ASIJ hosts (and wins!) Debate Championship

During ASIJ’s debate season, running from November through February, students meet everyday after school to prepare speeches with their 3-person teams for weekly ‘practice’ debates. In early February, the Junior Varsity Debate team competed with schools such as St. Mary’s, Seisen, Yokota, Christian Academy of Japan, and Sacred Heart in the final tournament. The topic was “Advertising degrades the quality of life.”All thirty of our debaters improved their skills and their confidence dramatically.

The culmination for the Varsity teams was the Kanto Plains Championship, where the ASIJ Varsity A, B and C teams competed against St Mary’s and Seisen International School. This year’s topic was “Results are More Important than Character in National Leaders.” The competition was strong, but ASIJ dominated the evening, winning five out of their six debates, and taking the trophy home. Besides the championship, the tournament also awarded individual speakers with two types of awards: the All-stars for highest raw score, which went to Abhinav Tiku for A team and Melanie Xu for C team, and the speaker award, for a commended speaker, which went to Eleonore Desvaux for A team, Eve Sneider for B team, and Shir Cosijn for C team.

The JV competition, which included 24 teams from 6 schools, ended with Speaker Awards to debaters with strong performances in the finals. Yume Kashimura won a Speaker Award for ASIJ. Congratulations to the entire ASIJ debate team for a most successful season.

 Thank you to Coaches Dave Gotterson and Roger Onions, and congratulations to all students on the debate team for an excellent season! (Sonia Schlesinger and Eleonore Desvaux, grade 12 students)