English News 

Debate Training Day 

On Friday 19 February, all of Nossal's debaters attended a debating seminar aimed to teach us more on debating in lieu of the upcoming DAV Competition. 

This seminar was held by Nossal's very first debating captain Cree, where she taught the fundamentals of debating such as what debating is, speaker roles, case preparation, speaking conventions, teamwork and much more. The emphasis on teamwork which was painted as a crucial part of debating allowed me to get to know my team better and allowed me to meet some new people. This experience also proved to teach us some skills such as speaker conventions and teamwork were not only crucial in debating but in real life as well. This transferability of skills is what seemed to take the experience from a specialised seminar to a learning lesson. Furthermore, Cree's ideas on the Debating 101 were very engaging, where she used her many years of experience in debating to aid us, and often involved us in vital discussions, which helped broaden our understandings as well. 

In the conclusion of the more theoretical part of the seminar, we were all enlightened to see a debate between some of Nossal’s most experienced debaters, on the topic of whether we regret the rise of cancel culture? Both a topic in trend and informative, this debate proved as an excellent way to conclude the seminar, as we got to see some of Cree's teachings in practice and were shown to techniques and strategies beyond what we had learned. 

Overall, the debate training day taught me many new skills where- I speak on behalf of all of the students in the seminar when I say that the Debate Training day, was an extremely informative, interactive and helpful session, where I personally cannot wait for next year's seminar!

Ria Kumar

Year 10