QatarDebate organizes a training workshop on the basics of debate adjudication

Doha – Qatar Debate Center

QatarDebate Center – a member of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development – organized a training workshop entitled “Basics of Arbitration” aimed at preparing arbitrators during the period from 15-17 June 2020 from 3-5 pm Qatar time. 25 trainees participated in this workshop, most of whom are former debaters or trained in debating, but they are new to arbitration.

The workshop, presented by the center’s debate instructors, Mr. Mohamad Salman Ali and Ms. Nadia Darwish, was held on the Webex platform, and a practical proposal was made to ensure the quality of the arbitration of the participants, by defining a debate and attaching some of its questions in terms of justifying the result, selecting the winning team and determining the grades.

It was sent to all the participants, and they will be met at the end of June after the evaluation, and for an hour, in order to discuss the debate, analyze it and listen to their justifications.

Care will be taken to provide practical training to ensure that the participants apply the content of the workshop as well as to enrich the dialogue between them and give them the opportunity to experience the arbitration as a  preliminary  step to the arbitration in the official  tournaments. This would be done through training on how to analyze the speech of debaters and building the position of the two teams, methods of managing the debate, and how to deliberate between the arbitrators to determine the appropriate results.

Trainer Nadia Darwish indicated that the training program contains details of the distribution of individual grades and provide feedback to the competitors to help them gain a good experience in arbitration.

She added: “The workshop aims to rehabilitate debaters able to arbitrate in local tournaments held in Tunisia and develop their arbitration skills by participating in workshops and special practical training  hosted by the Center of Carthage in this field.

In addition, it aims at knowing the level of participants to develop their capabilities and work to meet their needs and their ability to justify the result and establish fair degrees for teams in order to achieve greater quality.

She also appreciated and praised the great interaction, enthusiasm and passion of the participants in learning about new skills during practical exercises about common logical fallacies and the cognitive biases which the arbitrator might make.

The participants praised the workshop and its results, and here are some opinions:

Instructor Mahdi Al-Adhari expressed his happiness at joining the workshop and its importance, and said: “I had the pleasure of participating in this session, as it added to me a lot of new knowledge related to the debate. Although I am proficient instructor for debates in one of the similar programs, I feel for the first time that I have gone a lot deeper in the field of arbitration, which directly affects the debaters and to know the accuracy in assigning grades and the sensitivity of this aspect, which, unfortunately, we may not find in some people.” He also added: “The workshop, God willing, will contribute to improving my performance as an arbitrator, whether in the field of evaluating speech or providing feedback.”

In turn, the participant trainer Munther Al-Yousifi said: “My evaluation of the workshop will combine the material and the methodology. In terms of the material, the introduction was rich and appropriate to the first level of arbitration. In terms of methodology, the submitted material was progressively chained and supported by realistic examples from previous debates with commenting on the most important points in numbering and repetition.”

He praised the center’s trainers and the information provided that indicates high experience and professionalism, explaining the intuition and integration between the trainer and the coach. Also, he highlighted the good ability to clarify ideas in different ways and answer all raised queries by voice and writing and request regular interference.

Adding: “Continuing to attend the three workshops is very important to enable the optimal application of arbitration skills in the events later.”