Calcutta, Dec. 8: Empathy, storytelling, body language and argument. These are the four most important factors that tell a good debater from a not so good one, according to four members of the Great Debaters Club, London, at the Debate Workshop by Calcutta Debating Circle and Debating London UK, in association with The Telegraph.

The attributes were elaborated on during a workshop for school students at St. Xavier's Collegiate School as part of Calcutta's Festival of the Spoken Word 2016-17, presented by the Calcutta Debating Circle in association with The Telegraph, on Thursday.

Around 90 students participated in the workshop from schools such as La Martiniere for boys and girls, Loreto House, Modern High School, DPS Newtown, The Heritage School, Mahadevi Birla World Academy and St. Xavier's Collegiate School.

The workshop was followed by a debate on the motion "We need not be in a classroom to be taught".

Tony Koutsoumbos, the founder of Debating London and Great Debaters Club, along with fellow members Cameo Choquer, Ian Duveen and Kokila Civagnanam, divided the students in four groups and explained to them the basics of debating. Their colleague Alexandra Spencer took care of the logistics.

To explain the importance of empathy, they asked the students to imagine themselves as different characters - teachers, parents, a government official, a home-schooled individual and a student - before reacting to the motion.

They were made to narrate small stories from their lives and the others had to guess the morals that could be learned from them. Different pictures of Obama were handed out to the students and they had to guess what he was feeling or thinking by looking at them.

"Empathy teaches them how to get into the skin of a character, storytelling will make sure that they let the audience come to the conclusion on their own. Body language, too, plays an important role and we helped them learn the difference between assertion and argument," said Tony, who was impressed with the young debaters.

The debate that followed was moderated by Shankar Ramalingam of Calcutta Debating Circle.

Simran Dhir, one of the top speakers, was elated with the entire session. "It was an awesome experience and I got to learn a lot," the Class XI student of Loreto House said. Sumeru Mukherjee, Class IX, DPS Newtown, felt he had learnt debating basics.

The teachers, too, were happy with the way the workshop shaped up. Chitralekha De Bakshi, advisor to the debating club, Voice, and political science teacher at Modern High School said: "This workshop brought in a very different approach to debating."

Father Benny Thomas, the principal of St. Xavier's Collegiate School, stressed the importance of debating. "The beauty of a debate is how from being a debate it turns into a learning experience."

Cardiac surgeon Kunal Sarkar, of the Calcutta Debating Circle, said: "We have to speak, convey, articulate and get our thoughts across."