Dear all,
Hello from a sunny but cold London. We are back with a set of questions that we have received over the last week.
In this week’s post, we are also bringing you one of our first bulletins that will give you a glimpse at the BEO centres for 2020. You can access it by clicking here.
If this your first time on the Forum, I would encourage you to have thorough read of Post 1 as well, which provides essential information & clarification concerning the technical set-up of the Drama Festival.
Finally, I would like to thank those of you who have confirmed the receipt of my email with your assigned country for BEO Country Spotlight & your BEO Portal login. If you have not done that yet, I would like to ask you to do so as soon as possible- it helps us ensure that my emails are not filtered as spam and that all future communication is smooth.
Best of luck with the ongoing preparation and do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions.
Regards,
Kamila & the Oxford International team
GENERAL
Question:
Skills workshops – will the debate be part of the workshops? Will they be able to practice their debating skills with other schools in the workshops?
Answer:
The skills workshops generally focus on BEO related communication skills but not on specific BEO competitions.
PRESENTATION EVENTS
Question:
We have been assigned a poor, developing country with a number of social and political issues, how do we even begin to incorporate travel and tourist highlights?
Answer:
The aim of the tourist highlights component of the event is to encourage students to research the country from multiple perspectives. Often, the developing countries or countries that find themselves in a social or political crux lead students to be overly critical and see solely the negative aspects. Students should think outside the box and try to find something that makes the country unique, beautiful and worth visiting (hypothetically) regardless of the current adverse situation.
Also, please note that nowhere in the criteria does it say that you have to spend 50% of your presentation on the tourist highlights; this section could be quite short and the main focus may be on the mysteries / legends.
Question:
What if we choose a legend instead of a mystery for our Country Spotlight event? You can explore the origins and give your personal opinion about the legend; but how do you apply possible explanation or the causes for a legend?
Answer:
I would say that looking at the origins of a legend inevitably includes the explanation of why this legend came to life or what / who / why created the legend. As long as students show some insight into these, they will fulfil the criteria.
DEBATE
Question:
What exactly is the duty / role of the advisors in the debate?
Answer:
The advisors effectively form a support team for the speakers. As they will not be involved actively in debating, they will have much more time to listen carefully to the others, make notes on what has been said and feed ideas and strategies to the speakers. They will be able to do this by passing written messages to the speakers and by discussing possible strategies with the speakers during set time. They may point out weak arguments of the opposing teams or areas that need to be clarified etc. Advisors should be those with good listening skills and analytical thinking.
CREATIVE EVENTS
Question:
Will we be able to move / adjust / operate the light source during the drama?
Answer:
Unfortunately, you will not be allowed to so. The light will be fixed, as described in the previous post, and it will be supervised and operated only by a member of staff for health and safety reasons.