XLIS 2023 Secondary Chinese New Year Celebration
‘My Youth’ 2023 XLIS 5th Secondary Chinese Speech Contest
“Do something worthy while you are young, for youth does not stay long.” from the poem “Persuading Learning” by Meng Jiao, a poet of the Tang Dynasty. This poem aims to persuade young people to work hard and pursue their dreams, while they are still young. Youth is perishable and fleeting. It is a common aspiration of the students in Xi’an Liangjiatan International School to keep up with the pace of youth and to guide them to live their own style.
As the epidemic situation came to ease, all the teachers and students gathered together on campus. As a yearly activity to celebrate the Chinese New Year, the fifth Chinese Speech Contest officially took place in the Black Box Theater, during the morning of January 12, 2023. After layers of selection, 14 students from the Chinese native language group and the second language group students stood on the stage for the finals, sharing their enthusiasm and unlimited vision for the future. The teachers, students and parents of the secondary school department sat in the audience showcasing their fervent support. Furthermore, the speeches were broadcasted live on the Urban Youth Channel of the Shaanxi Radio and “Air Classroom” column from the Starting Line of Shaanxi Education Television Station, which received wide attention.
The Chinese Speech Contest provides students with a platform to show their talents and public speaking skills. They combined what they learned and carefully chosen words while sharing with the audience their thoughts and expectations as modern youth. The contestants in this competition broke the limit of age and nationality, with different levels of Chinese language. Native speakers explored new knowledge with deep thinking in language and literature class, while non-native speakers studied hard to learn and practice their language skills in language acquisition class. More importantly, they showcased their risk-takers skills thus challenging themselves. Doesn’t this symbolize the objectives that our youth should find worth fighting for? Every day from dawn till dusk, our youth prepare themselves for the future. Every opportunity and challenge bring growth. Youth is beautiful because of the hunger to learn of teenagers.
List of winners in the native language group
Second prize David Zhang 、Richie Liu
Third prize Eason Xu、Tiger Li、Jennifer Wu
List of winners in the second language group
First prize Choi Park (Korean)
Second prize Youlim Choi (Korean), Kyurin kim (Korean)
Third prize
Dian Yeom (Korean), Wonji Jo (Korean)
Seungsoo Han (Korean),
Lilee Blae Dolman (The Isle of Man)
Rambo Zuo from MYP4 became the champion of the native language group. He believes that youth is an opportunity to pursue your dreams bravely and explore an ocean of knowledge with hope and confidence. Young people should focus on learning as early as possible. Knowledge is to foresee, and foreseeing is to make the best choices. Richie Liu, the runner-up winner of MYP1, shared with the audience an interesting story, “the oldest primary school student”, showing that it is never too late to learn. How can we, through youth, ignore this wonderful and unlimited period in our life? David Zhang of MYP4 pointed out that students in international schools should have the spirit of positive innovation, to increase knowledge reserves, integrate new knowledge, and strive to walk out a life path on their own.
Choi Park from MYP3, the champion of the second language group, shared with us her thoughts on how to seek passion and strive to achieve goals in her daily life. Kyurin Kim, the runner-up winner, told us about her growth in China over the past three years. Youlim showed us her passion for football and called on teenagers to “investing themselves in sports”. Lilee of MYP1 won the third place in the competition. She has been at XLIS for nine years. In her speech, she expressed her passion for our school and her reluctance to leaving; Ethan of MYP1 is the contestant who learned Chinese during the shortest time. After only five months of learning, he competed with other speakers courageously. His dedication and performance were applauded by the students and judges on the spot.
Speech of award of native language group students:
“I am honored that I can express my views on youth smoothly. My speech is mainly to share with everyone that having hope and faith will make us face the unknown future bravely on the way to pursue our dreams. Schopenhauer believes that one of the major weaknesses of human nature is to care too much about others’ views on ourselves. We should strive to overcome this psychological conflict, focusing on learning more knowledge and apply them to our future with better choice. “——MYP4 Rambo Zuo
Speech of the second language group students:
“Last year, I won the third place in the Chinese speech contest. This year, I want to get a better result, so I decided to challenge myself to try again. Moreover, this is a great opportunity to exercise my oral ability and accumulate experience in public speaking. So I worked hard and spent more time practicing every day. I expect to win the second place this time. But I never expect that I could win the first place. I am surprisingly happy and proud of myself. I have achieved my personal goal, and my Chinese language ability has improved too. Now I am more confident than before. I am very grateful for being given this valuable opportunity. “——MYP3 Choi Park
One skilled speaker, Seungsoo Han from MYP1, who learned Chinese in only 5 months, mustered up the courage to stand center of the stage as a risk-taker and expressed himself candidly in Chinese. After the speech contest he said: “I have learned Chinese just for 5 months. At first, I thought that is a mission of impossible to join Chinese Speech Contest. Because of the continuous encouragement from my teacher Ms. Jasmin and my family, I decided to have a try. I am a person who doesn’t like speaking out that much and fears speaking out to the audience. I practiced a great of times and finally I made it. I had never had experiences like this before, so it is so new to me. And my feeling of experiencing this speech contest is exciting, fun. And, I improved my Chinese skills. And I think I have also earned the confidence that I can do it if I trust myself. I would like to try out for next year and I hope I can do a better job.”
We would like to encourage parents to support students’ Chinese learning and growth at XLIS. Mr. Jo, one of the judges of this contest, father of Korean student MYP3 Diana, expressed his gratitude for the event. He felt that students expressed themselves well in Chinese and stated his thoughts on the importance of the youth from different perspectives. He believed that being young implies the exploration and practice of various ideas. In addition, he further encouraged every student by using Emerson’s famous words: “for the sake of a wonderful life, don’t follow the path that others have taken, but to explore a new path and leave their own footprint”.
This speech contest was honored to have invited Mr. Jiang He, the head of Shaanxi People’s Art Theatre Troupe, the national first-class actor, and also the star of the drama “White Deer Plain” and “Ordinary World”, as one of the judges. He hailed the performance of the presenters on the spot and put forward sincere suggestions. Mr. Jiang also shared his views on youth. He believes that youth should be fearless and bold. He encouraged young people to pursue their dreams bravely and without hesitance.
As part of our innovative initiatives, this year we combined Chinese second language students with native Chinese students on the same stage, focusing on presenting various thoughts from different cultural perspectives and learning outcomes. This was done not only to showcase students’ excellent language skills and cultural understanding, but also to provide every Chinese learner with a platform and opportunity to show their fluency and challenge themselves. During the contest, different scoring mechanisms between the native language group and the second language group reflected a student-centered teaching approach. This action was meant to respect and acknowledge the diversity of our students. Encouraging students to dare to try and challenge themselves is one of IB’s training objectives, cultivating students as world-wide lifelong learners.
Once the contest came to the end, everyone in attendance was submerged in reflection. Youth is synonymous with passion. Is this the end of the discussion of “youth”? Of course not. The speech contestants are quite right. The students of Xi’an Liangjiatan International School will continue to explore the key to open a world that is full of opportunities . Instead of settling for a prize and an extravagant applause, they will move on to take consistent steps toward taking more defined and clear path in the future.
Organizers:
XLIS Secondary Chinese teachers
Eunice Hou (Secondary Chinese Lead Teacher, MYP&DP Chinese Language & Literature Teacher, DP TOK teacher)
Emma Yang (MYP coordinator, MYP&DP Chinese Acquisition teacher)
Sophia Suo (MYP&DP Chinese Language & Literature Teacher, MYP&DP Chinese Acquisition teacher, DP TOK teacher)
Carrie Quan (MYP Chinese Language & Literature Teacher, MYP&DP Chinese Acquisition teacher)
Matthew Lu (MYP Chinese Language & Literature Teacher, MYP Chinese Acquisition teacher)
Jasmin Sun (MYP&DP Chinese Acquisition teacher)
Momo Li (MYP Chinese Language & Literature Teacher, MYP Chinese Acquisition teacher)
Click here for more details.
Authors:
MYP students
Momo Li (MYP Chinese Language & Literature Teacher, MYP Chinese Acquisition teacher)
Jasmin Sun (MYP&DP Chinese Acquisition teacher)
Sophia Suo (MYP&DP Chinese Language & Literature Teacher, MYP&DP Chinese Acquisition teacher, DP TOK teacher)
