Why speaking
A tutor can make one adult familiar. A room takes a room.
Weekly tutoring is one volunteer and one student. It is very good at homework, reading, and written English. It does very little for speaking in front of other people, because there are no other people in the room.
Plenty of our students read at grade level and still do not talk in class. Teachers who do not speak their first language end up forming an opinion of a student mostly from how that student sounds out loud — and the students know it.
Debate is one of the better-evidenced ways to close that gap. So we are starting small: one workshop first, then mini-camps and one-to-one coaching as students tell us they want them.
Three formats
Low commitment by design.
Most students cannot promise the same weeknight for three months. A program that assumes they can ends up serving the ones who could have managed anyway.
Workshops
Seventy-five minutes, one session, no commitment. Structured speaking with a script to fall back on — not competitive debate. Run monthly by one or two coaches. A student can come to one, never return, and still leave with something.
Mini-camps
Twenty to thirty students, six sessions over three weeks, ending in a showcase their family can watch. Three small groups, each with its own coach pair. This is the format with the most research behind it, and the one that produces something to show a partner.
One-to-one coaching
For a student going further: a competition, a scholarship interview, a speech that matters to them. Matched through EAL Connect the same way tutoring is, with contact staying inside the platform.
What sits underneath
A library anyone can use.
Format guides, argument frames, model speeches, and a glossary of the words debate uses oddly. Written by volunteers already signed up as curriculum developers and translated by the ones signed up as translators, so a partner organization in a state where we have no coaches can use it tomorrow.
Debate also produces written argument on the way to spoken argument. Students can publish that work in our journal and get a byline for thinking they were already doing.
Keeping it safe
The same standard as tutoring.
- Coaches are vetted and inducted exactly as tutors are, before they meet a student.
- Two adults on every group session, with no exceptions.
- No contact outside the platform.
- One named adult to raise anything with.
- Workshops are not competitive debate, and nobody has to speak in their first session.
Get involved
Coach, write, translate, or join the first workshop.
We are looking for coaches who have done speech, debate, or Model UN and can tell a nervous fifteen-year-old why their second point landed better than their first. We are also looking for curriculum developers and translators for the library.
Students: the first workshop is offered to learners already receiving tutoring. Tell your tutor or email kshinha27@punahou.edu if you want a place. To ask about a spot, reach out to vrisanshah@gmail.com or fill out the application form.
Apply for a spot Read the program guideEmail Vrisan
Supported by Equality in Forensics.
Start here
Learning to speak is learning to be heard.
Coach a workshop, build the library, or bring speech and debate to your school.