The Department of English Language and Literature will be holding the first Ewha English Speech and Debate Competition on Nov. 31 and Dec. 1 at the Ewha Campus Complex and Ewha-POSCO Building.
The competition is hosted as a part of the Educational Capacity Enhancement Program (UECEP) for Ewha Global Leader, supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.
The program seeks to support universities gain competence by helping them create and spread a unique and diverse undergraduate student culture. The Enhancement Program was first undertaken in 2008 and Ewha was chosen to join the program for this year.
The Faculty of the Department of English Language and Literature believed the debate was an excellent way for students to learn more about civic issues and how to express their opinions through logical and persuasive argument. Thus, the faculty made a proposal to expand interest and participation in debate across Ewha campus, which led to the planning of the first speech and debate competition was planned.
“Debating or giving a speech is different from taking a lecture,” said Lee Mi-na (International Studies, 3), the representative of the Ewha English Debate Championship. “Taking lecture is a more submissive act in some way, when compared to debating; people are more proactive and tend to listen more critically.”
The competition consists of two parts: the Ewha English Speech Competition and the Ewha English Debate Championship. The speech competition, directed by professor Oh Eunjin (English), is held under the theme of “Women Role Models.” For the preliminary round, students have been submitting their scripts to the office of the Department of English Language and Literature.
The debate championship is directed by professor Peter Kipp (English) and will be preceded in the Asian parliamentary style, with three members for each team.
Students applied for the competition from Oct. 22 to Nov. 22, and Oct. 22 to Nov. 26 for the debate championship. Semi-finals and finals will be held on Dec. 1.
“When preparing for the debate, you get to gather a lot of information about what is happening in society,” said Ha Woo-jung (Law, 4), an applicant of the debate championship. “The preparing process itself is an eye opening experience to know about social issues, by doing what I like to do, which is learning languages.”