The city’s second annual Xiamen High School English Speech Contest wrapped up on June 18 at the Xiamen Library. Approximately 200 participants joined the contest, including students from the Xiamen Foreign Language School, the Xiamen Number One Middle School, the Number Six Middle School and the Xiamen University Affiliated Keji High School.

Sponsored by the New Oriental Education and Technology Group, the event’s hosts included the Xiamen Library and the Xiamen Number One Middle School. Originally organized by student Shaobin Zheng, 2015 runner-up Suxin Liu helped to organize this year’s event to enrich students’ experience and to improve their leadership capacity. “It is my obligation to provide a platform for students who show real interest in English,” said Mr. Zheng, who is also the school’s English speech club president.

Junyan Lin, a student from Xiamen Number One Middle School, took first place in this year’s competition. In explaining her skills, she said that interest was her best teacher. As for spoken English, “practice makes perfect,” said Ms. Lin. “I often participate in various English contests to gain experience,” she added. In the future, she hopes to use English in her professional career.

Judges included director Xianlin Yu  from the Xiamen Number One Middle School and teachers Tianlong Zhao and  Victoria Kiseleva from New Oriental Education. “Confidence is a must and speakers should have a strong desire to show their talents, said Ms. Yu. “Successful English speakers should acquire a wide range of knowledge, act naturally, ensure the correctness of their pronunciation, and pay attention to intonation,” she added.

“As a non-profit entity, we believe that such contests will attract more students to the library,” said Hua Su, director of the library’s activity department. “We hope more and more people show interest in English and in reading.”