When the Chinese teaching and research group started writing new textbooks, we established the goal of developing our students' presentation ability. After a period of practice, we began to conduct Chinese speech contests in the seventh and eighth grades.

The speeches are structured to be like TED Talks, but the content must be hot news or current events and must have the student's own point of view included in a well-made PPT. All the rules and requirements were issued to the students and will be counted as 10 points towards the mid-term exam. Under these preliminary preparations, the speech contest began. The students performed very well during the first round of class speeches: some had unique visions, some were interesting, and some were very talkative. The teachers then chose the best speakers of each class to move onto the final round.

The final round of the Chinese Speech Contest ended last week. As soon as the 8th graders stepped onto the stage, they became elegant and mature speakers. There was a wide range of topics: from national events and world situations, to cyber violence and online buzzwords, and so on. They not only contained factual statements but also the views of the students themselves. As their Chinese teachers, we are deeply proud of them and also very happy that this new form of speech contest was such a success. It has enabled students to exercise their public speaking skills and show their more confident and mature side. We will continue to improve and implement “TED’S Chinese Speech Contest” in the next stage of our work.

(Written by Ms. Tian Lijiao       Pictures by Ms. Liu Qiong )