The Debate Team has recently competed in a competition on October 29 and 30. The debate team’s 19 members along with the supervisor, Dustin Zubert, competed against other schools. One of the senior members, Luis Barahona-Rivas, has been a part of the team for four years.

“I joined the Debate Team as I enjoy to debate and argue. I find it fun. I also have been wanting to join the team since I was in 7th grade. I’ve been a member for basically 4 years now,” Barahona-Rivas said.

Another reason people join the Debate Team is because they are able to talk about different social and political issues.

“I joined the Debate Team because I wanted to learn more about social and political issues that we deal with as a society. I also wanted to gain more confidence in my public speaking abilities. I was an extremely shy and quiet person when I first joined, but I wanted to grow as a debater and be able to think on the spot in front of people that I don’t necessarily know,” senior Shivali Chingre said.

The team started the second week of school, and they meet every week for practice after school. They even meet more to try and get more practice in. This extra practice has paid off because of their performance at the competition this past weekend.

“We meet every Wednesday, and I host Sunday meetings at the Lake Villa Library to get extra practice in. I feel like we are doing extraordinary. We’ve been winning awards since ICDA. Personally, I feel I’ve become better, and it’s been shown in chamber either through getting nominated or winning third,” Barahona-Rivas said.

To prepare for competitions Luis writes and then goes over his speech every day so he is able to memorize it. This strategy has been helpful to him because of his performance during the last competitions he has competed at.

“What I do is I write speeches weeks in advance and practice the speech and questions every day. Once it becomes a routine, I can memorize parts of my speech which leads to overall better performance. I feel like I did fairly well. I got nominated twice and I won third during ICDA. I’m filled with joy and excitement to see how I do in future tournaments,” he said.

Shivali prepares for competitions by going through her different packets and tries to go over different questions she could be asked.

“To prepare for competitions, I go through the bill and research packets and review the best possible points and arguments and compile possible questions that I can ask or could be asked during my speech. I then formulate speeches using those research points,” Chingre said.

Even though the team performed well during practices and the actual competition, members on the team think they can improve. Confidence to some is one area the team can improve in; it just has to kick in over time.

“I feel like the team needs to work on confidence more. Confidence is something I’ve seen some of the greatest debaters deal with It’s something hard that takes years to get in debate. Everyone eventually does gain enough confidence to the point where giving a speech is as easy as saying hi to a stranger,” Barahona-Rivas said.

The debate team had a lot of success at the weekend tournament they competed in. Senior member Shivali Chingre won best Presiding Officer in her varsity chamber.