World Schools Style Debate - Role of Each Speaker

Role of Each Speaker

First speaker of the Proposition

The role of the first speaker is to open up the case of the proposition. That means he presents his side's opinion and arguments. Furthermore, he gives a definition of that motion, in order to prevent any confusion caused by the motion, which might lack clarity. The first speaker also sometimes gives a status quo or an analysis of the current situation regarding that issue (mostly in policy-debates) to show the problem the side Proposition wants to solve, or the situation the side wants to improve etc.

First speaker of the Opposition

His duty is to rebut the arguments given by the Proposition, meaning to show why it isn't or can't be true what "they" claimed. He can either give a counter-case regarding that motion or just decide to try to argue against the motion. When arguing against the motion, it is optional to give own arguments, as it would be sufficicent to just rebut the arguments or the case well enough.

Second speaker of the Proposition

His role is to rebut the arguments given by the other side. Eventually, he can continue with his team's case and gives more arguments.

Third Speaker

The third speaker has to re-structure the whole debate, filter the key issues of the debate and give a rebuttal. As this position is also called the "rebuttal-speaker". his main objective is to prove the other team wrong. He should preferably deepen the analysis of the rebuttal. A good speaker also does case rebuild in the end. There they go into the rebuttal of the other side and show why the rebuttal was wrong or didn't touch their own arguments.

Reply speeches

World Schools Style debates include an additional speech from each team, called the reply speech (sometimes known as the "right of reply"). This is a short, four-minute speech given by either the first or second speaker from the team, and presented in the opposite speaking order to the rest of the debate (i.e. the Opposition deliver the first reply speech, followed by the Proposition). The roles of the reply speech are to:

• Outline one or more points of contention that the debate has centred around;
• Evaluate the course of the debate;
• Declare the reasoning of their team's victory.

The reply speech is sometimes referred to as being a "biased adjudication" of the debate, because its format is similar to that of an adjudicator's oral feedback on the debate, but with the purpose of convincing the audience that the speaker's team was victorious. The retrospective nature of the reply speech means that no new material may be introduced in this speech.