Job Discussion Forums

[Guerciotti]

How many speech contests does your university host every semester or year? I wonder if my uni is below or above average.

This term my uni held a total of five speech contests including two rounds to qualify for the city wide speech contest, a two round contest sponsored by a company and a one round competition for the post graduate students.

This uni also holds a Model United Nations in November or December.

Tell me tell me.

G

[wangdaning]

My does zero that I am aware of.

[Miles Smiles]

I think my college hosts one every term. One of my students alerted me of an upcoming one.

I was invited to judge one last term at the last minute. One of the two other judges was a first-time FT with a major in music. The other was a Chinese teacher with passable English skills.

[xiguagua]

We do one a term as well. I stopped doing them A) because they never gave me more than a few hours notice so I decided that I would be busy during their speech times. Oops sorry.

B) Our school is very firm on the speeches be in the CHINESE STYLE OF SPEECH. IE horrible communist speeches that consist of a lot of screaming and talking very loud at the parts you're supposed to cheer at, which is NOT how you do things in English. My school cannot accept the English culture and demand to do English the Chinese way......which is probably why my school isn't a very good school and the students don't have very good English and most of them fail TEM4 the first time around.

C) There are other Chinese teachers that are also judges, but their English sucks and they're not even listening half the time and as a result the student with the best English almost never wins. They penalize innovation and creativity and you're basically DQ'd if you don't say what they want you to say.

D) it's hosted by a club called "Foreign Language Stage" which often hosts other events and parties ENTIRELY IN CHINESE. I have to be so picky because i'm really laid back, but it seems that if you are serious about learning English, and you join a club called Foreign Language Stage, wtf is the point when nothing they do involves English?

So I kinda refuse to participate or advocate these competitions. I used to do every single party and club and competition, but this year i'm just tired of dealing with it. Luckily after I said no a few times they stopped asking me. Maybe i'm just overly cynical.

[Lobster]

Once per term. No idea what it's like because they never invite me. I am ok with that. Xiguagua, that sounds absolutely wretched, but probably not too uncommon. If they ask you to attend again, you could wryly suggest that they hold the English speech competition solely in Chinese.

RED

[Guerciotti]

Thanks for the replies. It sounds like my uni is way over the average of one or none per semester.

Dang

G

[jaydizzle]

Geez, when is my school NOT holding a speech competition?

I've been asked to judge a few early on in my China ESL career, but I rarely get asked anymore. The easiest way to get out of it, IMHO, is to be suddenly "busy" when one comes around, and then suddenly "busy" again for the next one. And that's usually pretty easy, and believable, to do because this is China and they generally ask you on the day of the event, and you've probably really already made plans anyway. Politely beg off of one or two and generally they'll never ask you again.

[DosEquisX]

Zero. Though I have been asked by people from other uni's to judge them. Normally, I decline them.

[Guerciotti]

[Baozi man]

I was never asked to participate in any English competition but one. My department director believed that he was a better judge of good English than I was. I appreciated their recognition that Chinese English and American English are different.

One problem I noticed was that Chinese tend to inflect English words in a different manner than do native English speakers; consequently, their speech sounds strange. I prefer a non inflected, to an improperly, inflected, exhibition of English.

Chinese judges consider any inflection better than no inflection. It's better to not get involved in competitions. No matter who you are, if you are a native speaker, you are a better judge of oral English than a local.

The Chinese, well, they have a different idea. Regardless of the number of excuses we make for Chinese English teachers and administrators, many of them are "azzholz."

[basbas]

[Non Sequitur]

Does participation in other schools' competitions qualify?
In Dalian the Foreign Languages U regularly held competitions in my years there.
My students regularly entered and I went along a couple of times.
The FLU students won mostly.

[Guerciotti]