In conjunction with the English Carnival Fortnight, Jit Sin High School held the English
Public Speaking Competition for Form 3 on the 18th of April this year. It was held in the
conference room and a total of 10 participants were present. The following are
the names of the contestants and their titles:

1)Tan Lee Kun - Men's enemies in the world of nature.
2)Ban Eng Zhuan - Drug addiction.
3)Raphael Thoo Yi Xian - The boomerang.
4)Yong Lig Zhi - What the world has become.
5)Goh Chai Yen - The importance of examination.
6)Gooi Zi Sen - World Wide Web.
7)Chin Tzy Ying - The value of higher education.
8)Tang Khai Sheng - Is teenager's life enjoyable?
9)K'ng Yee Wen - The importance of water.
10)Tai Chia Hui (ELS) - Internet brings more harm than good to its users.

All in all, the contestants tried their best in the competition. They showed a good competitive spirit. They know that only the best will win, so they gave it their best. But winning is not important. The importance of the competition was to train its participants to speak in public with confidence, and with grace. And I think it did just that. Not only the participants, but the spectators as well, learned a thing or two from the competition.

After each of the participants presented their prepared speech, they were given a title for the impromptu speech. This year, the title is "The Benefits of Exercise". Again, the participants tried their best to give their opinions and their ideas, and in the end the first prize was won by Tang Khai Sheng, the second prize by Tai Chia Hui, and the third prize by K'ng Yee Wen.

When asked for his comments, the timekeeper said that some of the participants were still a little shy to speak in public, and overall, the competition was boring. So let's hope that the participants will try even harder next time!

Meanwhile, the judges said that not enough preparation was done by the participants. They also commented that the prepared speech was quite acceptable, but only the impromptu speech showed the real English standard of the participants, and it needed improvement. The judges also adviced future participants to use only simple words with simple sentence structures in the impromptu speech.