English Stuff - English Contests 英語文比賽

Here are some resources that may help you prepare students for the English contests. The English contest in the first semester consists of a Reader's Theater competition. However, this year (112 年度) the Reader's Theater will be held in early second semester.

Reminders about RT contest in Taitung County

Elementary performances must be between 3 and 5 minutes. Points will be deducted for performances that go overtime.
Junior High performances must be between 5 and 7 minutes.
Clock starts from the time the first person begins speaking and stops when last person ends speaking.

Scripts are important. They should have a positive message or be culturally significant. Original scripts are especially meritorious. But, be careful about language. Coarse language has cost JH teams points in the past.

There is no official word on whether the other English contests will be held live this year. Before COVID the English contests usually occurring in second semester were what I call the "Three Ring Circus". Three competitions were held simultaneously at one venue: Storytelling, Reading Competition, and the "Word King" spelling competition. The Reading Competition and Word King spelling competitions have pre-set scripts and materials. They have changed over the years, but the idea for the Reading competition is to read one of 3 short stories selected by the contestant at random 5 minutes before performing, while the Word King competition is basically a 100-word vocabulary test, and storytelling is a performance by one or two students telling a story of their choice. During COVID years the Word King competition was moved online at Cool English.

In this section are Quizlet sets that I have used for past Reading Competitions. I also have Word King sets from previous years. The Word King is perhaps the most challenging competition. Contestants will hear English words and choose the Chinese translation, also they will see Chinese words and must select the English (and vice-versa), and finally, they will have to spell out English words (in writing).

Quizlet Folder: English Contest Sets

These Quizlet sets assist reading/performance fluency through memorization of content. Key words and phrases can be rehearsed until they become like sight words. There are sets for 109-2 Reading Contests which are designed to practice English prosody/stress/ intonation. One side has the stressed content words in a particular sentence, and the card flips to reveal the full sentence with unstressed structure and linked words. When students are presented with stressed content words first, they tend to naturally emphasize them when reading the full sentence, so their reading comes out more natural sounding.

This is a quick tutorial on how to use the Quizlet sets for Reading Competition. There are Quizlet sets designed to practice reading fluency and prosody. This video gives a demonstration of how the sets can help the students develop natural pronunciation and word stress.

The reading script for 3-4th grade 中年級 "Bark George" is a modification of this storybook. Here is a read-aloud on Youtube.

The reading script for 3-4th grade 中年級 "Jack Paints His House" is a simplified version of this storybook. Here is a read-aloud on Youtube. The similar parts can serve as a model for reading with intonation and expression.

The reading script for 5-6th grade 高年級 "Pete The Cat" is a non-funky version of this storybook. Here is a read-aloud on Youtube with Funk. The funk can inspire reading with intonation and expression.

The reading script for 5-6th grade 高年級 "There Was an Old Lady" is a simplified version of a classic kids' rhyme. Now there are many updated versions of this silly story, including songs. Here is a kids' song that has a nice, even tempo. If students follow this tempo and prosody, they can read fluently if they just perform with lower energy and speed.

Here is another kids' music video of the story. This one is much more upbeat and challenging, but the same principle of "overtraining" applies. If students can stretch their abilities to match this tempo, they can definitely achieve good reading fluency if they bring down their tempo and energy when performing without music.

Future English competitions may not use the stories listed above. In the event that a new script is used for a competition but the ETRC has not produced an audio recording with an FET, you can use computer-generated text-to-speech Apps. Google and Microsoft both have high quality voices for free that can provide nearly human, native-like readings of texts.