Practising English and Chinese

On Tuesday evening this week I attended the final part of an 'LSA' competition here at the college. The 'LSA' stands for 'Listening and Speaking Achievement' (I believe). Anyway, the part that I attended involved the students making an impromptu speech. In other words, they were given a topic before the competition began and then had to speak on that topic for a fixed amount of time. They were then given a question by one of the judges.

Now I've attended a few of these competitions in the past, but it's always been a competition involving prepared speeches. I'm fully in favour of students practising and using their English outside class, but I'm not sure how much value such competitions actually have. Memorising and then regurgitating a speech (in my opinion) does not teach students how to meaningfully communicate in a foreign language. However, I am more in favour of the idea of impromptu speeches and questions, such as I saw on Tuesday evening. This at least encourages students to think on their feet.

Anyway, there were some very good speeches and responses to questions and some not so good. I've a lot of admiration for the students who take part in such competitions and some were clearly (and undestandably nervous). Unfortunately the student I thought was the best (and coincidentally one of my students!) did not get a prize as she didn't do so well in the listening part of the competition.

The judges were also asked to give a short speech at the end. I trotted out my usual line about telling students to 'practise, practise, practise'. However, I've not really been taking my own advice when it comes to learning Chinese. We have class once a week for two hours, but between one class and then next I rarely take out my textbook, though I know I should. Obviously, living in China means that I have to practise my Chinese everyday, but usually there is nothing new that I have to say. Anyway, today I managed a bit more practise than usual. First, with a friendly taxi driver - they often one to chat and this one had very clear Chinese and second with an old guy on the bus. Also very friendly, but a little less clear. The bus driver also weighed in for a while, reminding the old guy to speak in Mandarin and not the local dialect!

Christmas next week. Christmas Day will mostly be spent giving exams, like the rest of the week. However, we do have a few festive things planned. More about that later...

Finally, congratulations to my sister and brother-in-law and welcome into the world to my nephew.