ACE Public Speaking and Debate Team Nol Rayuth, Sok Kimleng and Huy Panhavorn.

ACE Public Speaking and Debate Team Wins Best Debating Skill Award

By Sunheng Sok, ACE Public Speaking and Debate Coordinator

Eight teams fought tough and heated debates at the JCI Public Speaking and Debate Championship 2017. About 500 participants witnessed the competition between the teams. Four of the debate teams represented educational institutions while the remaining four were independent debate teams from the Institute of Technology of Cambodia. The ACE Public Speaking and Debate Team won the Best Debating Skill Award.

The competition kicked off at 7am with His Excellency Doctor Hang Chuon Naron, Minister of Education Youth and Sport addressing the audience. In his remarks, the Minister highlighted the importance of debating skills both in our daily life as well as our working lives. The skill, he said, played a vital role from the time we apply for a job to the time we propose new initiatives for the betterment of an institution or even Cambodia.

At the end of the day, not only did the ACE Public Speaking and Debate Team win but also other teams received the Best Team Work Award.

Now, let’s find out what it takes to win the Best Debating Skill Award, which our debate team won.

To put it simply, debating is a formal discussion between two parties who have opposite opinions on a topic. In a debate, we try to prove that we are right. At the same time, we need to listen to our opponents and evaluate their arguments and justify why our team’s point of view is stronger, more convincing, and therefore, more valid.

If we look into a debate critically, we will know that debating is not only about arguing with others to determine the winner but it is also about what is right or valid in a given circumstance. The skills are really important in the sense that they help us in our daily life in many ways. We learn to evaluate opinions and evidence to see whether they are trustworthy. In other words, these skills develop our reasoning skills and logical thinking abilities.

Normally, contestants would be selected from members of the ACE Public Speaking and Debate Club, as only members of the club are entitled to join the competition. However, the club organised a debate audition prior to the competition to choose qualified debaters. After the audition, we received a call from the club to join the team. We were thrilled the moment we realised we had a chance to join something big. The rest is history.

We learned some important lessons from the experience that we believe will prepare ourselves to be better members of society in the future. Besides the extraordinary experience of participating in the competition, we learned to work and control our team well under such a pressured circumstance. We also learned to be flexible and have great teamwork to challenge ourselves in a competition like JCI because we only had 15 minutes to prepare before we went on stage.

As you might already know, JCI Public Speaking and Debate Championship is a very tough competition with many strong candidates from various debate clubs from schools around town. But to win this award, we noticed that following the debating rules well is one of the important elements. We also used debating language well such as sign posts. In addition, we knew exactly when and how to raise an argument or rebut our opponent’s argument. Most importantly, planning and structuring our arguments well and focusing on cohesion to make our arguments easy to follow are strategic components to achieving this.

We have been in the ACE Public Speaking and Debate Club since September 2016 after having taken Public Speaking and Debate class, so it has been around seven months now. It has been a great experience being in the club. We have learned many new and useful techniques to debate. Besides, we were also trained about the delivery which includes the way we talk, our posture, our eye contact, our gestures and the like.

The club helped prepare us a lot. It led us to understand what to do and where to go when we need to get ready for such a big competition as JCI. Having received the training and mentorship from the club, we are wiser in our preparation and make better use of our time.

For debaters out there, whether you are a novice debater or an experienced one, it never does harm to try to debate. Nobody starts as a legendary debater. We all start from zero. You will improve yourself over time from every debate you engage in just like us with the club. So whenever there is a chance to debate, take it. We said yes to joining the competition without even knowing much about it, but we chose to join only because we knew we would learn something from it and we were totally right about it. What we have learned from this competition is fabulous. After all, we are grateful for the club for providing such a great opportunity for us to challenge ourselves and achieve more in life.

Sign Up for the Club now to learn more about the debate. Go to a CSO at reception at any of
ACE’s campuses for more information.

ACE Public Speaking and Debate Team Sok Kimleng, Huy Panhavorn and Nol Rayuth.