59th Annual English Speech Contest!

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A very busy few weeks have passed. I've been working overtime about two hours a day for the last two weeks helping my students prepare for the speech contest. Since I work at two schools, it was a little bit difficult. I think one school definitely had an advantage because I have been working there longer this year. My students at the small school did not have as much time with me. Also, that school is not as into the speech contest as the other one.

Two students from each school participated. There are three different categories: 7th and 8th grade recitation, 9th grade recitation, and speech. I had students in all categories. From the smaller school, I had a student in the 8th grade doing a recitation (basically he memorizes a found passage and recites it). From the bigger school, I had a student in the 9th grade recitation, same as the 8th grade recitation just that they are divided into a different group. From both schools, one student entered the speech portion. Speech is when the students write their own original speech to memorize and recite. It usually turns out that the students first write the speech in Japanese, the JTE translates it to English and then my job is to fix any errors or make it sound more natural and use more appropriate words so that the English level suits the student who is speaking.

I was really proud of my students! The contest happened last Thursday and sometimes it feels like a competition among the ALTs since we are all the ones who are coaching our students on pronunciation and intonation, etc. I really don't see it as a competition among ALTs though because I am really only just focused on my students doing well and frankly, having enough confidence to go up there and do their speeches. When I was in elementary school in the Philippines I did speech contests in English and Tagalog and I remember how nerve-wrecking it was to go up in front of everyone and do a speech. I am way different than my Japanese students who can be really shy at times and just lack the self confidence. So part of my job was really to cheer them on and encourage them to do their best.

Two of my students won runner up prizes! My 8th grader who actually didn't want to participate in the speech contest won 4th place in his category. He looked pretty surprised when his name was called at the end. My student from the bigger school won third place in the speech category. I only take part of the credit for their wins, my speech student is such a good student and she memorized her piece early and practiced a lot on her own before school. As for my 8th grader, I do take credit in choosing him to take part in the contest. I had suggested him to my JTE to do the speech contest because I knew he was really good at speaking English and was a pretty good student. I am already scouting good English speaking students for next year's contest. That should be a hint...I am strongly thinking of staying another year in Japan. I know my second year has barely started, but working at one new school makes me think of how much more I could do and how much I can be involved after being here another year. We'll see what happens though. For now, I'm enjoying the speech contest being over and having more free time to go to Japanese lessons with my tutor and also the play will be starting up again soon so that should take up a lot of time.

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Photos

my speech contest students
everyone gets a certificate, but Maari got one of the four runner-up awards.

Comments

[Karen Anderson]

Congratulations!
How satisfying to see the results of your teaching efforts. Yes, you should take some credit for your students' success in the speech contest. And now do something fun with your free time - maybe camping again? Yikes!

[kayama maryjoy]

i don`t know how to start..T_T
hi,goodevening!I`m kayama maryjoy from ooizumi highschool...,i`m wiiling to participate to the english speech contest this year but i still don`t know how to start writing..,could you give some advise please??..

[Christopher Panjaitan]

My experience in participating a speech contest
When I was in my second semester on my campus, I participated in an English Speech contest held by Education Faculty. I was speaking about "7 critical clues to be a successful person" in front of my fellow friends and lecturers. It was my first time as I had never done so when I was in high school. My motive to take part in the contest was to challenge myself and was trying to get rid of my nervous mannerisms. I did achieve my motive and of course I won the second place. By the time I'm writing my experience here, I'll be having my another English Speech contest next week. I haven't had any idea of what I'm going to speak about yet. I wish to speak about something serious, but Im afraid that my fellow friends won't understand as most of them are lacking of understanding of English. (we are from non-speaking English country, Indonesia).