2021 ブログリレー #2

みなさん、こんにちは!ブログリレー二日目となりました。今日は、帰国子女のKDS23期片岡実鈴さんに英語でブログを書いてもらいました!

片岡さんがディベートを始めて得たスキルや、KDSの魅力についてよくわかるブログになっています。

それではどうぞ〜↓↓↓


Table of contents

・Why I started Parliamentary debate

・Appealing aspects of KDS


Why I started Parliamentary debate

My parliamentary debate experience began when I was in high school, wandering for something worth spending time in my senior semester. Not knowing any rules of parliamentary debate, I was perplexed by the world of policy motions and impromptu speeches. Although I had experienced Model United Nations for approximately four years, I was just a small presence compared to the experienced debaters who spoke smoothly about social issues without any cheat papers. The characteristics of parliamentary debate appealed to me as I wished to give speeches that weren’t prepared months ago, or questions and answers that were considered by my own team mates. 

In parliamentary debate, the debate starts around 20 minutes after the debating motion is presented. This means debaters have to prepare for the debate in an extremely short amount of time, using common sense and the knowledge that they already had before the competition. It’s not about statistics, but rather about the logic and strategy presented by the debaters. This was a unique factor of parliamentary debate for me. Through practicing parliamentary debate, I was trained to give impromptu speeches and learned to engage with the opponents. Most importantly, it allowed me to become someone who can think about social affairs radically in terms of logic and governmental stances. I consider it incredible how much an individual can be trained through practicing parliamentary debate to give an impromptu speech that lasts for more than seven minutes. Through practicing parliamentary debate, I have challenged my academic thinking and gained the power of using words at the present moment to convince the judge, the opponent and myself as a debater. 

Appealing aspects of KDS

It is my conviction that Keio Debate Squad offers one of the best debating communities for undergraduate students. Not only is it an one and only English parliamentary debate circle in Keio University, but it holds numerous exotic debaters that will go down to posterity. It creates opportunities for us to debate with debaters with genuine talent, and thus gain full support and tips to improve our skills. As a result, skilled peers develop through friendly competitions and learn to become one of them, creating a circle of truly talented communities. KDS holds debating practices three times a week, using diverse range of debate motions that may cover religion, environment, policy, economy, health, discrimination et cetera. I believe that there is no better environment to start learning and enter the world of parliamentary debate. 


Join our practices!

-Mirei Kataoka

Japan Parliamentary Debate Union日本パーラメンタリーディベート連盟2021年度副代表、新歓担当