Impressive performance at the “Critical Thinking” speech contest

Time:2011-12-06 14:56:36 Clicks:

On 28th October, the final of the freshers “Critical Thinking” speech contest started in the Graduate Conference Hall. This contest was hosted jointly by the Business School and the International School. The judges included Kevin, a foreign teacher; Ms. Zhang Shengping, a teacher; and two overseas students. Attendance from the Business School included Xiong Shaohui, the General Party Branch Secretary; Yang Wanqi, Youth League Committee Branch Secretary; and from the International School, Liu Shenhe, the Deputy Secretary of the General Party Branch, and Li Guoyan, Secretary in charge of the General Party Branch, were also present to offer instructions. Students from both schools also played an active role in the contest.

The contest was divided into five parts: prepared speech, impromptu speech, improvisation, interacting, and judges’ comment. In part one, 12 competitors spoke for 3 minutes on the topic “To be Continued”, exhibiting wonderful on-stage potentials. In part two, competitors’ impromptu speaking abilities were tested. Although some first year students lack experience, they nevertheless gave it their best, and won over the audience. In part three, the 12 competitors were divided into 3 groups randomly for the 3 given situations. Situation 1 was ‘bumping into one’s ex-boyfriend while dating’; situation 2 was about three apples; and situation 3 required competitors to adapt the story from the film Titanic. The audience burst into peals of laughter for the remarkable performance. In the interacting part, the finalists played charades with Kevin, our foreign teacher. This part of the competition was aimed at testing the competitors’ ability to understand and cooperate. Kevin’s performance was hilarious, and the atmosphere livened up with interaction from the audience.

With Kevin’s wonderful comments and the audiences’ sincere applause, the event drew to a close. The first prize winner was Yang Yingchao from our school. The runners-up were Xiong Xupeng from the Business School and Tao Youyou from our school. Xu Xiaokun and Jin Feng from the Business School and Huang Yaqi from our school came third.

Fang Yuan, Head of Learning, said that the competitors were all putting their best foot forward. Many from the audience said they benefited a lot from the contest—not only have they seen brilliant performance from the competitors, but they have also understood where they need to work hard.