ESL & EFL Awards
Special awards are presented at each year's World Schools Debating Championships to the best-performing English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) and English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) teams. These awards are open to teams from nations where English is not an official national language. To be eligible for the EFL award, a team must be predominantly made-up of students who do not come from English-speaking homes and who do not attend schools where English is used as a medium of instruction. The ESL award is for teams predominatly composed of students who are not first-language English-speakers, but who attend schools where some or all of the teaching is in English.
The EFL award was instituted in 2005. Prior to that, there was just one award for teams from non-English-speaking countries. Before 2005, the WSDC rules stipulated that teams who reached the semi-finals or Grand Final of the championship were not eligible to receive the ESL award. When the EFL award was introduced, the rules were changed to allow teams who reach the semi-finals (but not the Grand Final) to be able to receive the ESL or EFL award.
Read more about this topic: World Schools Debating Championships