HUFS and Korea’s premier 24-hour news channel YTN jointly hosted the 8th YTN-HUFS Elementary School English Debating Championship in a contact-free manner. The two-day online competition began on February 12 (Saturday) and ended the following day. Held online for the third year in a row since 2020 in compliance with COVID-19 precautionary regulations, this year’s event witnessed an impressive 40% increase in the number of participating teams from the previous year. A total of 71 student teams joined the event, including 51 teams in the international league tournament and 20 teams in the domestic league tournament, competing in a series of intense debates for the Championship.

Following the Championship’s schedule, all participating teams went through three preliminary rounds on the first day (February 12, Saturday), with the best teams advancing to four final rounds on Sunday to fully assess their debating skills. The ‘Superb Team’ title was given to teams that won all four debates in the final rounds after the preliminary competition, while the ‘Excellent Team’ title and ‘Exceptional Team’ title were awarded to teams with three wins and two or fewer wins in the final rounds, respectively.

The organizer arranged the competition to cover seven topics relating to current issues, with motions on the environment, science, family, education, media, and law and justice, in the preliminary and final rounds, thus helping participating students practice their debating skills on these issues of common interest.

This year’s  Superb Team title went to Team ‘Archive’ (Kim Bo-Ryang, Kim Yoon, Cho Gang-Woo, and Hwang Seo-Hyeon) in the international league tournament and Team ‘Your Worst Nightmare’ (Kim Joo-Yeong, Ryu Ga-Eun, Shin Chae-Min, and Han Song-Yeon) in the domestic league tournament.