Take part in the Auckland French Debate 2026

Second Edition!

Alliance Français Auckland is pleased to invite you to take part in the French Debate 2026!
The competition is open to all ages.

French debate

Tuesday, 2nd June 2026
4:00 PM
Alliance Française Auckland,
This free event is open to students in Years 11, 12, and 13.
Price : Free event

How to enrol? Please contact school@alliance-francaise.co.nz

A few pictures of our first edition :

Debate information:

Why should your students take part?

The event is free and every school is encouraged to take part! Prizes will be awarded, audience is welcome.

Based on research and experience, debating is an excellent way to develop language ability and thinking skills, to further enhance preparation for examination and to grow confidence in public speaking for university as well as for later professional life.

Debating is a highly motivational activity for students during preparation time prior to the event and can, additionally, boost student recruitment/retention for the study of French at your school too. Besides, it is a truly stimulating experience on the day for all participants, including accompanying teachers!

How does it work?

A team is made up of a pair who will jointly debate the two motions provided in this email below against pairs from other Auckland area secondary schools in a pool of usually 3 or 4 pairs in the knock-out stage of the competition.

The winning pair of each pool will then compete into the semi-final(s) and then in the final.

Schools can combine their Y11,12 or 13 students in debating pairs as they wish and see fit (ie: a pair can consist of pupils from the same year group or from different year groups).

Each school can enter up to three teams (6 pupils in total).

It is promising to be an inspiring event as well as good fun, please make sure your students don’t miss out!

The two motions your students need to prepare for the 2026 competition are :

Motion 1: Il faut interdire le plastique afin de sauver notre planète.
(Plastic must be banned in order to save our planet).

Motion 2: En démocratie, la liberté d’expression ne devrait avoir aucune limite.
(In a democracy, freedom of speech should have no limit).

NB: Pupils must prepare both sides (For and Against) for each motion.

Preparing the motions: Please note that competitors must always be prepared to debate FOR as well as AGAINST each of the TWO motions (in other words, in total, competitors have 4 sides to prepare: 2 sides for and 2 sides against. On the day, for each debate, competitors will only know at the last-minute which side of the motion they have to debate (see detailed rules below). For the final, competitors will need to prepare for an improvised motion with about 30 min preparation time. By that point though, teams will be “in the zone” and French will be flowing naturally!

Important rules about fair competition: For the sake of fair competition, native speakers, or near native speakers or more generally, students whose background of life experience provides a significant linguistic advantage are not permitted to enter the competition. This category typically includes families where French is spoken at home or having lived for a significant period of time in a French speaking country or been at a school where French is the language of instruction.