About the English-Speaking Union:
Leaders in persuasive speech

The English-Speaking Union has promoted the use of debate since 1922, when we ran the first US-UK Debate Exchange, now an annual programme with a list of alumni including Edward Heath, Robin Day, Tony Benn, Norman Lamont and Leon Brittan. The ESU continues to promote public speaking and debate internationally through ESUs on every continent; through the ESU International Public Speaking Competition, the largest of its kind; and through a close association with the World Schools Debating Championships.

In the UK the ESU runs the national championships in debate and public speaking for schools and universities. The ESU Schools Mace, established in 1957, is the oldest and largest schools parliamentary debating competition in the world, with over 800 schools involved across the UK and Ireland. The 50th anniversary final in 2007 is the first external event ever to be held in the chamber of the House of Lords.

The ESU is the UK’s primary provider of training in debate. Between 2003 and 2006, supported by an active partnership of sponsors including the DfES, the ESU ran the London Debate Challenge, offering free debate workshops for staff and pupils to all 423 maintained schools in London. The programme continues to run an end of year London-wide debating competition. Last year teams from all 32 London boroughs took part, with an external study establishing a major and sustained impact in increasing the use of debate in London’s schools.

Our summer Debate Academy is an intensive residential course for young people. We also work with adults, refugees and new arrivals to the UK, and partner with organisations such as the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and the Department for Constitutional Affairs to promote the use of debate as a method of raising awareness of particular areas.

The ESU also selects and trains the England Schools Debating Team, and deploys the ESU Speech and Debate Squad, sending our best UK university debate mentors to support persuasive speech in ESUs overseas.

About the English-Speaking Union's wider mission

The English-Speaking Union exists to create global understanding through the shared use of the English language. We achieve our aim through conferences and seminars, scholarships and exchange programmes, debating and public speaking activities and our network of tens of thousands of members worldwide.

The young people who take part in our programmes nationally and internationally emerge better equipped to contribute to their society and to a better understanding of the world, by using a shared language to reach across the barriers of geography and traditional divisions.

The ESU in London works in partnership with over 50 ESUs worldwide, which have been established, since our foundation in the United Kingdom and United States
in 1918, in every continent; most recently we have seen rapid expansion in East Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America. The ESU is a registered charity, dependent on the generosity of our members, alumni, volunteers and individual donors and corporate sponsors. With their support, using communication to build trust, tolerance and understanding, we are taking advantage of the powerful currents of
twenty-first century globalisation to tackle social and educational exclusion and empower individuals worldwide.