How to adjudicate a debate

The WCDS has always tried their best to give something back to debating in Sri Lanka, atleast to try and match what it has given all of us here at the WCDS.So for the second time, we decided to host a workshop on debating for members of interested institutions.This years workshop was titled "How To Adjudicate A Debate" and was held on the 7^th of July 2010.As the title suggests this workshop was on how to effectively judge a debate held in the World Schools format and was conducted by the Debaters' Council of Sri Lanka.The aim of this program was to educate both students and teachers on the finer points of how to judge a debate so as to improve the standard of debating in Sri Lanka, specially in the intra school level.The workshop itself was an immense success and had many positive reviews from the teachers and students of invited schools, fellow debaters from Wesley and the DC.The institutions that were invited included:

• Royal College
• Visakha Vidyalaya
• Colombo International School
• Ananda College
• St. Bridgets College
• Bishop's College
• St.Thomas’s College
• Methodist College
• Ladies' College
• Royal institute
• Museaus College,
• DSS College
• Trinity College
• Hejaaz International
• Alethea
• Holy Family Convent, Bambalapitiya
• Anula Vidyalaya
• Arts Faculty (Colombo University)
• Law Faculty (Colombo University)
• Moratuwa University

Although not all institutions invited participated, the workshop itself was quite a success bringing together a captive audience of over 100 delegates.We wish to thank Ladies College for accepting our request and invitation to debate against us at the mock debate held at the workshop.The topic debated was "THBT the payment of dowry should be criminalized".A very Special thanks goes out to the Debaters Council who accepted our invitation to conduct the workshop.Particularity Mr.Anisha Yasaratne (President of the DC) for extending his fullest support for this venture and Miss.Shamalie Jayatunge and Mr.Shan Danthanarayana for the
excellent lectures they provided at the workshop.(see photographs below)















Also great big thankyou to the interact club of Wesley college for the assistance they provided to make this even a success.
We hope both teachers and students who participated found this workshop as helpful as we in the debating team did.

Maleen.