Dear all,
Welcome to the BEO Forum.
The Forum is divided to 4 sections:
- General – includes information and questions about the competition in general
- Presentation Events – includes information about the BEO Country Spotlight and BEO Investigation
- Debate
- Creative Events – information about the BEO Drama and BEO Song Contest
- Mystery Events – information about the Mystery Challenge and BEO Improvisation
The Forum posts will by published once a week. You can submit your questions via email to kdolejsi@oxfordinternational.com and the answer will be included in the next post.
GENERAL
Please remember that for 2022 we have decided to allow varying team sizes (including teams above 20 students) and the overall participation rule (a minimum of 2 and maximum of 5 events per student) has been removed. However, for judging purposes and safety, teams still must respect the minimum and maximum number of participants for each individual event.
A friendly reminder to please fill in the BEO Essentials section on the Portal – we need the correct and full name of your team as you wish to have on the participation plaques.
Question: Do students have to have uniforms?
Answer: As per the written guidelines, some of the events the attire must be formal. That means students can wear either school uniform or Western business-like attire. As long as they do not wear for those events jeans and sneakers, they will be fine.
Question: Do the dorms where we will sleep have WiFi connection? If so, is it limited? / Will there be a room for the teacher or it’s one room per group? / Is there any lobby with internet access in the building where I can reach out after 10-11 pm?
Answer: Normally, all our campuses have unlimited WiFi in all indoor spaces. As far as accommodation is concerned, teachers typically do not share with the kids and where possible we try to give teacher individual room but I cannot guarantee that at this stage.
Question: Do students need to use the sentences “We will now begin our presentation” and “Thank you for your attention” for every challenge or just for the Country Spotlight and Investigation?
Answer: Yes, they must use these for all events – please refer to page 15 of the written guidelines.
PRESENTATION EVENTS
BEO Country Spotlight country is new for all teams participating in 2022 and you should have received it shortly after your registration.
Question: For the Country Spotlight challenge, are students allowed to include a creative piece, that is, to perform the legend or myth like in a theatre play?
Answer: This is a presentation event, and the students will be assessed with the presentation rubric in the written guidelines. So, while, they can get creative with it and include a short dance or a song, overall, I would recommend sticking to a presentation format.
Question: What type of technology will be available and allowed for the country spotlight challenge? It’s recommended that teams bring a team laptop — do we need to carry it around and use it for every single one of our presentations? If so, what happens if it breaks — can then we use a flash drive in another laptop?
Answer: There will be a laptop linked to project in every venue; for more info on the technical set up, please refer to page 16 of the written guidelines.
Question: For the Investigation Challenge: does the online news story need to be current (published in 2022)? Or could it be from a while ago?
Answer: The publishing time is not specified and has no impact on the assessment.
Question: For the Investigation Challenge, can students use Google Presentation or Prezi?
Answer: Please refer to page 16 of the written guidelines.
DEBATE
Your debate role can only be assigned when all teams have registered and been placed into competition groups; this is typically at about 4 weeks prior to the programme. You will receive the debate role from me. To get more information about the debate you can click here to get our guide to the Debate.
Question: In the beginning we were under the impression that the debate would centre around banning electronic devices inside the schools for all reasons. Upon closer examination we noticed the phrase, “personal use.” This assumes that students could use their phones in class to do research etc. Is that correct?
Answer: Yes, the assumption is that student could use digital devices if directed by teachers e.g., for a research project or some educational activity… the ban would apply to using for private / personal reasons e.g., social media etc.
Question: In the debate, do students need to “perform” their roles or just speak on behalf of each role — e.g., if they are assigned the role of parents, do they need to speak as if they were parents (in the first person)? Or as a group who represents parents (speaking in the third person)?
Answer: They can choose really; whether they decide to speak in 1st or 3rd person should not have impact on the information presented.
CREATIVE EVENTS
The shadow theatre component of the drama has been removed for 2022.
Question: Also, in the drama competition, we cannot speak, correct? It’s all acting without words?
Answer: No, students can speak, in fact they should. In the original guidelines they were supposed to use only shadow in terms of visual representation but even this requirement has been removed in the 2022 guidelines and it is a standard drama.
Question: Drama festival: If we want to take background music and/or sound effects, could we do it? If yes, what should be the format for it — flashdrive, CD, etc.?
Answer: It should be on a USB stick.
MYSTERY EVENTS
Question: How can the students can ‘prepare’ for the BEO Mystery Challenge and BEO Improvisation Challenge. As the Guidelines state that everything will be announced on the day of the event, is there any way the students can prepare ahead of time in regards to skills? Or should they just be prepared to be surprised with the challenges?
Answer: The best way you can prepare students is to work on effective communication and team-work; they need to know how to divide workload, how to help each other, how to work under pressure. It also helps that team know each other’s strengths and weaknesses – how’s good at math, who’s creative, who’s good at language so that they can divide workload effectively.
Question: Usually, are students allowed to use the internet for research during Mystery and
Answer: Improvisation Challenges?
No, usually they are not allowed to use the internet for either of these events.
Question: During the Mystery and Improvisation challenges, is there a clock in the room? Are students allowed to wear watches to manage the time?
Answer: There is typically a clock in room, student can wear normal watches (not smart watches) and there will also be a member of staff monitoring and informing them of remining time.
Question: For the improvisation challenge, will material (arts & crafts) be given/provided to students for them to create props?
Answer: If this is a part of the brief, then yes.
Question: I watched videos of mystery challenges from previous years and if I’m not mistaken students need to deliver a short presentation explaining what they “built” to the judges. If this is true, I would like to know if all participants in this challenge need to speak in this presentation or if some students can only work on the building part.
Answer: There is typically a short presentation but the content of it tends to differ based on the brief, which also states how many students can participate in the presentation.