With over ten thousand participants world-wide, the Ambassadeurs en Herbe competition puts every contestant’s oratory skills to the test, judging them on a number of things that you may recall from/will learn in PPP (Prise de Parole en Publique). Any French school in the world willing to participate has to choose five people from their school to represent them in the semi-finales arranged by world zones. If selected, five winners from each zone travel to compete in the final tournament in Paris!
The LFNY team in Ottawa.
Each debating team is composed one CM2, two 5èmes, and two 2ndes, each with different roles. The different roles include Jouteur (three jouteurs; one from each level), who give speeches and have to answer questions and participate in the debate. There is also a modérateur, who listens to all speeches, asks questions and keeps the debate going. Finally, there is one médiateur, who listens to the entire debate, and at the end has to translate and summarise all arguments in a three-minute synthesis speech.
This year, the LFNY team was comprised of Selin N. (CM2) who was the jouteuse primaire, Margherita M. (5e) who was the médiatrice, Julien G. (5e) who was the jouteur collège, Laura M (2nde) who was the jouteuse lycée, and Victor D. (2nde) who was the modérateur. Teachers Marie-Hélène Brabant and Ginger Garcia created the selection process, placed us in our roles and coached us on techniques of speaking and creating arguments.
Debating about inequalities in education and at the workplace
On Thursday, March 20th, the official LFNY Ambassadeurs en Herbe team set out to Ottawa, Canada, where the semi-finals of the North America zone took place. The theme of this tournament was Inequalities in education/work between girls-boys/men-women. Once we landed in Ottawa, we went straight to a small gathering where we got to meet the other teams and listen to a speech prepared by the Ambassador of France in Canada himself. Below is a video about the 2014 semi-finales in Ottawa.
The first team that we faced was the Lyceum Kennedy team. Our great research, our coaching, our awesome teamwork, and our peer support really helped us prevail other the adversary team. Three of the LFNY students (Victor, Selin, and Margherita) continued on to the second round. Two Lyceum Kennedy girls replaced Laura and Julien, for the jury doesn’t choose whole team, but rather the best individual of each role. For example, Selin faced the other CM2 jouteuse. The jury watched the debate and chose the best one, who continued on to the next round. They did this for every role and that is how they made new teams and chose the winners.
The winners will be going to the Finales that takes place at the headquarters of UNESCO in Paris from May 11 to 15, 2014. Crédits photo : Ambassade de France.
With this newly founded team, we then set out to beat the other newly founded one, with people from Lycée de Rochambeau and Lycée Français de San Francisco. All three of us from LFNY continued to the finals, yet we lost the two girls we had acquired before, and gained two new ones from Lycée Français de San Francisco. This composed the official U.S.A. team, competing against the official Canada team.
The final debate took place in the school’s auditorium, in front of everyone who had been eliminated and some children from the school as audience members. We all fought well and hard, and even though we all deserve to get selected and go to Paris, only one of us did; Margherita M. (a.k.a myself). I will now go on to the finals in Paris in May, and we will hope for the best.
I feel very excited that I got this far; I didn’t even think I was going to get selected for the school’s official team! However, I am also grateful that I got to participate in Ambassadeurs en Herbe. The experience was amazing. We got to meet the Canadian Ambassador from France, take part in debates (which I personally love), and fly to Canada. It was also amazing how all of us, even though we have very little in common, connected and supported each other.. It was simply so much fun!
The theme of the finales in Paris is: climat et responsabilité : des idées, de l’ambition, de la créativité pour changer demain.
Learn more about this event on the official site here.
About the Author :
Margherita is a LFNY student graduating in 2019.