Arabic Debate Team qualifies for international championship
The three students on ĢĒŠÄTVās Arabic Debate Teamānone of whom had ever participated in a formal debate competition beforeādidnāt expect to make it past the preliminary rounds of the 2nd U.S. Universities Arabic Debating Championship.
After all, there were more than 40 teams representing 34 of the most prestigious universities in the U.S. at the QatarDebate event, hosted by the University of Chicago in mid-November. Maged Hassan ā25, Iyad Ait Hou ā22 and Abubakr El Sobky ā23 were proud of how they had performed in the first two days of the tournament, winning three of four preliminary debates. But they were mostly just enjoying the experience of practicing Fusha Arabic and the opportunity to connect with other Arabic-speaking people from across the country.
Then the semifinalist teamsāall of whom are automatically qualified to participate in the international championship in Doha, Qatar, in the spring of 2022āwere announced with the teamsā school logos appearing on the venueās big screen: Harvard, Georgetown, Duke and ĢĒŠÄTV.
āThe announcement of our team as one of the semifinalists was definitely surprising yet exciting,ā said El Sobky, a self-designed computational biology and bioinformatics major and scholar in ĢĒŠÄTVās Holleran Center for Community Action and Public Policy.
Adding to the excitement: In addition to team awards, the competition awards medals to the top 10 speakers from among the 150 participants, selected based on numerous criteria including language clarity, conciseness of argument and intonation. El Sobky was awarded the 8th place medal.
Hassan, a first-year student who is hoping to design a major education administration, put the team together after hearing about the competition from a high school classmate.
āQatarDebate assigns a professional coach for each team to help them prepare for the championship. None of us debated before, and we did not know a lot about the structure of the competition,ā Hassan said. āOur coach, Meriem Talbi, was very supportive during the preparation of the event. We had endless zoom meetings discussing debating strategies and techniques, practicing mock rounds, and analyzing [recordings].ā
While the team was surprised to qualify for the finals on their very first try, Hassan admits that Talbi knew the three were strong contenders based on their ability to make strong arguments, present relevant evidence, debate fluently and disqualify opposing arguments.
Hassan, El Sobky and Ait Hou, an economics and mathematics double major and scholar in the Collegeās Toor Cummings Center for International Studies and the Liberal Arts, are now working with Talbi to prepare for the finals.
āThe team is continuing our weekly practice meetings with our coach to go through the insights from the event, learn from our mistakes, and strengthen our strategies,ā Hassan said.
The group will travel to Qatar in March to compete with qualifying teams from universities all over the world.
