CIS Students Win interschool French Debating Competition

Last November, two CIS teams participated in the interschool French debates aka Les Joutes oratoires. Competing via Zoom, both teams demonstrated expert communication skills and patience - even when some technical glitches happened. Debate topics this year were around the environment, migrants, and pandemic lockdowns.

Students Kieran L and Tom D B won the "native speakers'' category while Swara and Ericka reached the semi finals in the "language acquisition category. This is the second time CIS has won the cup. Our first was back in 2018.

“The competition was a stressful yet rewarding experience,” explained Kieran and Tom. We spent weeks before the debate researching and composing our arguments both for and against our 3 topics. Although the process was stressful, it enabled us to discover new, interesting ideas to argue our stand.

“When the day of the debate arrived, we were so nervous we jumped up and down, and screamed into our fists minutes before the event. In the finals we were against a single opponent (her partner was unable to join us at the last minute)." This, however, did not affect the quality of her points and the tenacity of her rebuttals, continuously challenging our points and team cooperation.

“Thankfully, we managed to respond to all her comments and pointed out her arguments' flaws. We were ecstatic when we found out that we had won and started to jump up and down again - this time out of joy and pride. All in all, it was a great opportunity to develop our analytical and persuasive skills. We are so proud of all the hard work we put into this day, and how it paid off. We are glad we undertook this opportunity as it allowed us to develop our French-speaking fluency through debating and arguing about a topic in French, an experience that we rarely have. Thank you to everyone involved in the process for helping us make this victory achievable. 

To find out more about CIS and our foreign language opportunities contact our admissions team on +65 73 8088 or visit www.cis.edu.sg/learning/languages