Update from Central Asia BP training in Bishkek

The second day of IDEA Central Asia's intensive British Parliamentary debate training program has just drawn to a close in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Today's sessions were designed to give the program's participants (drawn from the most active debate clubs across Central Asia) a detailed insight into the roles and rules governing the proposition and opposition sides of a BP debate. Throughout the day the participants ensured that the trainers were kept on their toes with a steady stream of questions and requests for feedback on their performances during the program's morning practice debate.

IDEA UK's Alexander Cavell delivered the morning's training session, taking debaters step-by-step through a number of mistakes and fallacies that frequently appear in debate speeches.

Nurlan Abdaliev, IDEA CA's Master Trainer continued the day's activities with a workshop on creating proposition and opposition side cases for BP format debates.

Networking and new training methodologies
Over lunch, debaters took the opportunity to network and share their experiences of setting up debate clubs across Central Asia.

The day ended with an open training session that placed eight brave debaters in front of a judging panel comprising Alex, Nurlan, certified trainers Sherzod and Talant and the rest of the camp's participants. Run as a "decompressed" debate, the session saw the trainers pausing the debaters as they gave their speeches, delivering simultaneous feedback on their performance and encouraging the audience to analyse the debate as though they were judging the round. Index cards were used to create a moving map of the arguments and responses generated during the debate.

All of the trainers agree that the program participants are begining to demonstrate a clearer and more coherent understanding of the principles of BP format debating. In conversation with idebate.org, the trainers commented on the participants' growing ability to fulfil their roles when addressing difficult motions, and their rapidly developing awareness of argumentation and responsiveness.