Mandarin Speech Contest

[MarkusGlen]

I’ll preempt this with being extremely biased about the video I’m sharing. It’s my 8 year old in a Mandarin speech competition this past weekend. He’s in 3rd grade, neither his mother or I speak Mandarin, so he gets no linguistic help from us at home.

 

We believed it would be a blessing to him to get him into an immersion program as early as possible, and Chinese was available in Kindergarten in Illinois.

 

To him, I think Mandarin comes natural because we believe children are blank slates and can pick up languages easily without haven been introduced to notions that “it’s difficult” or “why, it’s a waste of time...” 

 

While sitting through the competition and seeing nearly a hundred speeches in different age groups and levels, (Markus) seemed to be the most entertaining and had the audience laughing and clapping more than anyone. So-so proud! I couldn’t do in English what my 8 year old did.

 

After the contest, people were coming up to Markus and us and telling us how amazed they were with his character and tone. They couldn’t rationalize how his parents don’t speak Mandarin but he speaks like a native 3rd grader would. Most everyone thought he would receive at least an honorable mention. Out of the 60-70 participants (different age/level groups) in closing judge speeches, one singled Markus out about being the non-native boy who’s character came through strongly. 

 

Markus competed as a “Native Speaker” since they wouldn’t allow him in the other group because of how well his school did in the past. 

 

Not knowing more than saying hello, thank you and goodbye... I’d like some honest feedback from native speakers on what Markus did wrong so we can work with him moving forward. Too disrespectful? Too nervous? The topic was “Less is More.” All criticism welcome! (Thank You!!!!) ~Papa

His speech: 

https://youtu.be/AtuoHnWGwV0

[Tomsima]

He did a great job, his tones and sentence intonation is almost exactly like a native chinese student of his age would deliver a speech. Congratulations, looks like he is really enjoying himself as well

[歐博思]

I skipped to the video before I read the post. My thoughts on the video progressed something like this: "wow this sounds pretty good", "I wonder what the language situation is like between him and the wife", "...wait, he doesn't look very asian (I was only listening to the audio at first)", *gasp* Illinois

[Shelley]

My critique has nothing to do with his Chinese. I felt his delivery was rushed, and a  little stilted, his gestures seemed unnatural and seemed to make him hesitate. I felt breathless just watching him. I also think that he seemed sort of shouty, I know that this is sort of how it is done but for me a quieter delivery would have been preferable.

 

I think over all it was very good for an 8 year old but it might have got higher marks if the delivery had been calmer and more measured.

 

Keep up the good work letting and encouraging him to learn Chinese.

[MarkusGlen]

Thank you, Shelly! It’s exactly what I needed to hear, and it confirms what I thought. While I have no idea what he was saying.. I’ve listened to him practicing several times at home and it “felt” better many of those times!  Do you think the content or the way he was dressed also worked against him? As I understand it, he was playfully mocking us (parents, and we stand by that character with him when respectful...we have a lot of fun with him at home). And, most of the contestants were dressed in their best clothes...we had a change of clothes but thought it played into the impression we were trying to show with a jersey and jeans in that he’s non native and language is his skill..

[Shelley]

I think the content was probably fine, I didn't spend the time needed to understand it all as it was too fast for me just to understand without some work. 

 

As for his clothes I think that maybe it should have been up to him, in as much as how he felt. Did he feel left out or different not changing into something fancy or was he happy in jeans and a sweat shirt?

I may have encouraged him to change, if for no other reason than to give him a level playing field.

Hope this helps and remember he is doing great and winning a competition is not the end game. The fact he likes learning Chinese and is doing well should be enough.