On Dec. 10, the Grand Final Competition of 1st Bilingual Speech Contest of the International College was held in B 102 of Kunluan Building, Xiang'an Campus. After the preliminary and quarter-final contests, 16 contestants from China, Mexico, Korea, and Indonesia were shortlisted in the Grand Final Competition.

The English language contest of the International College, a traditional event Aiming at boosting students' learning motivation, has extended to bilingual speech, i.e. Chinese and English, this year. The final competition was divided to three sections, namely Prepared speech, Spontaneous speech and Q and A. The judges were from the English Language Teaching group: Associate Professors Jiao Jingdong, Associate Professor Xie Yinping, Robin Mitchell, Mathew Maguire, Dr. Li Yushen, Dr. Luo Yuanxiang and other senior teachers.

Contestants had to deliver a 4-min. prepared speech consecutively in Chinese and English on 'choosing whom to meet or where to live with the space travel'. Their language proficiency and imagination highly impressed the audience, and the ideas produced spark of inspiration: some of them would like to travel back to ancient times such as Tang Dynasty, some expected a meeting with celebrities like Mozart, and others longed for carefree childhood. In the following spontaneous speech section, candidates had to present their opinions promptly on issues ranging from social phenomena to psychology within 2 minutes and 30 seconds. During the final Q and A section, contestants had to answer two different questions in Chinese and English respectively and elaborated their arguments. Their quick wit and calmness received very positive feedback from judges and loud applause from the audience.  

Contestant No. 10 Ji Yaxin won the champions after three sections with the average score at 17.4, followed by Contestants No. 6 Ai Ge and No. 2 Yu Zhequan at 16.5 and 16.1 respectively. Individual awards were also presented to Contestants No. 5 Wei Jiahui and No. 11 Chan Yihsuan for best pronunciation and stage performance. 

Mr. Robin Mitchell and Dr. Luo Yuanxiang briefly made comments on candidates' performance. Professor Zheng Tongtao, Dean of the International College, presented the awards to the prize winners, and stressed the positive role of speech contests in motivating students' language learning.

As the key media in human evolution, the languages are carriers of different cultures. Initiatives in learning and communication between cultures become much more significant given the context of globalisation and international exchange. Bilingual speech contest would be a good learning experience in understanding culture and building friendship across different nations.