally everything, from music, movie, books, and many more. My high interest on the subject made it easier for me to get through the lesson. I found it fairly easy for me to understand what the teacher in class taught us. It made the learning process run smoothly. I enjoyed it very much, including every projects and exams given to us, I did all of them happily. I was also fortunate to have great teachers back then. I graduated junior high with nearly perfect score on English subject during final exam. I only did one question wrong. Bottom line, I was majorly driven to be excellent in English.

The shortcoming about learning English back in junior high is that I was only good on the paper. I don’t mean to brag or be ungrateful but I felt like getting high scores was the only highest achievement I could get. It might be because I didn’t have enough self-confidence to showcase myself that I was capable. I was still shy to speak out during classes. I was a quite kid. I just sat down, listened, did tasks and exams, received my scores, and done. So, I was active but like silently. The thing is there was no space like English club or something where any student could take part of and involved more. A few times the school would enter English contests like speech, news reading, or story telling; but they always picked out a student who stood out in class, student who was loud and straightforward, had more self-confidence and didn’t shy away from speaking in public. Basically, I didn’t get my chance but it was okay because eventually I got exactly what I expected and more.

In high school I purposely chose an extracurricular activity related to English with hope that I could learn more about it. There was an English debate club, keyword debate. So don’t imagine it to be like English extra course when you sit in a class, learn vocabularies, grammars, and such; it wasn’t like that. We learned the “debate”, straightaway right up from the start. That was the focus of the club. The language just happened to be English. People got mixed up about that. Most of the applicants only attended the first week of the meeting and then they left because it wasn't what they expected. I found the club to be enjoyable very much. In my year I was one of the three students who stuck it out from the beginning until the end of high school, not to mention I was the only girl since the other two were boys. So from more than 50 students at first then became 3 students at last.

I was an active debater from high school throughout college. I started from newbie to senior, from small regional level competitions to national level. Sadly, I never made it to international level.

A little side note about debate, I’m making it as brief as I can. It was one of the optional extra-curricular activity in my high school but in college it was more like a club. The activity was pretty much same in both high school and college. We did regular training twice in a week, each meeting was only about 2-3 hours. When there were upcoming competitions we would do intensive trainings, it could be every day meetings from a week before the day sometimes more than a week before the day. The hours for intensive training were also longer for each meeting compared to regular trainings. One more thing, we always had a coach to train us. It was highly important to have someone with more expertise.

Long story short, I went from participant to a champion and best speaker, from a newbie to a senior. Then I became a coach when I taught the newbies in my college and the students who joined debate club in my high school. During my senior year of college beside coaching, I got invited as adjudicator for high school to university level of competitions. I traveled to places in Indonesia on different time zones. I went to Palembang, Semarang, Tual, and Bali.

My debating career helped so much in how I communicate in English. You know, debate is basically like public speaking in English I think. I know some people who are good in English but when it comes to speaking or conversing, they tend to get tongue-tied. It is a common problem for lots of people, isn’t it? When they know in their head what they are supposed to say but the words just don’t come out of their mouth. Another example when in the middle of conversation, they understand very well what other people are saying but it is hard to respond back.

Many of job interviews use English. I got hired on my first job before my college graduation ceremony. The company was based on Cikarang, West Java. The director did the interview by himself. He picked me because beside my capability on chemical engineering major, I was also fluent in English. It was a priority since the person who got hired then would be sent out to Thailand for 2 weeks training, all costs were fully paid off. I was ecstatic! A fresh graduate young-adult woman who never went out of city by herself before, then travelled alone to other province by train for 24 hours, then after just 1 week settled in a new place she then got sent out to another country for 2 weeks. Anyway, I went to Thailand with my boss which was my first time ever travelling abroad, but he stayed only 2 days then went back first. So, I went back to Indonesia after 2 weeks in Thailand by myself. How could that not be an unforgettable experience? My times in Thailand even it was short, it still filled with so many great memories. They are all just unforgettable.

My second job was in an electronic manufacturing company. Again, my English ability was one of the reason I got hired and then promoted. In this position I assisted in all activities that needed to be done in English. It was like an office job in a sense. I did translation on files and emails. I became translator in direct meetings, conference calls, and short phone calls. I acted as liaison officer when there were visitors or auditors from abroad. On top of all of those things, I still had my own main duties which I had to fulfill by myself.

For me personally, English and debate are two things that I can’t separate ever. They have always been connected to each other. My intention in learning English led me to debate and with debate I got better in English which then led me to my jobs. I consider English is my second language now. I'm confident enough to say that I'm more than just capable in it. I can read, talk, and write in English. I even think in English, but with my over-thinking tendencies, I figured I had to do something about it. That’s why I’m here right now. I’m pouring what’s in my head into words for others to read. I’m still new at this and still learning which are okay. Everything needs time and process, so I can only keep going and wish for the best.