Ke Ping
Dear Young Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear
Coaches, Colleagues and Organizers of the Contest, Dear Parents:
It is a great
honor for me now to offer some concluding remarks on behalf of the judging
panel as this years Jiangsu Navigation Cup English Speaking Contest
draws to its close.
During the past
few weeks or months, you, the contestants, your teachers, parents, and other
stakeholders have been intensely involved in making preparation for this
contest. You might have worked so hard that you lost your appetite and sleep.
Now the competition is ended. I guess some of you might want to say: Thank God,
it was over!
As judges, we
have this to say to you: rest assured that your labor is not lost; the
remarkable, sometimes spectacular, presentations our contestants made on this
stage yesterday and today convinced us that they have learnt and mastered many
skills in English public speaking and televised debate; they put their heart
and soul into the business and achieved what most of their peers did not or
have not yet achieved. We would like to give our heart-felt congratulations to
each and every one of them!
We should also
thank the contestants and parents for the trust they placed in us. We are
impressed, and sometimes quite moved, by what many contestants chose to share
with us in their presentations: their favorite toys; their idols and role
models (such as Obama and Ivanka); their thoughts and feelings; their dreams
and hopes; their values and confusions; their care for their parents and
younger brothers or sisters; their recognition of the importance of
self-discipline and their struggle for independence as young adults; and their
concerns for the passenger deaths in the Chongqing bus incident and for the
distress of children in Syria and other Middle East countries ravaged by wars.
Dear contestants:
we would remember all these things you spoke about in your presentations.
Any problems?
Sure, as we all know only too well, there are always problems.
Public speaking
and debate is an aged-old art as well as craft. Nearly everyone speaks in
public at some time or other, and those who perform the task well often become
leaders (Public speaking. In
EB 2010 [DVD-ROM], Britannica
Student Library).
Public speaking
serves three general purposes: to inform,
to persuade, and to entertain. With reference to these
three purposes and the fact that we are to fulfill them using a foreign
language―English―in the context of speaking competition, we judges compared
notes after various sessions of the contest and decided that there is still a
lot of room for improvement in the presentations of the contestants of both the
junior and senior groups. Now, Id like to share with you some suggestions for improving
the most common and outstanding
deficiencies or shortcomings we found in your presentations:
To inform means you provide true and meaningful
information.
Speakers must win
the audiences credibility or belief; they do so by being well prepared, by
understanding all sides of an issue before speaking about it in public, by
showing respect and understanding for their audiences, and by demonstrating
interest in their subjects (Based on Public speaking. In EB 2010 [DVD-ROM],
Britannica Student Library). Quite a number of contestants,
however, failed to do so, e.g.
■ Boy
spent most of the time narrating a boring, painful process in which he tried to
find a topic for the prepared speech in vain, and ended up by concluding that
the process is the real, interesting thing.
■ Boy
who likes girlie pink: People should be judged by their qualities {what
quality? biological or social?}, not their gender.
■ Girl
who answered the question how can we make sure that we can still eat safely?
spent almost all her time talking about what the government should do.
■ Girl,
in answering a question involving her parents, talked in a repetitious way:
first about her father, then her mother; then her father again, and then her
mother again, making the audience both confused and bored.
■ Girls
spoke to the screen, with their backs facing the audience
To persuade means to change or otherwise affect the
behavior or mindset of other people through reasoning or argument. Examples of
persuasion most often include persuading an audience to adopt new opinions, to
take certain actions, or to see the world in a new way (Public speaking. In EB 2010 [DVD-ROM], Britannica Student Library).
For effective
persuasion, you must learn and use good ways of reasoning. Logic and sound
argument are the keywords here. Logic helps a speaker to present an argument in
a fair and reasonable way. It also helps a listener to understand a speakers
purpose.
In the
presentations we judged, we noticed some prominent logical errors, e.g.:
■ Girl,
in answering the question who should take care of the new-born baby: the mans
parents or the womans parents, replied that she should, because she loves
babies (non sequitur [a statement that does not have any connection with what
was said before]).
■ Girl,
in answering the question What would you think if boys in your class began
chasing the girl who received plastic surgery, answered just emotively I dont
like such girls instead of looking at the issue from the boys perspective.
■ Girl,
in answering the question What did your grandma (who secretly gave her pocket
money when she was alive) teach you, answered honesty (violating the law of
contradiction).
This means to create a good feeling, amuse
your audience, or make them enjoy what you wish them to enjoy only where it is
desirable and appropriate. Our hearts were warmed by the sense of humor or
cheerful mood communicated by some contestants, and we do appreciate them. But
too much entertainment is a no-no on such an occasion simply because what you enrolled in was a
speaking contest instead of a theatrical or music performance. The judges
expect to see the quality of your thinking and your ability to deliver orally
the results of your thinking. Too much entertainment, especially of the purely
imitative kind which we found in so many movie dubbing shows, would only make
the judges feel bored and tired.
For the prepared
speech session, we suggest that you concentrate on one significant topic or
subject, investigate it, analyze the result of your investigation to form your
own judgments or conclusions before presenting them in an effective way. You
may support your point or tinge your argument with some entertaining humor or
media clips, but see to it that your audience will not be fed up with
unexplained or distracting media use in which only you yourself are carried
away by an unrestrained flow of your own extravagant feelings.
English is not our mother tongue. It is a
language different from Chinese in many ways. It has its own rules of
pronunciation, writing, grammar, usage and discourse structure. You must treat
these rules or laws with empathy and respect in order to use the language
correctly. Whenever youre not absolutely sure of the correctness of anything
youre to speak out or write down, consult reference tools and do all necessary
researches to make sure that it is both right and appropriate. So, you should
pronounce/write:
■ perish, not parish
■ work, not walk
■ admirable, not /ad`mirerbl/
■ gender, not /ji:n/
■ wars, not worse
■ heart, not hurt
■ world, not word
■ unre`mitting not un`remitting
■ wide distinctions, not wild distinctions
■ civic virtues, not civilized qualities
■ With tears filling my eye, not With
tears filled my eye
■ The answer to this question depends.,
not "This issue depends.
■ I prefer living in villages., not I
prefer to live in villages.
■ I don't agree with it, not In my
opinion, I don't agree with it.
More errors can
be listed, but I wont go along.
Dear young
contestants, you live in an age in which spoken communication is getting more
and more important. An effective command of the art and craft of speaking will
do you a world of good in your lifetime.
It is the hope of
all the judges in this panel that your experience of participating in this
years Navigation Cup contest will help you to evaluate the progress youve made
in learning English public speaking and boost your confidence in your general
abilities as well. We wish you all good luck in the remaining years of your
high school life.
Thank you!
(Browne Holiday Inn, Taihu Lake, Wuxi, China, November 24-25, 2018)