THE GUIDELINES: Send the application by September 25
1. You must not be a native speaker of the Japanese language.
2. You must currently be enrolled in high school or college/university in San Diego County. Enrollment in a Japanese program is not mandatory as long as the applicant is currently a registered student at high school or college/university.
3. You must not have had more than six months of schooling in Japan after age reaching the Japanese compulsory education starting age.
4. You must not have been raised in a Japanese-speaking household. (Must not live in a home with a native speaker of Japanese (including spouse, parent/grandparent/relation, etc.)
5. You must be either a U.S. citizen, permanent resident of the U.S. and a resident of San Diego County. Any Individuals currently attending school, college or university on a F-1 student visa are unfortunately ineligible.
6. You might receive a phone call by a committee member in case any parts of the written application are unclear.
7. You must submit a photo-copy of handwritten speech draft. It should be scanned and attached with the application.
8. You must answer all the questions in the application form sincerely to the best of their knowledge.
9. College student must answer a preliminary short questionnaire regarding the Japan Homestay Award inquiries.
<sdjsc2020@gmail.com> for applications
<sdjscc@gmail.com> for general inquiries.
THE SPEECH:
1 Should be between 3-4 minutes in length, and must not be shorter than three minutes, and must not longer than five minutes.
2 Choice of topic is open.
3 Must be original and written by the contestant himself/herself. You must submit a handwritten speech draft
(It does not have to be a final draft). It is important for us to receive it from you, however, it will not be used for any part of judging.
JUDGING CRITERIA:
Judges will base their decisions on content and presentation of speech. There will be short interviews in Japanese with the judges after each speech presentation. The contestants with highest total points awarded by the judges will be the winners.
If the contest is via Zoom, your eye contact will mean that you are watching the faces on the screen. The judges will want to see that you are not reading the script.
The Japan Travel Award from 2019 guideline (minor edited 9 22.2020)
2020 guideline, subject to change.
The eligibility of the round trip ticket by JAL has been adjusted and valid for one year till 9/22/2021. As we are facing Corona situation, things might change. but we try our very best for your benefit.
Things might affect the eligibility for American citizens or green card holders. So the following is now presented assuming that you can fly to Japan.
Homestay in Japan is supportive this year again, but they can only support 3 nights instead of a week.
About a week's homestay and a local courtesy visit to Odate Education Bureau will be in the plan. So this year, you may want to raise fund to cover some transportation and some nights or longer on your own.
Your responsibility:
Courtesy gifts to your homestay family is appreciated, if your budget allows.
At the end of your trip you may want to extend your stay as with this ticket you can stay one month. You may want to consult JAL if you win this trip. You will work with SDJSC to make a reasonable plan.
The prize package, a collaboration of the goodwill of many people, will be given to you who not only wins the college level First Place but also appreciates the hospitality that our prize represents. This trip award will be given to someone who loves adventure and can make a plan to travel voluntarily under guidance based on basic conditions. The winner will stay some nights with host families in Kanto (Tokyo vicinity) and a week in Odate City, the famous dog Hachiko’s hometown, for cultural exploration and friendship with local students and teachers. The travel package includes round-trip ticket to Japan with one flight to Akita with JAL, one week JR pass to be used after Odate program, take a Shinkansen back to Tokyo area is complete. All additional nights are open on your own or return back home. We will discuss some more details when you win the contest.)
Your responsibility:
Within two (2) weeks of returning to the USA, the winner must make a quick report with photos to share with the rest of us all You are willing to come back as a special visitor to the next year's contest to speak about the trip to encourage the audience and contestants. Furthermore, this trip is by the winner alone; as a principle, no family members or friends are included in this hospitality package though they might meet you when this award portion completes. This JAL's round-trip award ticket is valid for up to one month from the departure date in San Diego, Please read the details on the ticket certificate carefully. The JAL as well as JR pass certificates are both important like cash and they need to be safely kept. (if you lose you will lose the trip.) When you complete about 10 day hospitality portion is complete, you should be responsible of the remaining days if you plan to extend the trip. But make sure your travel insurance will cover, the insurance itself is not very expensive. Overall, make sure you have raised enough fund by the time of your departure.
The winner needs to make travel arrangements with the SDJSC committee chair, JAL representative, Odate City Hospitality staff and "Homestay in Japan" coordinators to make the plan active in a timely manner. If the SDJSC committee deems the first-place winner inappropriate for the trip award, due to a certain circumstances of the winner, the committee has the right to transfer the award to the next place winner and so on at its sole discretion.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask the committee at SDJSCC@gmail.com
Address:
San Diego Japanese Speech Contest Committee
ATTN: Fumiko Tachibana, Chair
P. O. Box 28884, San Diego, CA 92198
Email 1) for general inquiries: sdjscc@gmail.com
Email 2) for students application: sdjsc2020@gmail.com