Youth Debating Competition
Project coordinator: Nina Harnischfeger
The federal competition "Jugend debattiert" (Youth Debating Competition) aims to encourage young people to actively participate in discussions and contribute in shaping democratic processes. The competition provides linguistic and political education. Through training of both teachers and pupils it promotes opinion and personality development. In addition a country-wide debating competition is held for pupils of two age groups: classes 8-10 (ESM years 3-5) and classes 11-13 (ESM years 6-7).
This competition is based on country-wide and regional school networks. A pproximately 700 participating schools are joined together into provinces and regions. In school year 2010/2011 , the ESM together with eight schools in Bavaria region constituted the “Upper Bavaria-East” regional network. The teachers train their students in regular classes. 2010/2011, five classes from years 4-6 of the secondary school participated with their teachers Ms Harnischfeger, Ms Möller-Zeidler, Ms Plate, Mr Sprenger and Ms Wohlers.
The competition includes a 24 minutes long debate about current political issues like for instance “Should public places be under video surveillance?”. Each of the four panelists have 2 minutes of uninterrupted speaking time at the beginning, followed by a 12 minutes free discussion time. Each panelist receives a one minute time slot for his/her closing remarks. The panelist may then even take this opportunity to change his/her opinion. The evaluation criteria are: expertise, verbal communication abilities, discussion skills, persuasive power.
The prizes for the pupils include several days long seminars with professional coaches. The country wide finals always take place in June in Berlin in the presence of the Federal President of Germany.
Further informationen:
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