Japanese Speech Contest for Sophia International Students was held for the second time

The grand prize winner of intermediate and advanced division, Mr. Liam Kantor of the Faculty of Liberal Art

Organized by the Center for Language Education and Research, on June 30, “Japanese Speech Contest for Sophia International Students ” was held for the second time. As nearly 600 international students are taking Japanese language courses at Sophia University every semester, the contest was planned to give those students an opportunity to present their skills in Japanese and also to contribute to development of their Japanese proficiency. According to the level of their proficiency, the contest was divided in two divisions: for beginner and intermediate to advanced level.

Contest participants and judges

Five finalists for each division gave speech at the contest, 3 minutes for the beginner level and 5 minutes for the intermediate and advanced level. Audience was truly impressed by student speeches which covered various topics about genders, education, cultures to the family.

Five judges including Kensaku Yoshida, Director of Center for Language Education and Research and Kayoko Nakano from The Society for Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language carefully examined the speech of each student for its content, composition as well as clarity in their oral presentation.

The grand prize winner of intermediate and advanced division was Mr. Liam Kantor of the Faculty of Liberal Art, an exchange student from U.S.A. In his speech, titled “The Unchangeable Past and the Unforeseeable Future”, he gave an eloquent speech about once regretting his past decision to come to study in Japan to learn Japanese as his mother passing away of her illness while his stay here. However coming to realize there is nothing to gain in regretting of the unchangeable past, he pledged once again to commit himself in continuing to study Japanese.

100,000 yen the grand prize winners and 50,000 yen for 2nd Place winners were awarded as honors scholarships. Other winners are as follows:

【Intermediate and Advanced Level】
2nd Prize winner Ms. Yazin Xhao (Faculty of Global Studies, from China)

【Beginner Level】
Grand Prize winner Mr. Derek Michio Hondo (Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies, from U.S.A).
2nd Prize winner Ms. Tasha Binti Radzuan (Sophia-ASEAN International Mobility for Students Program, from Malaysia)

The contest was well moderated by Mr. Alexandru Arba of the Faculty of Human Science Department of Psychology from Germany who serves as an English tutor at LLC conversation lessons. Students from a student organization “Lingwave” also support the contest, helping international students in practicing their speeches as well as giving cheers at the day of the contest.

Sophia University

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