Debate Contest

Those weekends. Those much cherished weekends. My last two weekends were with high school students who just love to speak English. This weekend was Debate, and the previous weekend was English Camp with Bundai Senior High School, which you'll read in English fanatics.
Here are the students arriving at the train station at 9.30 am, after a 3 hour journey.
So, Debate then. What's Debate I hear you say. Pretty much explains itself. When I first did this last year, I was sad that we never did anything like this while at school. This year was the 13th annual High School English Debate Contest, with 40 teams and increasing each year. The topic was, Life in a big city has more advantages than that in a small town. I was amazed with all the reasons all these students came up with. Now I'm torn where to live. Each debate last for 32 minutes, Starting with their constructive speech, of the affirmative and negative. Then the cross examinations. Then their 1st rebuttals, and another cross examination, and then each team's final rebuttal. Oh boy, it was hard work being a judge!