Speech contest
WHO'S GOING TO THE PREFECTURAL SPEECH CONTEST BABY? HELL YEAH!!!
*ahem*
All across Japan, junior high school students compete in English speech contests around this time of year. I helped coach three students from my school for the contest, and at today's district competition THEY ALL GOT PRIZES YO!!
So, let's talking English speech contest.
There are lots of criteria for a good speech: pronunciation, intonation, rhythm, audability, emotionality, confidence, naturalness, etc. English pronunciation and intonation are really, really hard for Japanese students, mainly because our languages are so different, but partly because the English education system doesn't focus on speaking. The bad intonation bugs me the most, because it's often something that their teachers have coached into them. It sounds so weird when their voices go up and down in pitch at all the wrong times. Actually, "weird" isn't the right word. "Torturous" is. And then there are the students with almost zero intonation, which is the default for Japanese students, but not so hot at a speech contest.
Pronunciation and intonation (ie. ENGLISH LANGUAGE ABILITY) are supposed to be weighed heavier than emotionality. I think last year's judging was kind of questionable--they put way too much emphasis on emotion and acting ability. It's no use crying and screaming your head off on stage (god, I hate the overacting) if I can't understand what the hax you saying. The judges were the exact same people this year, two Japanese guys and one English speaker, but now their heads are screwed on right, thank god. All the students they awarded prizes to deserved them IMO, and I'm not just saying that because my kids won prizes, although that's part of it (My kids are GOOD, and they were good last year too).
There were two categories to the speech contest: story recitation and original speeches. One of my third-year students, Yuka, got first prize for her original speech, and another third year, Erika, came sixth in that category. A econd-year student of mine, Mina, got third place in recitation. There were thirty-four students in all at the district competition. NOT BAD EH???
Yuka, because she came first in her category, will be moving on to the prefectural competition. I am so, so happy for her because she worked incredibly hard. The other two students did too (well, Erika kind of procrastinated, but she stepped it up in the end)--but Yuka was exceptional. She worked her ass off for last year's competition too. She didn't win anything then, but her effort certainly paid off this year. Her pronunciation has gotten very good, and her voice is clear and strong. She's not naturally good at intonation and emotional delivery, but she practiced hard to shore up those weaknesses. It also helped that her speech was genuinely moving--it was about her homeroom teacher who died in her first year of junior high. Thank goodness Japanese people LOVE sad stories. I nearly cried a couple times when I was editing that speech for pete's sake. Yuka said that she wants to become a teacher like her old homeroom teacher, so that makes a nice moral lesson about how teachers are supposed to inspire their students, ne? Er, I and Yuka's other teacher kind of wrote the moral lesson part of the speech, to tell you the truth. We knew that she needed some kind of comment on society to impress the judges. If you don't have it, you ain't gonna win.
Erika's speech was about accessibility for the handicapped, which was kind of an odd choice, since she's not handicapped and she doesn't really know anyone who is. I suspect she might have chosen that topic because of the "don't park your bike on the sidewalk" ads that have been on TV lately. The sidewalks in Japan have special textured paving on them for the blind to follow, you see. Erika's speech had plenty of social issues but not very much personal relevance, so we had to edit it quite heavily. Anyway, Erika has a lot of experience delivering speeches in Japanese and is apparently very good at it. She'd had tons of problems remembering her speech, but she did a great job at the actual competition, maybe even better than she had ever done in practice. Guess her speech-making ability came through. She's naturally got pretty good intonation and an excellent ear for pitch, probably because she's in the school band. Unfortunately, her pronunciation isn't very good, and she's not the hardest worker. Pronunciation is hard to fix, and it really takes a ton of long, steady hours. I would often help Erika to improve her pronunciation one day to have it revert back to the way it was the next day. I'm pretty sure she didn't practice at home very much until the end, or she didn't practice what I told her to practice. :( Her speech's difficulty level was also kind of ridiculously high, both grammar-wise and vocabulary-wise. I am SO relieved she didn't forget her speech. Erika was super happy too; she even started crying at one point after receiving her prize.
Mina, the second year student, recited a story called "Ms. Evans on the Titanic." The story talks about the tragedy of the Titanic and how one passenger, Ms. Evans, voluntarily gave up her spot on a lifeboat (and therefore her life) so that a mother could get on the lifeboat and stay with her young children. Yeah, another sad story. They're all sad stories. "Ms Evans" isn't even that bad--you should hear the one about Hiroshima. Anyway, Mina, as a second year, was at a definite disadvantage. Her pronunciation and intonation are good, especially for a second year, but judging by the kind of mistakes she was making, she didn't really understand what she was saying (Erika's mistakes, on the other hand, were really interesting, grammatically speaking. I think she has an intuitive sense of how English is supposed to sound). A lot of the students don't understand their speeches, actually, but that's a separate beef of mine. Mina is also a very quiet girl and it was hard to get her to grasp the whole "OMG ship is sinking I should start yelling now" thing. But after her English teacher gave her a DVD of another student who had done the same speech (the stories get recycled every year), she really ramped things up. Not as much as she could have--some of the other students were really good at the emotion thing this year without overdoing it--but still, I'm really proud of her impovement. I'm not particularly good at emoting either, so I know exactly how she feels. If she does the speech contest again next year, which I think she will, we'll have to get her to work on her emotional delivery even more. She's a hard worker, she'll do great.
Yuka and Erika are both on the school council, and up until a few months ago Yuka was on the tennis team and Erika in the band. Can you say overachivers? Mina, though, is just in the band, and is definitely shyer than the other two. It must have been tough for her to be hanging out with two older students from the student council who were already good friends to start with. Thank goodness Yuka and Erika are such nice girls, and encouraged her so much as her senpai. They're all sweethearts (and overachievers).
Other things of note...the kid who won first place in the story recitation category? Totally deserved it. The JET for that student's school told me the teachers were pretty anal about the speech contest there. Guess it pays off. Speaking of the other JETs in my district, they organized a giant Mario Bros. board game for the students to play with while the judges were deliberating. It was basically a trivia/English language board game, but they had sound effects and mushroom cards and a backstory about Luigi getting kidnapped and all that jazz. Yay for other people doing hard work so I don't have to!
One of the kids picked a really good story this year that I haven't heard before called "A Funny Job." Most of the stories are sob stories, but this one was funny and cute. A maid named Mary is given a list of jobs to do, which boils down to: "Put the lights out, draw the curtains, and dress the chicken in the fridge." So she takes all the lights from the hall and puts them outside, draws a pictures of the curtains, and makes a little dress for the chicken and puts it in the fridge. Her employers nearly fire her until they notice she also made a lemon pie. They like lemon pie. So Mary gets to keep her job. Sweet! A story that's actually about English without being about English! And the student delivered it very well and won second place. :)
And now I'm going to revise Yuka's speech for the prefectural competition. I'll start practicing with her again tomorrow. No rest for the righteous!
*ahem*
All across Japan, junior high school students compete in English speech contests around this time of year. I helped coach three students from my school for the contest, and at today's district competition THEY ALL GOT PRIZES YO!!
So, let's talking English speech contest.
There are lots of criteria for a good speech: pronunciation, intonation, rhythm, audability, emotionality, confidence, naturalness, etc. English pronunciation and intonation are really, really hard for Japanese students, mainly because our languages are so different, but partly because the English education system doesn't focus on speaking. The bad intonation bugs me the most, because it's often something that their teachers have coached into them. It sounds so weird when their voices go up and down in pitch at all the wrong times. Actually, "weird" isn't the right word. "Torturous" is. And then there are the students with almost zero intonation, which is the default for Japanese students, but not so hot at a speech contest.
Pronunciation and intonation (ie. ENGLISH LANGUAGE ABILITY) are supposed to be weighed heavier than emotionality. I think last year's judging was kind of questionable--they put way too much emphasis on emotion and acting ability. It's no use crying and screaming your head off on stage (god, I hate the overacting) if I can't understand what the hax you saying. The judges were the exact same people this year, two Japanese guys and one English speaker, but now their heads are screwed on right, thank god. All the students they awarded prizes to deserved them IMO, and I'm not just saying that because my kids won prizes, although that's part of it (My kids are GOOD, and they were good last year too).
There were two categories to the speech contest: story recitation and original speeches. One of my third-year students, Yuka, got first prize for her original speech, and another third year, Erika, came sixth in that category. A econd-year student of mine, Mina, got third place in recitation. There were thirty-four students in all at the district competition. NOT BAD EH???
Yuka, because she came first in her category, will be moving on to the prefectural competition. I am so, so happy for her because she worked incredibly hard. The other two students did too (well, Erika kind of procrastinated, but she stepped it up in the end)--but Yuka was exceptional. She worked her ass off for last year's competition too. She didn't win anything then, but her effort certainly paid off this year. Her pronunciation has gotten very good, and her voice is clear and strong. She's not naturally good at intonation and emotional delivery, but she practiced hard to shore up those weaknesses. It also helped that her speech was genuinely moving--it was about her homeroom teacher who died in her first year of junior high. Thank goodness Japanese people LOVE sad stories. I nearly cried a couple times when I was editing that speech for pete's sake. Yuka said that she wants to become a teacher like her old homeroom teacher, so that makes a nice moral lesson about how teachers are supposed to inspire their students, ne? Er, I and Yuka's other teacher kind of wrote the moral lesson part of the speech, to tell you the truth. We knew that she needed some kind of comment on society to impress the judges. If you don't have it, you ain't gonna win.
Erika's speech was about accessibility for the handicapped, which was kind of an odd choice, since she's not handicapped and she doesn't really know anyone who is. I suspect she might have chosen that topic because of the "don't park your bike on the sidewalk" ads that have been on TV lately. The sidewalks in Japan have special textured paving on them for the blind to follow, you see. Erika's speech had plenty of social issues but not very much personal relevance, so we had to edit it quite heavily. Anyway, Erika has a lot of experience delivering speeches in Japanese and is apparently very good at it. She'd had tons of problems remembering her speech, but she did a great job at the actual competition, maybe even better than she had ever done in practice. Guess her speech-making ability came through. She's naturally got pretty good intonation and an excellent ear for pitch, probably because she's in the school band. Unfortunately, her pronunciation isn't very good, and she's not the hardest worker. Pronunciation is hard to fix, and it really takes a ton of long, steady hours. I would often help Erika to improve her pronunciation one day to have it revert back to the way it was the next day. I'm pretty sure she didn't practice at home very much until the end, or she didn't practice what I told her to practice. :( Her speech's difficulty level was also kind of ridiculously high, both grammar-wise and vocabulary-wise. I am SO relieved she didn't forget her speech. Erika was super happy too; she even started crying at one point after receiving her prize.
Mina, the second year student, recited a story called "Ms. Evans on the Titanic." The story talks about the tragedy of the Titanic and how one passenger, Ms. Evans, voluntarily gave up her spot on a lifeboat (and therefore her life) so that a mother could get on the lifeboat and stay with her young children. Yeah, another sad story. They're all sad stories. "Ms Evans" isn't even that bad--you should hear the one about Hiroshima. Anyway, Mina, as a second year, was at a definite disadvantage. Her pronunciation and intonation are good, especially for a second year, but judging by the kind of mistakes she was making, she didn't really understand what she was saying (Erika's mistakes, on the other hand, were really interesting, grammatically speaking. I think she has an intuitive sense of how English is supposed to sound). A lot of the students don't understand their speeches, actually, but that's a separate beef of mine. Mina is also a very quiet girl and it was hard to get her to grasp the whole "OMG ship is sinking I should start yelling now" thing. But after her English teacher gave her a DVD of another student who had done the same speech (the stories get recycled every year), she really ramped things up. Not as much as she could have--some of the other students were really good at the emotion thing this year without overdoing it--but still, I'm really proud of her impovement. I'm not particularly good at emoting either, so I know exactly how she feels. If she does the speech contest again next year, which I think she will, we'll have to get her to work on her emotional delivery even more. She's a hard worker, she'll do great.
Yuka and Erika are both on the school council, and up until a few months ago Yuka was on the tennis team and Erika in the band. Can you say overachivers? Mina, though, is just in the band, and is definitely shyer than the other two. It must have been tough for her to be hanging out with two older students from the student council who were already good friends to start with. Thank goodness Yuka and Erika are such nice girls, and encouraged her so much as her senpai. They're all sweethearts (and overachievers).
Other things of note...the kid who won first place in the story recitation category? Totally deserved it. The JET for that student's school told me the teachers were pretty anal about the speech contest there. Guess it pays off. Speaking of the other JETs in my district, they organized a giant Mario Bros. board game for the students to play with while the judges were deliberating. It was basically a trivia/English language board game, but they had sound effects and mushroom cards and a backstory about Luigi getting kidnapped and all that jazz. Yay for other people doing hard work so I don't have to!
One of the kids picked a really good story this year that I haven't heard before called "A Funny Job." Most of the stories are sob stories, but this one was funny and cute. A maid named Mary is given a list of jobs to do, which boils down to: "Put the lights out, draw the curtains, and dress the chicken in the fridge." So she takes all the lights from the hall and puts them outside, draws a pictures of the curtains, and makes a little dress for the chicken and puts it in the fridge. Her employers nearly fire her until they notice she also made a lemon pie. They like lemon pie. So Mary gets to keep her job. Sweet! A story that's actually about English without being about English! And the student delivered it very well and won second place. :)
And now I'm going to revise Yuka's speech for the prefectural competition. I'll start practicing with her again tomorrow. No rest for the righteous!