As part of YCIS’s internationally recognised curriculum, which develops students’ fluency in two major world languages, the Chinese Department at Gubei Campus holds an annual Chinese speech competition for students in Years 7 through 10, giving them the opportunity to showcase their language skills and public speaking abilities.

The students prepare for the competition throughout the semester by drafting and reviewing their own, original speeches with their teachers, and then by competing in a series of preliminary rounds to produce the finalists. The champions of this year’s competition for “Chinese as an Additional Language” classes were Isobel, Year 8, in the Year 7 and 8 category, and Millie, Year 10, in the Year 9 and 10 category. In the “Chinese as a First Language category”, the champions were: Julia in Year 7, Ting Wei in Year 8, Yi Ning in Year 9, and Si Yuan in Year 10.

Following the competition, Millie, a Year 10 student from Australia, spoke about her experience, saying, “Learning Chinese at YCIS has been a wonderful experience for me because we are taught in ways that make the material easy to understand, and also really fun! I enjoyed being on stage and having the audience understand my speech in what has become my second language!“

By providing students with a multitude of opportunities to practise their Chinese speaking skills, including the annual speech competition, cultural field trips, presentations at class assemblies, and Chinese performance evenings and talent shows, the Chinese language programme at YCIS Shanghai develops students who are able to comfortably and effectively communicate in two major world languages.

For more information about the Chinese programme at YCIS Shanghai, please click here.