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| JET Adventures 30 - Speech Contest |
| Saturday, December 10, 2005 |
I think it's fair to say that normal English lessons in Japan either have the students read something and then fill in the blanks afterwards, or listen to something and then fill in the blanks afterwards. Children should be seen and not heard, and all that. So considering that students rarely get to speak in English, it's odd that there are quite a number of speech contests that take place throughout the year. I was one of the judges of a speech contest back in September, and got to watch 30 odd junior high students give 'inspiring' but deathly boring speeches on subjects like "How becoming school president changed my life". Sadly, it's a fact that the winners are likely to be those lucky individuals who have spent a year or two as an exchange student in the US, or have an American parent. It was also quite depressing how practically none of the speeches had been written by the students who were giving them - though they might have originally had the idea of the topic, the English teacher would write the speech for them. You could tell because although the speech itself would be grammatically and semantically perfect, the student would be unable to tell you anything about what was actually being said. The other weird thing about the speech contests is that 90% of the entrants are girls. I'm not really sure why that is, although it's true that in my classes the girls tend to be more forthcoming and less shy - plus it's cool right now to have a western boyfriend.
Anyway, while being a judge was fun (the power!), being on the other side and coaching a participating student is much more frightening. One of my students came to me about 2 months ago and told me he wanted to take part in the Christian College speech contest - apparently the hardest contest in Okinawa. It's hard because not only do they have to give the speech, but they get asked questions about it in the so-called 'impromptu' session afterwards. The student, Kosuke, is infamous in my school. He's late pretty much every day, cuts classes, and doesn't exactly have the attitude of your average speech contest applicant. He's very close to failing the second year and having to redo it. He also happens to be extraordiarily gifted when it comes to English. The first speech that he showed me was all about how much he despised Americans. I thought it would be about the heavy presence of the US military here, maybe something about the Battle of Okinawa, or something about the global political situation. But no, it just ranted on about Americans and how rubbish they were, it was hilarious. I asked him about it and he said it was supposed to be a comedy piece about anti-racism. Tempting though it was to keep it, I suggested he change it to something a bit less controversial - so he came up with something about films and stress that started with him deliberately falling over (he wanted to retain the comedy element).
We practiced quite a bit after school to get his pronunciation and delivery down, and to practice some questions they might ask him. I've spoken to other ALTs and they put in hours and hours for their students, but Kosuke wasn't really that kind of student. If I suggested something for him to change, instead of bowing and working for an hour on doing what I say like most students, he'd argue the point with me and then grudgingly change it, if I was lucky. The day before the speech contest he was just about ready but I was far from confident. I was hoping that the fact that he was a boy and that his speech was something the judges would never have seen before might see him though, but I already knew that there were at least 5 students entering from other schools who had lived in the US for 1-2 years.
So the day comes and all 26 students are there (24 girls!), an hour ahead of time, demonstrating classic Japanese punctuality, except one. I'm starting to think he's either bottled it or slept in and was about to give the boy a call when he appears, 2 minutes before the thing's supposed to start. All the other students are immaculate, Kosuke looks as if he's just woken up. That's because he had. The speeches were really good, no one forgot their lines and only one girl started crying halfway through. Kosuke's speech got second prize! AND he won best impromtu prize too! The best bit for me was when the judge praised his English accent :) |
posted by Alice @ 6:43 pm  |
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