Teaching Teach For Australia

Free Debate conducted a workshop for up-and-coming teachers in the inaugural Teach For Australia intake. Teach For Australia aims to improve student outcomes in areas of educational disadvantage by attracting, supporting and training graduates to teach in disadvantaged schools. Students were identified and hand-picked as top performers from a range of university disciplines by Teach for Australia and who are now undergoing intensive training prior to working as teachers for two years.

Free Debate worked with a group of about sixty students who received interactive training in ways they can teach confident, clear, reasoned public speaking to their students. We challenged the eager cohort of future teachers with the sorts of activities they might use in turn with their own students, including small group Oxford-style debates.  Workshop participants argued passionately for and against the concept of performance pay for teachers and the introduction of a new demand-driven market-based system for school funding whereby government funding would be allocated to students in the form of vouchers which are used to pay any school.

We also provided participants with the first edition of Free Debate's Teachers' Guide. Our guide contains lesson plans, extra activities and games to use, and contact details for ongoing support which Free Debate is excited to provide these new teachers for their future endeavours in the classroom.

Free Debate would like to thank Teach For Australia for the opportunity to work with them and we wish all the future teachers well in their future classrooms!

Another Fantastic Pre-Australs!

Run in conjunction with the Auckland University Debating Society, the Fourth Free Debate Pre-Australs Competition was held in Auckland in July.  Pre-Australs is a small, friendly tournament for debaters with limited opportunities to practice in English to warm up before the Australasian Championships.

This year, Free Debate trainers Seamus Coleman, Phil Barker and Amit Golder participated in what was the largest and most successful Pre-Australs yet! Participants came from across Australasia and this year saw a greater amount of debaters from Northeast Asia than ever before.

Teams debated a diverse range of topics which included:

• That we should implement gender quotas on the boards of all publicly listed companies;
• That we should elect all judges;
• That the state should remove morbidly obese children from the care of their parents; and
• That all major sporting leagues should have a salary cap (which produced a truly amazing and fascinating debate!).

As part of the tournament, all debaters, as well as the adjudicators and Free Debate trainers participated in an issues forum. We discussed topics ranging from whaling to pornography to the stylistic preferences of adjudicators from across the Australasian region. The issues forum again proved a massive success with all participants – allowing everyone involved to learn from each other, and benefit from the experiences and ideas of a room full of very engaged individuals.

The Grand Final was a hotly contested debate between Korea University 1 and Macau University on the topic “That the West should require Israel to forfeit its nuclear weapons”. The Korea University team, comprised of Seth Kang, Claire Minyoung Kim, Junbin Yun, won the debate and the tournament! This team then went on to win the ESL division of the Australasian Championships.

Congratulations to all debaters who took part in the competition, and special thanks to all trainers and adjudicators who helped to make the competition a success. Free Debate’s special thanks go to Nupur Upadhyay from Auckland University whose tireless efforts, professionalism and constant smile were crucial to the competition. See you all in 2011!

Free Debate Enabling Day

Free Debate's annual Enabling Day aims to build skills and enthusiasm in our membership.

This year's highlight was guest speaker Lisa from VASS.  Lisa spoke about the work Free Debate does with VASS and gave us some valuable advice on how to approach the projects.

President Elizabeth Sheargold welcomed new members then Tim, Lucia and Kim gave a seminar on the 3C's (Confidence, Content and Clarity) and Victor led the group through some voice exercises.

Please contact us if you would like to know more about this year's Enabling Day.

Introductory workshop for Monash International Students

Free Debate and the Monash Association of Debaters worked with the Monash University International Students Service to present an introductory public speaking and presentation skills workshop.

The course was targeted at international students for whom English is a second language, and was held over three Monday lunchtimes.  Over 20 students participated.

In the first two sessions, we worked on speaking skills and structure and participants presented 2-3 minute speeches on issues of significance in their home country.

In the third session, we focused on answering questions in a tutorial setting – an area where many participants told us they have difficulty. We provided practical advice on how to manage unclear or complicated questions, and followed this up with a mock tutorial to put these tips into action.

The programme was a great success and we have been asked to present another series in the second half of the year.

Youth Leadership Course with Drummond Street Relationship Centre and Victorian Arabic Social Services

Free Debate volunteers participated in another excellent youth leadership program developed by Victorian Arabic Social Services (VASS), in conjunction with the Drummond Street Relationship Centre.

We worked with 10 young women and 10 young men on developing a confident speaking style. Each of the participants wrote and delivered a short speech on a topic that they felt passionate about. The range of topics was impressive - from concerns about animal rights, the environment, and knife crime, to a passionately argued case to allow 16 year olds with good school attendance records to begin driving.

Free Debate volunteers also assisted the participants to provide feedback to their peers, with a focus on bolstering the speaker's confidence.

In one of the two sessions we were lucky enough to have in the audience a lawyer from Youthlaw. This meant the young people were able to deliver their speeches to a (very impressed) representative from an advocacy body.

About VASS: One of Free Debate's strongest partners, VASS is a state-wide key service provider with specialist expertise and knowledge in working with Arabic-speaking-background communities.