Comments on: Eighth day at Worlds – part one

By: Eugenija

Eugenija — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:36:47 +0000

Well personally neither me, nor Aiste were excessively proud of our win. We realise perfectly we’re not the greatest world champions, nevertheless it is always pleasant to have one’s skills appreciated by awards.
Besides, we did fit in in the EFL criteria. Question whether EFL is needed or what kind of criteria should there be is debatable, but from your writings we sort of got the idea that it’s not the matter of the EFL (or even ESL) as such but the matter of Vilnius actually breaking, winning and being topspeakers that offended you.

By: Martins L.

Martins L. — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:51:50 +0000

Sure it has occurred..
You know what I think, but what do you think?

By: Eugenija Golubova

Eugenija Golubova — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:47:46 +0000

Hey there, Martins, has it ever occured to you to ask me or Aiste directly about what we think of winning Worlds in the EFL category rather than speculate about us being proud of it in the blog?

By: Martin

Martin — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:14:47 +0000

And Happy New Year to everyone of course! Let 2009 be better year than ever for SSE Riga & LMT DS!

If anyone’s interested in seeing videos from the Worlds than Tuna has some http://globaldebateblog.blogspot.com/

By: Martin

Martin — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:04:17 +0000

I completely agree with every point Yuri made. I’d like to add some ideas, though.

ESL may be a category defined through language skills but the fact is that language is in addition to being a problem also a source of problems. We have discussed that it takes some brain power to convert information into another language, so not all of it can be used for coming up with smart analysis. Having said that, I don’t of course think that language is the only reason for why ESL speakers are weaker and seem less intelligent to you. The lack of debating traditions etc does have its impact too. What we are dealing here is a case of positive discrimination. And I believe that there are strong arguments for that. One of the aims of Worlds is to attract a wide pool of participants, and many would have no motivation to even start thinking of participating knowing that the best they can achieve is the 94th or 118th place. So, the system is necessary for fulfilling the aims of the whole event. Traditions that foster constant appearance of strong debaters must start sometime and need to be developed for some time to have effect.

I realise that similar arguments could be developed for EFL, if ESL/EPL is a question of yes or no, then EFL/ESL is a question of how much and that is probably the reason why EFL has failed, given that we are dealing with something that is extremely hard to measure (should there be something like IELTS or TOEFL???).

And it is very hard to see what could be won by withdrawing from ESL. Would it make sense for Yelena Isinbayeva or some Madara Liduma to start competing with men as this is the real world class? (And unfortunately we are more like Liduma than Isinbayeva…)

By: YR

YR — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 14:40:28 +0000

That was a very insightful post, which deserves some unsolicited comments:

- On EFL, I completely agree that this is a ridiculous category that was ill-designed and now ill-implemented. I find it perplexing that what was meant effectively as a category for Japanese teams who hardly speak any English, now has Vilnius competing in it (with both ladies on the team clearly being perfectly competent English speakers). I don’t think that winning EFL would make them particularly proud. Funnily though, I think the motion for the EFL final was a lot more interesting than that for the ESL final. Which leads me very neatly to my next point

- On the ESL final motion, I think it was a disgrace, and a manifestation of very poor judgement on behalf of the adjudication team.

- On ESL in general, while motion choice is often a problem there, I think it’s still worth competing there. I appreciate the discussion of whether being ESL is more an indication of debating ability and intelligence rather than language, but that’s not the point. After all, if ESL level is generally so poor, it shouldn’t be difficult to go and win it.

Weasel as it sounds, I am convinced that setting achievable goals is very important in improving performance. If SSE Riga withdraws from ESL, it may as well withdraw from Worlds altogether, as it is unlikely that an SSE Riga makes the main break any time soon. At the same time, speaking in ESL break rounds (in front of a few hundred people in a final) at Worlds is a great experience, and if anything it motivates speakers and develops their skills.