I spent yesterday being one of 8 judges at the Provincial Speaking Competition Final (7 Professors and the obligatory foreigner!). With 36 contestants from all over Yunnan, it was a long affair - we started at 7.30am and finally finished for "lunch" at 3.00pm. I was asked to be the Question Master, posing an appropriate follow-up question based on their prepared speech and before their impromptu speech. So no chance to "drift off" either!
Before it all started, we were given a complex briefing on the elements we should be judging on (content appropriateness, fluency, body language, grammar, pronunciation, speech structure, intonation, confidence, etc) but then told that actually it was only necessary to give ONE overall mark, and it had to be 70-95%!? The topic was "The Challenges of 2020" and most talks focused on COVID-19 and how wonderfully the Chinese people have coped with it! The Oral English standards were pretty high though, and nobody "dried up". The three top candidates now go on to National Finals in Beijing.
This was my favourite opening...
Before it all started, we were given a complex briefing on the elements we should be judging on (content appropriateness, fluency, body language, grammar, pronunciation, speech structure, intonation, confidence, etc) but then told that actually it was only necessary to give ONE overall mark, and it had to be 70-95%!? The topic was "The Challenges of 2020" and most talks focused on COVID-19 and how wonderfully the Chinese people have coped with it! The Oral English standards were pretty high though, and nobody "dried up". The three top candidates now go on to National Finals in Beijing.
This was my favourite opening...
