St Finian's win German debating contest, again

Don’t start an argument with the students of teacher Kathy Jameson’s 5th Year German class in St Finian’s College, for they’ll root through their toolbox of debating tricks and use wit, humour, impeccable research and knife-sharp precision in their disembowelling of your strongest points.

Even worse: they’ll do it all in fluent German!
The team blazed a trail through round after round of the national Secondary Schools German Debating Competition sponsored by Siemens to emerge as overall winners last week.
“It’s the second win for St Finian’s in three years,” says Ms Jameson, adding that the class has an unblemished record of 12 successive debate victories from the two years (the school did not participate last year).
On the team this year were Nicholas Isdell, from Collinstown; Shauna Oxley, Milltownpass, Áine Weitzman, Castlepollard and Finn Brady, Tullaghan.
The first round of the competition saw the team meet Kilbeggan; they then met a team from Lucan, then a Cavan team, then Mount Anville.
The semi-final competition saw the team in action against a Galway school, in Galway, and last week’s final saw them up against Coláiste Íosagán and Eoin at the Siemens headquarters.

Social Media

Their toughest debating topic in the competition was that of the final, where they proposed the motion ‘That social media should be controlled more by the state to protect youth’. They were relieved that they were proposing the motion, since, as it happens, they think there should be more regulation.
“Social media is just another part of our lives and we see what goes on there and if that happened anywhere else in society, it would be controlled,” says Nicholas.
“I think there should be fines,” says Shauna, when asked about repercussions for those who break the rules.
Humour was one of the team’s winning strengths, they believe – and, says Finn, one debate in which they got to use humour to maximum effect, was one which asked if “the internet” should be taught as subject at school.
Doing their debating “auf Deutsch” doesn’t faze the youngsters at all.
Nicholas studied both French and German – but he found German came much more naturally to him.
He has, he revealed, a very tangible reason for devoting so much of his attention to attaining fluency in German:”My idea is I’d like to work in the civil service – maybe in the Department of Foreign Affairs,” he says, adding that his dream would be a posting abroad.
“I like languages in general,” declares Shauna, who hopes to study accounting and German. She also enjoys debating, and had done some English-language debating before her experience of tackling tough issues through German.
However, she revealed, the team prepared themselves well by doing a lot of research ahead of the competitions.
Aine admits that when people hear her surname, they expect she will have an advantage, as there might be German speakers in the family – but in fact this isn’t so and like her team-mates, she was starting from scratch.
“I love languages,” she says, saying that as well as Irish and English, she has also learned some French through her ballet. Áine hopes to teach home economics or to study law and German.
Also keen on languages is Finn, who hopes to make a career in the fields of either film or psychology. He was one of the 30 St Finian’s students who took part in a German exchange, and the week in Augsberg helped his fluency.
Ms Jameson reveals that there is great support given to languages at St Finian’s, and unlike many, students have the option of studying two foreign languages.
German is popular, and 85 students there will sit it in the Leaving Cert this year.