Speech Competition

This past weekend Lindsey and I were the judges for an English speech competition. The winners of the competition will go on to Chengdu, and then possibly Beijing to compete in the National competition on CCTV9 (the only English language station). The speech competition theme deals with the upcoming 2008 Olympics...as it seems everything in China does now.

There were three groups of kids, primary school, middle, and high school. All of the kids English levels were incredibly impressive compared to my students and simply for their ages. I just can't imagine assembling a room full of primary students in Syracuse who could converse at an Advanced level in Chinese. The competition went well but it was hard to eliminate some of the students. It was hard to see 'cute 8-year old buzz cut boy with glasses' and 'hyper active yellow shirt girl who I gave a fake phone number to' get knocked out of the running with a flick of our pens, but it had to be done. It was also a pain because there were three other judges, one of whom Lindsey and I assumed didn't even understand English. So, when she weighed in her choices, we had to give her the smack down to get the kids we picked declared winners. All in all it was pretty painless but it was sad to see some of the kids shed tears after they lost.

To partake in the competition all of these students had to attend classes on Saturday for three weekends, two of which Lindsey and I both taught (creating two very impartial judges). I went last week for the first time and stepped into the classroom of 25 Middle School age students with no concept of what they needed or what I should do. This has happened to any teacher that doesn't methodically write out all their lesson plans prior to class, so walking into class and winging it was nothing new for either Lindsey or I.

I taught the middle school students for the first half of our 2 hour class and Lindsey started with the primary school kids. The middle school kids were all really attentive and...still. They listened to what I was saying and asked good questions, even though the lesson I taught didn't help them at all and wasn't even relevant, in retrospect. Then, Lindsey and I switched at the break and I went to teach the primary school kids. The best word to describe a class of primary school kids forced to attend a full Saturday of English classes would be 'movement'. I wasn't bothered by the sheer energy that a room full of 8-10 year olds possessed, I just thought it was hysterical watching this 'sea of squirming'. Yet, after 20 minutes of trying to talk or teach them anything, I just divided the class into teams and started the greatest answer to filling 20 minutes of English lesson time, Hangman. The kids ended up loving it as much as my 20-year old students. It might not have taught them anything, but I made it to lunch and didn't have to try and hold any kids still in their seats.

Winner of the honorable 'Best Dressed' award.