“I have no idea what language he was speaking”

Thank you for all of the questions for English Corner. They have not had it for about 2 weeks because of various events and are looking for somewhere to have it now that the weather is turning colder. Outside is not an option.

This past week I was invited by several students to judge the Union Cup English Speaking Competition. This means that I got two invitations from two different students to do the same thing; paper invitations and everything. I agreed thinking that this would be fun and also volunteered Hagel, because it seemed like a good idea at the time and having someone else who speaks English as a first language couldn’t hurt.

One of my students came to my office to take me because I had three different people tell me three different ways to get to the place. So just send someone to come and get me became my answer. We arrived shortly after 5:30p thinking that things would get going at 6p like we were told. At 6:30 the competition finally starts. We learn the rules as they are announced to the audience. There are 20 students. Each will give a 3 minute speech and then the judges will ask them one question. Hagel and I knew about the question portion before hand and we were also provided a sheet of sample questions. He and I had some problems with the questions: a) some were way too easy or irrelevant b) we could not understand them and classified them as Chinglish c) we were dead set on being those judges that ask the hard questions. So there were 4 judges total, two Chinese, Hagel, and I.

Some of the students were very good including one girl who was from the university next door who absolutely blew us away and could have passed for nearly an American her English was so good. There were a few that we could not understand but the one that stuck out in my mind was a boy who said a few sentences and then went into a rap. I leaned over to Hagel and said “Do you know what language he’s speaking? Because I don’t.” This boy received low marks and did not stay for the awards ceremony at the end. But no one was surprised by that.

While we were waiting for the tabulation of scores, the hosts played a round of name that tune with the audience using only English songs. I was sure that I would know every one right away. I was disappointed to realize that I knew less than half of the songs. They may have been in English, but they were not always by English songsters.

The field was narrowed and only 10 will move on to the finals that are held 28Nov I believe. I’ll be judging then too. We shall see if they pass muster in the end.