English Speech Contest

One of our third grade students, Esther, competed in an English speech contest yesterday in Busan. She has been training at our English school everyday for a few hours for the last 3 weeks or so! The speech competition is called "I Love Milk" and is for elementary students. The children had to first submit a written speech to a committee who narrowed down which children could perform their speech. Esther's was chosen out of a couple thousand applicants. Then yesterday, she performed her memorized 4 minute speech in front of a board of judges and an audience. We are so excited that she was one of three children (out of 20) chosen to go to Seoul next week to perform in the next level of the competition. The winner receives $2,000!

The contest was held at BEXCO, a huge convention center.

The banner outside BEXCO.

Esther waiting anxiously for the contest to begin.

Video: Below is a video of Esther's speech about how milk has effected her life.

Esther performing her speech.

Next to the stage were two huge screens with each contestant's speech written in English and Korean. This way, the judges could follow to see if the child made a mistake and the audience could follow along, too.

Part of Esther's speech on the screen.

Us with Esther after her speech.

Melissa, Esther's mother, Jessie, Esther

Our boss Chris with Esther...he is the one that trained her everyday for her speech.

Thank you gift! Today, Esther's mom ordered Pizza Hut for the teachers at Omni as a thank you for Esther's successful speech. Normally food is much cheaper in Korea, but Pizza Hut is definitely the exception. Each pizza cost 40,000 Won ($35USD)! So the bill for 1 large chicken pizza, 1 large cheese pizza, 2 Pepsi's, and a couple small salads was 89,000 Won ($72)!!!! I think we'll stick to going to Pizza Bingo where a large combination is only 6,000 Won ($5).