National Tamil Language Debate 2023

On 23 April, our Tamil Language Debate team became the first ever from Eunoia Junior College to win the National Tamil Language Debate competition, Sorsilambam 2023. The team, comprising Indhu d/o Ramesh (23-A1), Babu Meha (23-A4), Rajesh Chitradevi Akshaya (23-O2), Nandakumar Vishruta (23-O2), Rajasekaran Krithika (23-O5), and Sathiyaseelan Sadhanashri (23-U3), competed against strong teams from other JCs and emerged champions.

They hoisted the championship trophy on live television, a proud moment indeed for the team and for Eunoia. With no prior debating experience, the team battled through the prepared and impromptu segments of each debate, while still finding moments of levity amidst the late-night preparation sessions. We interviewed members of the team to learn about their experience:

How does the team feel about winning Sorsilambam?

We feel very proud, though overwhelmed by the reality that we have emerged champions! We also feel a sense of achievement as we created history by being the 1st team of Eunoians who won in the competition.

How was the road to the finals? What was your preparation like?

It was challenging yet exciting as none of the debaters have had prior debating experience. Time management was indeed an issue. We had to juggle studying, doing tutorials, attending CCA and all the preparation and practices for debate. The debate has two rounds, one prepared and the other impromptu. Thus, we found it a challenge to prepare for both rounds. With team spirit and encouragement from friends, family and teachers, we were able to better prepare ourselves for the finals. Eventually, we felt a sense of accomplishment for it felt like once in a lifetime experience. Teamwork, resilience and believe that we can achieve got us through where we are today.

The road to the finals was definitely challenging. We faced struggles in time management as we had to balance academic work with the preparation or debate. Besides discussing and writing the debate scripts, we spent time in refining them to make it better, updating the script when we got better evidence to support our arguments and practising our scripts with coherence and clarity, individually and as a team. It was mentally and physically tiring as we had to meet up every day after school and during breaks to work through different approaches to a varying multitude of topics for the impromptu debate round.

What was your toughest moment throughout the process?

We were worried about being able to generate points for impromptu round as the topics could vary. In addition, we must be able to think on the feet to refute the other team. With constant practice, we improved day by day as we deliberately reflected on the strengths and areas for improvements after each practice. Upon reflection, those moments are the memories to look back and it led us to our achievement in the end.