I know questions about speech contests have been asked before, but I’m particularly interested in how Japanese English speaking judges grade based on textbook words they hear.
I know that sentence starters like “in this case” or “at that time” or “for example” or “I have three reasons” are very common in textbooks (definitely directly translated from Japanese for ease of teaching). Does anyone know if judges look especially for those phrases in the contest? I want to delete the superfluous ones but not if they screw with the students’ performance in the contest.
I’m not a fan of essentially writing their speeches into English from Japanese but that’s how it goes sometimes. I don’t really care much about them using natural speech in the contest since it’s more drill and performance based rather than correct output focused.
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Most judging I have seen has been pretty much whatever opinions the judge holds though one or two have had good criteria. Unless it is written down somewhere I do not think it will matter. Most tend to lean towards the more natural sounding participant, not sure many pay attention for specific vocabulary though.
>Does anyone know if judges look especially for those phrases in the contest?
This is hard to say because every contest is different. I have judged some before that had very specific phrases, expressions, and/or structures on the rubric that we needed to score for. Usually, if judges are looking for these kinds of things, then there will be a detailed explanation included with the application.
However, most of the contests that I judge, the rubrics are rather subjective and interpretative, so we wouldn’t being looking for specific language/structures. Maybe just something like, “transitions, 5 pts.” Having said that, I have worked with some judges (especially grammarians) who really look for these types of things, but that is impossible to plan for. Many contests don’t decide the judges until the (relatively) last minute.
I would suggest that you read the application documents paying close attention to the ‘advice for participants’ section or (whatever the particular contest calls it). They won’t include the rubric, but it will give you a rough idea about what they are looking for. Also, the last few years the contests have been partially online (participants, one parent each, and judges in the room, but other parents, siblings, relatives, friends, etc. watching online or some contestants in the room, others on Zoom). Some of these have been uploaded to YouTube, so it might be possible for you to see the winning speeches from the last couple of years.
Good luck!