Australia vs Singapore WSDC Prep 2001 TH Fears a Nuclear India

Singapore Tournament

Observations from Singapore:

The first thing you notice about debate in Singapore is the structure.  Every team we’ve seen, has excellent structure.  The template for every speech is straight out of a debate manual.   The second thing is the aggression.  Each team poi’s all the time extensively.  They poi every thirty seconds practically.  The POI’s are cutting and direct never exceeding 15 seconds.  The last thing is the seriousness of every team in the tournament.  What I found historically interesting is that debate in Singapore starts in primary school.  Being involved in the secondary level debate which is M1-M3 while the Junior College school division, the teams were very good.  Also, they see nothing wrong with debating four rounds in one day whereas in Thailand, we’re pressed if we debate three rounds in one day.   The whole debate experience in Singapore is a much more serious and grueling event.

Australia vs Singapore WSDC 2009 QF--THW lower voting age