Opening a debate club

Dear educator or student

If you have found this page then we assume you are interested in opening a debate club at your school or university. First of all, we, the Debating Society Germany e.V. exclusively organise events, leagues and tournaments for High School debate clubs. However, we do have very close connections with the VDCH, the organisation of universitiy-level debating in both the English- and German-speaking debate format. If you want to open debating there, please contact VDCH.

If you want to open a school's debate club in Germany we are currently putting together a concise handbook on the how-to, in order for you to facilitate the process of participating in any of the events we provide for High School students. For now, we recommend the best literature available on the topic, which has been provided by our event partner ESU (English Speaking Union) in the shape of two handbooks, which admittedly take some more extensive reading.

Before you visit the handbook sites please be aware that our society exclusively performs events in the World Schools Debate Format (WSDC).

The first manual we'd like to recommend is on opening a debate club itself. This step may not be as overwhelming as some passages indicate, but it gives you a variety of ideas you need to bear in mind, and also mentions a few challenges that may occur.

"How to Start a Debating Society" published by the ESU on ISSUU

The next link leads you to a manual on public speaking and debating. The DSG e.V. offers both formats, with the annual BBC/ESU awards for public speaking and any other debate event in the WSDC format in Germany. Please be aware that the procedures on debating indicated are not in full accordance with the WSDC format, but give you a very close idea of the process of debating in general.

"Speech and Debate Competition Handbook for Schools" published by the ESU on ISSUU

If you are only interested in the debate part of the book, you can skip to page 30.

For more on the WSDC rules and guidelines, please read here.

For a selection of online resources, see here.

If you prefer not to do all the learning through reading manuals, handbooks and guidelines, just show up at any of our debating events, meet up with us and teach your debaters the hard way most of us took: learning debating through debating and nothing else ;)

We hope we will hear from you soon and are looking forward to meeting you!!

Best regards,
Debating Society Germany e.V.