Debate - WUDC - Sex in Advertising - Serbia Debate Academy Final 2010 from Alfred Snider on Vimeo.
This is the final round of the Serbia Debate Academy 2010.
Motion: This House would ban all advertising that uses sex to sell.
First prop: Victor Prija & Slobodan Trivic
First Opp: Teo Radetic & Marko Krajnc
Second Prop: Petros Papaliardis & Fabian Farkas
Second Opp: Goran Januloski & Tijana Mijalkovic (first place)
Students from China who participated in the "bridge" program stand in from of the Vermont state capitol
A program sponsored by the University of Vermont and Kaplan Centers has brought 28 Chinese students to the University of Vermont for a ten week program. These students prepared last year to study this fall in USA universities, and this "bridge" program in the USA at the University of Vermont was designed to complete that process before the students enroll at the university in the fall.
Continuing Education at the university was involved in designing and implementing the program, and thought that a great last step in this program would be to teach them how to debate. Thus, they called on the World Debate Institute to design and implement a program for the last week of the bridge summer term. "It seemed clear to them and to me," said instructor Alfred Snider of the World Debate Institute, "that if they can debate, then they should also be able to participate in the classroom, asking and answering questions, making presentations and participating in seminars. After being in debates where your positions get attacked logically and where you have to answer difficult questions, most classroom situations will be something that they can handle."
The students learned the World Universities Debating Championship format, engagedf in public speaking, argument construction and related drills, and then participated in four debates. "I think it was learning the brainstorming process that may have helped them the most, because they saw academic creative thinking as it should be -- logical and organized. Plus, they were pretty good at it," said Snider.
The program used undergraduate debaters as tutors and also created friendships and bonds between students that will help them get oriented in a new environment. "I hope some of them will join the debate team," said program English tutor and star debater Sarah Anders, "and several of them have already indicated that they will."
There are plans next year to expand the program and include college bound high school students as well.
Finalists: Goran, Fabian, Petros, Slobodan, Viktor, Marko; Tijana and Teo in front
The Serbia Debate Academy was sponsored by Open Communication Serbia, The World Debate Institute at the University of Vermont, the US Department of State and the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe. It concluded with a tournament on Friday.
It was quite an international event, with debaters from Serbia, Greece, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Romania and the USA. The final round involved students from Serbia, Greece, Germany and Slovenia. But the Serbs prevailed.
Goran Januloski and Tijana Mijalkovic won in front of the entire crew and a seven judge panel chaired by Stephen Boyle from Ireland. The team of Petros Papalianos and Fabian Farkas placed second. The other two teams were Marko Krajnc and Teo Radetic of Slovenia and Victor Prija and Slobodan Trivic.
Semifinal Results:
BUSINESS TIME (1) 1OPP advances (0n 3-2 vote over 1st Prop)
HONEYBUNNY & BOOBEAR (USA) (4) 1PROP
ALPSKI SRBI (5) 2ND PROP advances
FRANZ FERDINAND (Austria) (8) 2OPP
JUDGES: MILAN (CHAIR), MANOS, MARKO, JOVANA, NEBOJSA
In the cool mountains of southern Serbia, in a tiny town call Brzece, the 2nd annual Serbian Debate Academy has begun. The instruction is in English and Serbian, for university students, and the debate format used is WUDC. The program is sponsored by Open Communication Serbia, the World Debate Institute of the University of Vermont, the US Department of State and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The first night featured a welcome and then a demonstration debate on the motion, This House belieces that governments should hide evidence of contact with extraterrestrials. The debate featured famous Irish debater Stephen Boyle and Slovenian debater Anna Kerr as first prop, Serbian stars Milan Vignevic and Marko Cirovic (cleared at ESL WUDC and ESL EUDC) as first opp, WDI director Alfred Snider along with Manos Moschopoulos (top ESL debater in the world at last WUDC) as second prop, and reigning WUDC ESL champions Maja Cimerman and Filip Dobranic as second opp.
The first three full days will have two lectures, an exercise period, elective classes (students pick from five offered each day) and two critiqued practice debates each day. The event takes place in a lovely mountain valley in three small ski lodges with some debates and other events taking place by babbling springs and lovely trees. The program is divided into beginner and advanced tracks in English, a judge training track and a Serbian language debate track.
The program will end with a six round tournament, semifinals and finals. Evenings are full of frivolity and good times as is traditional at Serbian debate camps.
Watch for videos of lectures and debates along with the tournament results.
Attendees are from Serbia, Slovenia, Greece, Germany, Austria and the USA.
