SPEECH CONTEST.
English speech contest is a big deal here. Like club sports, they have district, prefectural, and national level competitions. Basically, there are two categories "Speech" and "Recitation". For those competing in the Speech category, students write their own original speech; it can be a story, a "lesson learned" type of thing, or just speaking about something that interests them. For the Recitation category, students simply memorize a passage or story from the textbook or some school literature. I had students from my 3 schools (Kubo, Kudamatsu, and Suetake) competing. These kids practice EVERY DAY for hours on this, some started as early as May of this year, if you can imagine. So much effort. And it sucks because only 4 out of 35 students in each region make the cut to the prefectural competition. I worked a bunch of overtime after school coaching these girls on their pronounciation, intonation, delivery, and so on. Most of them don't really know what they're saying, because they wrote it in Japanese and often their teachers translated it into English for them.



Team Kubo: Saori, Mio, and Mikiko. Honestly, Mikiko is about the cutest kid I've ever seen in my life. She says in her speech, "my smile is the barometer of my heart" and if this is true, she must have a heart of gold. I had to leave before I heard Saori do her speech, but both Mio and Mikiko spoke very well.



Team Kudamatsu: Maya, Chie, and Mami. OK, maybe Mami is the cutest kid I've ever seen. In any case, they all worked really hard. Chie is one of my favourite kids; she was the one who did The Todd high-five with me at the Karyo English Camp.


From Team Suetake: Mizuki, the reigning district champion! She is half-Brazilian and half Japanese, but totally Japanese at school. She's really good. As you'll see in the next few pics...


This is the venue for the speech contest. A grand ol' concert hall. It made the kids nervous.



Annnd the results?? Mizuki took FIRST PRIZE... again!! And Kento, the other Suetake student, took 4th which means he qualifies for the prefectural competition. I will post Kento's speech sometime; it's absolutely hilarious. Congrats to Mizuki and Kento! Good luck at the prefecturals, AIIIGHT~