Welland Gouldsmith School has set the benchmark for conducting activities in such a way that the students not only enjoy but also learn a great deal from it. With the same perspective in view, the school organized an Interhouse Speech and Debate Competition on 6th July, 2017.
The first half of the competition was interhouse speech competition. The participants were from clsses 9 and 10. There was one participant from each house. The two judges were senior English teachers from Welland Gouldsmith School, Patuli and St. Paul’s School. The four houses had one participant each. All the four participants had given speeches from famous speeches from different plays of Shakespeare. The fluency and articulation was impressive. The judges as well as the audience were really “ impressed and enthralled” listening to all the four participants.
The second half of the competition was the debate. The topic for the debate was “It is a man’s world and it always will be.” The topic was very good and since we are a girls’ school we could easily connect with the topic. The girls from class 11 and 12 participated in the debate. Each house had two participants. One spoke for the topic and the other spoke against the topic. For many participants it was the first time that they were speaking in front of so many people but they still managed to speak well. The moderator for the debate was Mr. Jason Hart.
After the end of the debate, the two judges were asked to speak. Bothe of them said that they were highly impressed with both the debate and speech. They said that it was a very enriching experience. They also shared their views on the debate topic. They congratulated the participants for having the courage to come up on the stage and speak in front of such an attentive audience.
The results were announced. In the speech competition, the fourth position was given to Blue house, Yellow house got the third position and the first two positions were given to Green and Red house respectively. In the debate, Khushboo Chowdhury got the eight place, Unatri Dutta secured the seventh place, followed by Falah Ismail in the sixth place. The fifth place was given to Ashmita Saha, Hiral Shah secured the fourth place. Sufia Hasan was given the third place. The second position was given to Akansha Livingstone and Yukti Verma came first. She was also given the Best Speaker Award. In both speech and debate, Red or Hart house came second and Green house and Yellow house came first respectively.
In the overall championship, Red or Hart house came first, followed by Yellow , Green and Blue .
Competitions like this help the students to overcome stage fright and builds confidence and poise and most importantly to speak and think in English – which will hold them in good stead for the future.
Reported by : Sohinee Misra, Class XII – A
