This week, our Community Engagement Team sat with Eliana Ng and Rianna Gorgis, both members of our Stage 4 Debating team that won the zone championship this year, to discuss their debating journey.

How would you describe your debating journey so far?

Eliana Ng: “I did debating in Year 5 but it got canceled due to COVID-19. I restarted it again this year and I’ve enjoyed all the learning opportunities so far. Everything I practice during debates is because of all the lessons I learnt this year. It’s been amazing to see my team and I grow so much throughout the short time we’ve been together. Just to see our tremendous amount of growth from our first debate to now, it’s an amazing feeling. We went from speaking for under one minute to speaking for seven minutes or more regularly. In the beginning, none of us knew what we were doing but now we are all so confident. I’m really excited to see what the future holds for us.”

Rianna Georgis: “I love it. It’s a cool journey to be a part of. I’ve met so many people more from other schools than I thought I would at this point. I’ve learnt many new skills. I’m more confident in talking now and I’ve learnt how to improvise quite well, which is great because I’ve been able to use to make more friends and build closer relationships with the people around me.”

What has been the most rewarding aspect of being in the debating team?

Eliana Ng: “The most rewarding part of being in this debating journey is being able to share every moment with my amazing team. Add that to being able to improve and learn new skills together along with the strong sense of competition that I find so unique to debating - it really helped me channel my love for English while meeting new people from other schools.

I also love the art of debating - including all the responsibilities that come with it. I enjoy developing all the different skills I know I need to have to be the best debater I can be, such as putting together an argument, managing my time, and just simply making art with words.”

Rianna Georgis: “To me, it’s seeing my team mates’ faces light up when we win. Knowing the amount of training and dedication we put into our debating practices, it makes those moments so much cooler. Every time we win, we just start dancing and it just makes me so happy. It’s also great to have teammates who I can just look at, like Eliana, and we’d just finish each other’s thoughts and sentences. I love having teammates who I can bounce ideas off of. We just click.”

What were your biggest challenges this year?

Eliana Ng: “We had a lot of changes to the team throughout the year. We also had to cut back on training days. We did pretty well given the challenges we faced. I’m really proud of everyone on our team.”

Rianna Georgis: “The biggest challenge for me had been improvising. It’s really hard but it’s so rewarding to be able to do it well with practice.”

What are you looking forward to the most next year?

Eliana Ng: “I really would love to see how far debating will take my team and I - not just in the competition but skills wise as well. I am really hoping all my teammates share the same passion for debating as I do and that we can keep debating at the highest level we can possibly reach.”

Rianna Georgis: “I want to learn from my past mistakes. I want our whole team to do the same so we can keep improving as we strive to win it all.”

Eliana Ng & Rianna Georgis

Year 7

Stage 4 Debating Team

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