WUDC South Africa 2016 Training Program

One of the most exciting parts about hosting WUDC is the opportunity to play a part in spreading debating throughout the world. Freedom of speech, critical thinking, and teaching people to use words to resolve difference are skills that change lives, change countries, and change the world. This culture and skill set is something that is often taken for granted. It is definitely true, as Lucinda David said in her Tedx talk, that "Debating Can Change Your Life."

To this day, Africa is one of the least represented regions in the international debating community; a region full of untapped potential; a region where the power of debate has the potential to change the course of history. South Africa is one of the shining examples of how debate and discourse can change the course of history, and is proud to host a bid that will endeavor to spread the power of words throughout the entire region

As a result, our commitment to training and development stands at the heart of our bid. Our program aims to provide training for speakers of all experience levels, language categories, and regions. This blog post will detail what our training program will look like, and how we will make the most of our opportunity to spread debating throughout the region and the world.

Our CA Team is very dedicated to training, and the program that follows is in many ways a reflection of their experiences and contexts. Pam was the Debates Training Secretary, and then the Director of Debating at the Durham Union Society, has coached debating for the English Speaking Union and Debate Mate, and currently coaches debating at high schools across the UK every week. Dessi is the current Head of Training at the Berlin Debating Union), and Saddiq can often be found spending his spare time delivering debating workshops around Asia. This program will grow and develop as more DCAs are added to our team and we appoint a Director of Training. However, this is the starting point, and our initial vision as a CA team, for the program.

Guiding Principles

• Training does not simply happen at WUDC, but rather all throughout the years leading up to the competition. As a result, our training program will be based on a two-year on-going engagement with the world debating community.
• Training should not simply be rehashes of basic training lectures, but rather sequential, repeated engagements that build on each other throughout the two years leading up to the competition.
• A combination of on-the-ground and online training to increase the scope of access and frequency of engagement.
• A commitment to create not just training programs for debaters, but also for adjudicators. 
• A focus on historically under-represented regions.

Structure of the Program

Training does not just happen at WUDC, but rather throughout the years leading up to it. As a result, we commit ourselves to a program that begins immediately after the bid is secured, right up until the closing ceremonies of WUDC 2016. Our training program is based on two key features:

1. A combination of on-the-ground training around the world, and an online training program.
2. A unique two-branched approach that includes a special focus on adjudication training.

On-the-ground Training

As an adjudication core, we understand the importance of CA engagement with their regions in terms of gaining understanding of their regional judging talent, providing training to both cultivate debating talent and help standardize judging, and to CA/judge competitions and provide in-depth feedback on both debaters and adjudicators in their region to help improve and cultivate talent.

As a result, all CA members will make themselves available to judge the major competitions in their region, and offer to provide BP debating and BP adjudication workshops before and after these. We will also recruit esteemed external judges from around the world to deliver our workshops at competitions we are unable to attend, in order to increase access and expand the scope of our programs.

The debating workshops will span a number of different topics, from the basics of BP debating, to advanced tactics of different positions on the table (e.g. Back-Half Strategy Seminars, Opening-Government Strategy Seminars, etc.), to specific "how to debate" topic area seminars (e.g. "Debating Rights", "Debating Economics", "Debating International Organisations", etc.). We aim to organize and deliver several of these seminar before or after every major national and international competition around the world.

We will endeavor to film as many of these training sessions as logistical circumstances allow, and post them all online.

Online Training Program

The online component of our training program is something we believe is particularly important in providing access to training for those who would otherwise not be able to attend our workshops due to geography, circumstance, or funding, and allows us to provide consistent and on-going engagement with the circuit throughout the year, instead of just at major competitions.

Our online training program will have two major components to it. The first is to provide a wealth of basic debating resources to individuals and societies around the world. We believe that this is important as many of the roadblocks newer societies often face is a lack of resources that can help them to develop effective training programs for their societies.

The second major component of our online training program is the creation of documents and videos that operate sequentially to provide training for advanced debaters around the world. One of the issues with debate training to date has been that sessions are often hit-and-miss, and the on-the-ground nature of them means that they must cater for many different skill levels and levels of previous training. As a result, our online program will feature sequential training resources that build on each other throughout the two years leading up to WUDC South Africa. Debaters will be able to go through these training segments at their own pace, providing a much more consistent and thorough program for advanced training than has ever been seen before.

Adjudication Focus

One of the unique features of our planned training program is its focus on adjudication training. Far too often, training programs exclude adjudication training, with only crash courses and basic judging training being offered. We believe that a strong adjudication pool requires more time and effort put into training our judges.

The reason we have such a strong focus on adjudication training is two-fold. First, with an expanded team cap, it's important to ensure that the talent and size of the adjudication pool increases accordingly. Second, good adjudication, not just at WUDC, but at competitions throughout the year, is one of the most important inputs in improving as a debater. Some of the most important improvements you will make as a debater will come from contextual feedback on what you have just done wrong and right in a round you have just debated in.

Thus, the best training an adjudication core can give is not the basic lectures to debaters on "how to debate x" or "what to do in OG", those are simply the starting points of a good training program. The most important training an Adj Core can give is strong adjudication training so that debaters get the best judging and feedback they can possibly get after each and every round they debate in, whether at WUDC, or at competitions in their home countries. Strengthening the adjudication pool around the world means that regardless of where you are on the tab at WUDC, or what competition you are attending before or after WUDC, you will get accurate, insightful, and useful feedback. This is why we are committed to putting adjudication training at the heart of our policies.

We will provide a dual on-the-ground and online training program for adjudicators that mirrors our program for debaters.This program will not simply teach the basics of judging BP, but will provide more advanced adjudication training as well. We believe that this is important not only for cultivating more advanced judging talent, but also for standardizing BP judging around the world.

Specific topic areas will include: "Weighing Up the Comparative", "What to do when OG incorrectly defines the debate", "Fair burden assumptions in debating", etc. The aim will be to provide practical guidance on likely scenarios within debates, and through them to teach a wider judging framework.

Engagement Matters

We know that often, debaters and judges have specific questions about adjudication that they require feedback on that cannot always be covered in the overall briefings and workshops we provide. As a result, we are framing our training policies with a pledge to responsiveness and engagement. To this end, we will have two policies:

1. We will set up an e-mail where debaters and adjudicators can send in questions to the CA team and Director of Training.
2. We will run "Meet The CAs" Question and Answer sessions online where the CAs will come online in either a chat forum medium or a video-chat medium to answer questions from any debaters or adjudicators who would like to talk to us.

Focus on Under-Represented Regions

The WUDC South Africa Orgcomm are hard at work contacting major regional organizations, such as the African Union, trying to secure funding for additional training programs that will focus on historically under-represented regions. 

Summary

Our training program will utilize a dual on-the-ground and online system that promises consistent long-term training for debaters of all skill levels from all regions around the world. It will be characterized by a special focus on adjudicator training, and will be guided by the principles of inclusion, standardization, engagement and responsiveness. We welcome any and all feedback from the world debating community, as we believe that understanding the roadblocks different debaters and adjudicators face around the world is key to constructing genuinely useful programs for those who want to take advantage of them.

We really hope that we get the chance to enact this program, as the opportunity to spread debating is one that all three of our CA team members care deeply about.