Why this initiative?
FOKAL
created in November 2017 a new notation system of speeches in the Karl Popper
debates. We worked one month to develop this new model which aims to:
a. improve the work of the debate judge by
providing him/her with the technical parameters to be noted in the speeches, on
which his/her final verdict is based;
b. improve the judge's concentration, forcing him/her
through this system to be more attentive to the speeches of the debaters,
without which he/she will be unable to note the various indexed parameters.
Beware of sleepers and distracted judges!
c. eliminate any subjectivity in the final
decision of the judges, since the victory is given mechanically to the team
whose total score of its 3 debaters is higher than the other;
d. avoid frustration of debaters and coaches, by
making arbitration more technical in order to silence the criticisms of each
other, to reduce the dissatisfaction of the coaches and the disarray of the
debaters caused by the decision of the judges;
e. finally satisfy the grievances of the coaches
whose debaters felt injured, right or wrong, by the old system.
How
is this system new?
The novelty of this system is a more detailed
stratification of the different elements of a speech to be taken into account
in the notation. The layered division helps to better assess the
characteristics of the speech and to better appreciate the debater's efforts to
meet the format requirements and the judge's expectations.
We have decomposed each speech into several
segments (definition; structure of
arguments; refutation of the opposite case; rebuilding of arguments ....)
and parameters (presentation ; strategy;
quality of arguments, refutation, reconstruction and evidences; summary of the opposite
case; clash points; stake of the debate; reasons for the victory...), each
of them being an evaluation marker determined by a scale of points.
We also added a penalty of 3 points to apply in
the following circumstances:
1. A team loses 3 points if one of the 3 debaters
uses hateful, anti-Semitic or racist quotes, or from authors promoting
violence, racism, revisionism or anti-racism or anti-values. The 3 points will
be subtracted from the overall score of the team given by the judge, and not
from the individual score of the debater. The whole team must take this blame
because we believe that the 3 debaters agreed together on the use of this
evidence in their argumentative approach. It will be a collective penalty, but
not individual.
2. A debater loses 3 points from his/her personal
score (independent of the total score of the team) if he/she has been aggressive,
dishonest or disrespectful in cross-examination. It will be an individual penalty.
3. A debater loses 3 points from his/her personal
score (independent of the total score of the team) if he/she presented a new
argument during the reconstruction of his/her arguments or during the final
speech. It will be an individual penalty.
On the other hand, the new system does not
tolerate a difference of 5 points or more, between 2 judges for the same debater
in a game. This has the effect to reduce abusive decisions, evaluations that
are too lax or too harsh, to bring judges' assessments closer to a more
harmonious, more balanced and fairer judgment of young debaters.
In this particular case, before giving its
verdict, the jury must verify that there is this difference of 5 points between
them. Otherwise, they will be obliged to modify the incriminated points at
their convenience. However, this reevaluation of the debater score must not in
any way change the initial vote of the jury that gave the victory to a team.
In addition, the lowest score a debater can get
from a judge is 15 points (instead of 20 in the previous model).
The first results
Our
judges, who participated in the tournaments that FOKAL has organized (2 regional tournaments, 1 debate camp) or supported (10
inter-school tournaments) since then in the country, are satisfied with the new model. Despite a moment of
hesitation or confusion in the first game of debate (that's quite
understandable!), they quickly adapted and familiarized with the new system.
This does not make the work of the judges harder, but preferentially makes
easier the evaluation of the debaters’ speeches.
More 150 judges and coaches in our national network have been trained to
this new notation system, from March to June 2018. A documentation kit has been
provided in support to all participants. These documents are available on
Google Drive at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BTXfmtnREefdR2ZRXe---UWlA9CzDv8E?usp=sharing.
This new model was officially introduced in
the two regional tournaments of debate in April 2018.
Since then, this new standard of speeches’
notation in the Karl Popper debate is the only one used in the official debate
tournaments organized by FOKAL in Haiti in its network. We share with our IDEA
partners this system partly based on the World School Debating Championship
(WSDC) rating standard, and we hope they will experience it in their own debate
program, otherwise have their advice and recommendations about that.
The WSDC in reinforcement
At the same time, we introduced the WSDC format
in our national debate program. In fact, a mixed team tournament was organized
at our 2018 summer camp to experiment with the format on a large scale. Despite
a few small adaptation problems, our young debaters quickly showed a certain
mastery of the WSDC, which will eventually become the reference format in our national
program.
Three reasons particularly motivated the
foundation to use this format of debate:
- offer a new challenge and another debate
experience to our young beneficiaries with this new format
- allow a come-back of our debaters in the international
competitions in Europe and also in Latin America, who use the WSDC widely
- put into orbit our project of international
competition in Haiti in summer 2020, in which this format will be probably used
More 300 young debaters in our network are able
to debate now in the WSDC format. We are going to extend it in all the debate
trainings for schools or student organizations that request FOKAL.
For
more information on the WSDC format in French, click on this link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Tt-BvG6qaGLqpHEGhT62a_g4cDNQ-Fu-
Now, our horizon is to organize an
international debate tournament in Haiti in 2020. We are preparing for it. You
are all already welcome! Be ready!
Jean Gerard Anis
Coordinator
of Youth Initiative Program
FOKAL
– A member of IDEA NL
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