UNY English Debate Competition (UNITE) is a debate competition held by Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta in the national realm in the field of English debate. The debate competition has become a competition that is able to improve students’ abilities in terms of public speaking, critical thinking, logical analysis, and other skills. Each participant is encouraged to discuss and provide opinions related to updated problems in the fields of economics, society, politics, law, and technology. UNITE itself is a work program that was carried out for the first time this year (2022) by the Foreign Language UKM SAFEL and English Debate Society (EDS). The main theme used by UNITE at its inaugural event was “Build Your World Through Your Words.”
This first event was held on July 2-3, 2022 and lasted for 2 days. The date was set after much consideration of the pre-NUDC events and also the debate competitions held in June and July. Then, this first UNITE competition succeeded in bringing in 28 teams from 12 provinces in Indonesia. The Chief Adjudicator of UNITE is Christoper Tjia, with Deavina Christy as Deputy Chief Adjudicator. The CA and DCA were also accompanied by the adjudicators’ team who worked to complete the single peak day. Then, for UNITE implementers, the committee is chaired by Danial Hamdani and Yosefina Wea Dede.
UNITE itself is a debate competition with the British Parliamentary (BP) system where there are four teams in one room, namely: Opening Government, Opening Opposition, Closing Government, and Closing Opposition. BP itself is a debate system where there are 2 speakers in each team, the first speaker and the second speaker. Here is a clearer scheme related to the flow of the debate.
Focusing on UNITE activities on its peak day, where all rounds and competition schemes were held online through the Zoom platform. The special platform used for debate competitions is the herokuu website. Then, on day 1, participants face a prelim round where there are 3 rounds. After the participants finish with 3 rounds for the preliminary round, it will be followed by the knockout round, namely the Pre-Semi, where only 12 teams will qualify. Then, on the next day, is the pre-semi-final round to find the 8 teams that qualify for the quarterfinals, followed by the last 4 teams at the Grand Final. The grand final was a tense round where the title fight took place in this room.
The results of UNITE 2022 were immediately announced when the second day’s UNITE was over on July 3rd, 2022 through the Zoom platform. The first winner or champion of UNITE 2022 was taken by Frederick Rolan Aristito and Justin Gabriel Wibisono from Indonesia University Team A, followed respectively as first runner-up by Sabella Clara Yandinata and Vinay Tekani from Atma Jaya University Team B, second runner-up by Krisantus Danu Risianto and Jeremi Andrian Panjaitan from Sanatha Dharma University Team A, and overall best speaker by Frederick Roland Aristito from Indonesia University Team A.
Before the end of this article, we would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to the 28 teams or 56 participants who registered and contributed to UNITE 2022. Hopefully, this pandemic situation will soon end and return to normal, meet at Yogyakarta State University and meet UNITE 2023 friends! -Danial & Yosefina
