Preserving the art of public speaking

Preserving the art of public speaking in the age of social networks – what a challenge! But ESSARP (the English-Speaking Scholastic Association of the River Plate) marked their centenary in style at the British Embassy residence last Tuesday with the final of this year’s Argentina National Public Speaking Competition, also organised by the English-Speaking Union (ESU) – a later arrival in Argentina some 40 years ago on the initiative of St. Catherine’s Moorlands school co-founder Mabel Mazzini.

The event commenced with some remarks by British Ambassador David Cairns hosting the competition on the various learning curves required for public speaking. Then followed an introduction by ESSARP President Ian Tate (a former headmaster at St George’s Quilmes), who explained how the contest was making its first comeback since 2019 after a long hiatus imposed by the pandemic lockdown. Despite the growing dominance of digital expression since then, there were more contestants than ever, he reported – 37 secondary school students, narrowed down to a semi-final dozen on Monday and the six Tuesday finalists.

The competition was then prefaced by a video on the ESSARP centenary (last March 18, to be exact) before the speeches began – five minutes each, followed by three minutes for questions from a panel trio and the audience at large, all judged by Joanna Richardson, María José Montenegro and Sebastián Iribarne.

The topic chosen for their speeches could hardly have been more random. One might have expected something like “The benefits and dangers of Artificial Intelligence” or “The central role of fossil fuel energy today versus climate change” or “The populist challenge to democracy.” But no – the teenagers were asked to build their speeches around the haiku: “The light of a candle is transferred to another candle – spring twilight.”

The speakers were remarkably successful in adapting these inscrutably Oriental words to their young Argentine lives, mostly on the basis of expanding on transfer between generations. Each of them was as good as the other with possibly one exception in this reporter’s opinion although there could only be one winner – Juan Cruz Labombarda, making a distinction between inheritance and legacy. They were all also strikingly good at thinking on their feet in the question session – some of their responses were even more interesting or profound than the contents of their speeches.

Catalina Badaracco, Bautista Casabal, Bianca Loreta Palamenghi, María Josefina Touron and Santiago Verriotis completed a talented sextet raising hopes that all is not lost, not only for public speaking but also a younger generation facing unprecedented changes.