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The following is issued on behalf of the Standing Committee on Language Education and Research:
The Standing Committee on Language Education and Research (SCOLAR) invites entries to its debating competition for junior secondary students to be organised for the first time in this school year.
The "SCOLAR Debating Competition for Junior Secondary Students" aims to raise the students' motivation for language learning, better train their skills of language usage (in particular in listening and speaking), sharpen their logical thinking capability and organisation skills, as well as help them build up their self-confidence and a sense of team work.
"This competition differs from the conventional ones. Two special sessions, namely 'Q&A by Designated Positions' and 'Think-tank Challenge', will be included in the competition, with the aim to better train the logical thinking and responsiveness of students. Participating students are expected to provide immediate responses to the arguments and rebuttals raised by their opponents in the two special sessions," a spokesperson for SCOLAR said today (October 19).
"This could encourage more interaction between the affirmative and negative sides during the competition that to meaningfully achieve our objective on training the students' language skills and analytical mind," he said.
Students from Secondary One to Three should form teams on a school basis under four districts, namely Hong Kong, Kowloon, New Territories East and New Territories West. The competition will take place from February to July, 2006. Participating teams will go through three rounds of preliminary contest within districts, and the two winning teams in each district will enter the inter-district competition in the quarter-finals. The grand final will be held in July, 2006.
SCOLAR will also organise a series of debating workshops for teachers of participating schools to strengthen their training skills in debating and enhance their knowledge on using debating in language teaching. SCOLAR will arrange other debating training sessions for teachers with the Task Force of Language Support of the Education Manpower Bureau.
The competition will be conducted in Cantonese. Enrolment starts today and are open until until November 7. Enrolment forms and competition guidelines are available at the SCOLAR website at http://www.language-education.com. For further enquiries, please contact the SCOLAR Support Unit at 2892 5902.
Established in 1996, SCOLAR advises the Government on language education issues and on the use of the Language Fund.
Ends/Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Issued at HKT 14:35
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