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.
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