The 21st Colorado State Japanese Speech Contest

Place: University of Colorado at Boulder

Date: Saturday, November 10, 2007

 

                The Colorado Japanese Speech Contest has grown again this year. The level of participant's Japanese language abilities has again risen. The contest is now a twenty one-year tradition, and it has virtually become part of our Japanese language curriculum at CU Boulder. Events like this are crucial in that they provide students of Japanese with a local forum in which to test their current level of linguistic achievement. With the feedback given by speech judges, as well as the experience of speaking in front as a large group, contestants aim to raise their own standards of language and cultural proficiency. Students of Japanese of a wide range of ages from across the state were brought together again this year by the contest. Each year probably our objective is to give those learning Japanese a sense of belonging to the Japanese speaking community.           

                Again this year students from Dunn Elementary school of Fort Collins performed an amusing skit. Two groups from the College level I (first year) presented noncompetitive creative skits. Students from three universities presented speeches, several focusing upon contemporary social issues in Japan. This year's winners are:

 

    College II

1st Prize: Lee Hye Seung, UC Boulder (Lee is from Korea)

2nd Prize: Meshal Alhajri, CSU (Alhajri is from Saudi Arabia)

3rd Prize: Robert Mitchell, CSU

    College III

1st Prize: Tiffany Lenhard, CSU

                College IV

1st Prize: Amanda Hotovec, UC Boulder

2nd Prize: Lucinda Sefton, CSU

                Special Prizes:

                    Anthony Radosti, Pikes Peak CC

                Participation Acknowledgements:

                                Dunn Elementary School Skit: "Totally Cute Award"

                Aiden Kent of Montclair Academy, "Going-for-Multilingual Award"

                Group 1 College I Skit Presentations: "Best Idea Award" and "Romance in Japanese Award"

 

           We would like to thank Setsu Kawada of the University of Denver, author Masao Maki, and Takeko Sakakura of Smoky Hill High School for their services as judges.  We thank Mr. Kazuaki Kubo, the Hon. Consul General of Japan at Denver, for attending. He opened the event made the closing remarks, congratulating participants for their hard work and successful efforts.

              Generous support was offered by: the office of the Consulate General of Japan at Denver; The Center for Asian Studies; the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations (UCB); CJLEA (Colorado Japanese Language Education Association); the Department of Foreign Languages & Literatures at Colorado State University, the Japan Foundation, and Sushi Zanmai, and the Asian Studies program at CU.

 

Minori Murata

Japanese Speech Contest Coordinator

University of Colorado at Boulder