English Speech Contest

Ok, so this week there is an English Speech Contest at my school for the grade 4, 5 and 6's. The grade 3's are next week. Anyways, I'm a judge in the contest, so my job is to listen to one group of students from each class in a particular grade and then ask them two interview questions based on the topic they speak about. Today, the grade 6's were the first grade to do the English Speech Contest, so all seven classes gathered in the gym with their teachers and watched the other students present. Along with me judging was Jiny, the 6-7 classroom teacher and the 6-1 classroom teacher. The students were judge based on fluency, speech, pronunciation and attitude. It was really hard to judge the students because most of them spoke English really well, which was a total mind blower for me because why don't they ever talk like that in their actual English class with me? Now I know who the select few are, so I can pick on them to speak English now. The contest started with Yeong the 6-6 teacher calming the students down and explaining the concept of the contest. Then the very strict prinicpal came and gave a 5 minute speech and ended up yelling at some students who were being disruptive duing his speech. Once he was done speaking the contest started. I have to admit that I was really nervous going up on the stage and asking the students questions because everyone was watching me and I had to make sure the students understood my questions. I'm not one for being stared at, so that is why I was so nervous, but I love public speaking, go figure. I would say that four of the seven grade 6 classes spoke English clear and with proper pronunciation, so that made judging difficult. Plus, some of the students answered my questions clear, precise and with good answers. It was actually surprisingly dificult to judge them, but one group stood out the most to me. They were three girls from the 6-5 class. They dressed-up, smiled, had a fun presentation and spoke English so clear I forgot for about two-three minutes (the length of the their presentation) that I was in Korea. I actually really hope they win. Anyways, I wanted so badly to document every minute of the Speech Contest, but wouldn't you know, my camera batteries were dead and the one day I didn't have the spare batteries in my camera case was today. I have them on the charger right now, so they will be ready for Thursday when the grade 5's present and Friday when the grade 4's present. I'm just really bummed because the grade 6's are one of my favorite grades to teach and I really wanted to take pictures of them the most, besides the grade 3's. Argh! If it's not one with my camera, it's another.

Ok, so I tried to take the best pictures I could of some of the speeches that were written for the Speech Contest. The top one is terrible. It doesn't even make sense written, imagine how it sounds spoken.

The second paper was one of my favorites. The topic was tough to write on when English isn't your first language, but it's worded properly and sounded good spoken. This group was one of the top groups in the contest.