By Laytee George

The Rotorua Interschools Chinese Speech Competition celebrated its eleventh year with yet another milestone with 175 students from Years 5 - 13 finalists taking part over two days, who had already undergone rigorous semi-final rounds at their respective schools. This year the event was sponsored by Waiariki Institute of Technology, the tertiary institution in Rotorua.

This annual event is the highlight for students learning Chinese to come together to showcase their ability in presenting a Chinese speech in front of students, teachers and parents from 11 schools. It is the proud tradition of this event that the panel of judges hail from China. These are teachers on professional exchange programmes at Waiariki Institute. This year the Chief Judge was Dr Ben Chen, the Chinese Director of Confucius Institute Victoria University. The judging panel is delighted at the high standard of speech delivery and often express surprise at the confidence of the contestants to speak without cue cards.

After twelve years of building the "Rotorua Model", Rotorua today, has a strong, sustainable Chinese Language programme in nine schools with over 2,000 students, 31 New Zealand Facilitators, 2 teachers of Chinese, 3 Mandarin Language Assistants and 2 local Chinese assistants, engaging in the learning and teaching of Chinese. Rotorua is preparing its children to "Go beyond classroom borders" and be the young goodwill ambassadors of tomorrow.

Contact:

Phone:

Email: