Speaker's Corner

As anticipated, it was fun getting back to school on Tuesday and seeing everyone.  There were many wishes for all the best in the New Year, and an excitement for being together again.  Both Tuesday and Wednesday were busy, as every free minute was spent in preparation for Speaker's Corner, which was held today.

Today was long too -  "Speaker's Corner" is a school-wide public speaking competition (in English) with winners moving on to regionals.  They told us the American lectors are in charge of this activity.  Thank goodness for all my years of H.S. small-group music contest way back in the day, and Opus auditions more recently, so I had a good idea of how to organize for it.  (I actually started back in December with a lot of things.)  Making sign-up slips and posters, scheduling warm-up times and performance times, making judges' score sheets, creating score tally forms, etc. etc. etc. - it is a big job!  

It was really fun listening to the performances today.  The first round consisted of prepared speeches on topics the students had individually selected from a list of five choices given to them last month.  Some kids were incredibly well-organized and had done a good deal of research, while others tried to "wing it" based on their good English skills.  The top scorers after the first round came back for Round 2, where they were given a new topic and 15 minutes to prepare a new speech.  Again, it was interesting, because some of the better prepared Round 1 speakers had a tough time with the short turn-around time and were much worse in that format.  Others did indeed do a terrific job because they could just wing it well!!  LOL!!  The scores from the two rounds were equal, so we ended up with well-rounded winners.  Tim and I have a month to coach the kids, revamp their prepared speeches with them, and practice on the Round 2 format.  We are pretty excited, because we think some of the kids should compete very well on the next level.  We have 3 winners from the Junior and Intermediate levels (our limit), and 2 from the Senior level, since we only had two entries of older kids.  We'll get to spend a romantic Valentine's Day back in Žilina, this time taking our students to the regional Speaker's corner competition on Feb. 14th, and from the sounds of things, we'll probably be helping to judge the competition as well.  

Tuesday after school was our Slovak lesson, next I had my 2 lady students, and then it was school volleyball - fun as usual.  Wednesday after school we did some more errands - post office, grocery store, and seamstress, where we left my ball dress to be shortened.  (More on that another time!)  We both have students for English lessons tonight, and I'm getting some laundry done too.  It's good this has been a short week back at school as we get back into the swing of things again!  

Tim and Rivi reading the amazingly cool pop-up version of "The Wizard of Oz" that Deb sent
in her Christmas package!!