IT WAS SIMPLE but emphatic. 'We learn faster,' said Keith Leung King-ki, 17, 'in Cantonese.' Members of the audience nodded in approval. 'So, our school should not be an English-medium one.'
The Form Six speaker, the third and final for the Opposition, sat back to congratulations from the other two boys on his team. The audience, adjudicators for the day, duly returned their verdict and the motion, 'Our school should use English as the medium of instruction', was quashed.
'I was nervous at first,' said Keith, who, like the other students watching, had never taken part in a debate before, in English or Chinese. 'But it wasn't as difficult as I thought.'
The all-girl Proposition team accepted defeat gracefully. 'The boys did well,' said Joey Yeung Cho-yi, 18. 'But we enjoyed ourselves. It was very funny.'
The 25 students of the Buddhist Fat Ho Memorial College, a band three secondary school in Tai O, the small fishing village on Lantau Island, were being put through their paces by Sam Greenland, the English Schools Foundation's (ESF) first full-time debating officer.
Appointed earlier this year, Greenland has co-organised 12 debating workshops in local secondary schools since April, with more planned over the next few weeks. He also co-ordinates weekly open house competitions at King George V School, Kowloon, for students interested in fine-tuning their powers of rhetoric. These sessions, like the workshops, are offered free of charge.