Student Contests of Rhetorical Art of Secondary Education

The Secondary Education Rhetoric Student Competitions are co-organised by the Philology Department of the University of Peloponnese and the Regional Directorate of Primary and Secondary Education (Junior and Senior High Schools) of Peloponnese.

The individual and group rhetoric competitions aim for students to develop their communication and language skills, cultivate creative and critical thinking, articulate correct and substantiated discourse with aesthetic value and practice democratic dialogue. The general goal of the Student Rhetoric Competitions is to promote rhetorical education as a means of strengthening students' speech and thinking. The peculiarity of the Peloponnese Rhetorical Region Student Competitions lies in the fact that they include competitions with topics from Ancient Greek Writing, intending to highlight the value of texts from antiquity to the present day.

Contestants participate in the following rhetorical competitions:

• Dual Arguments: In this team rhetorical competition, groups of three students (from different schools) are asked to argue for or against a topic.
• Impromptu speech: This short, improvised speech (lasting 3-4 minutes) relies mainly on the speaker's creative and associative thinking to delight the audience.
• Persuasive speech: This is a pre-planned speech (maximum duration of 6 minutes) in which the speaker aims to convince the audience of an important topic.
• Meaningful reading: In this competition, the speaker is asked to identify a passage from the Greek Secretariat's prose or poetic text.