SJACS Speech Contest 

The Alumni has been actively encouraging the use of English for all students of SJACS. Currently, the English Society is the principal champion of this important task, and a Speech Contest was recently held, with JA representative, Matthias Li (SJACS’72), invited to act as an adjudicator.

The following is a report filed by Matthias:

March 25 was a special day for me. I was very happy to be back to the School during the students' lunch break, witnessing how good some of our younger brothers' English capability is. Indeed, I treasured the opportunity of standing in for Mr. Andrew Li, Chairman of JA, to be one of the invited judges for the students' English Competition event, organized by the English Society. The other invited judge was Ms Claudia Mo, a well-known and experienced journalist in the community.

After preliminary screening and competition earlier, four contestants, three from F. 5 and one from F. 4, had been selected as the finalists on March 25. With regret, the one from F.4 could not attend the final competition for personal reasons. The competition took place at the School's new hall, to be officially named Rev. Brother Paul Sun Memorial Hall. I was extremely pleased to see a huge turnout of the students, showing their interest in and support for the event.

Each of the contestants delivered a 3-min speech in English, with two on the topic of "whether parents are good teachers" and one on "the impact of Internet". At the end of their deliveries, both Claudia and I were invited to comment on their respective performance. Basically, we all agreed that it was extremely difficult to rank their performance, based on their English speaking ability, in terms of grammar, use of vocabulary, pronunciation, diction and fluency. All of the finalists were, indeed, very good in these areas. The differentiation, albeit not overly substantial, was on how "natural" or "at ease" they delivered their respective speeches. At the F. 5 level, I must say they all had done quite well.

I have been hearing increasing complaints about the English language ability of our younger generation within the business community or the community at large. There have also been talks amongst many of the Old Boys on raising the English language standard of the School. Having attended this English speech contest and witnessed the performance of three of our students in this area, I am filled with high hopes. We should give due credit to the School's English teachers, and accord to them every encouragement. With their continuous effort and commitment, I am sure that all our younger brothers would attain similar, if not the same, level of English proficiency before their graduation from the School.

Last but not least, to the organizer, the English Society, my congratulations!

Ad Astra!

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