By Karen Pegueros
Over the weekend, sophomore Isse Quinn and junior Skylar Su each took first place at the 14th Annual Japanese Speech Contest at Spring Valley High School on Saturday, March 3.
The Southern Nevada Japanese Teachers’ Association and the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco held the 14th Annual Japanese Speech Contest in Southern Nevada. They hold the competitions each year in honor of Dr. Fumiko Bicho, the first person who started the Japanese language education in Southern Nevada.
“I encourage students to participate since the speech contest gives students a chance to apply what they have learned in class and express what they want to talk about in Japanese in a more elaborated and sophisticated manner,” Mrs. Vergara, AP Japanese teacher, said. “It certainly expands their language proficiency.”
In addition to winning first in the college level division, Su also took the grand award, Dr. Fumiko Bicho award, which is first overall excluding the heritage speakers. Her speech on Japan’s rapidly declining population made a big impression on the judges and audience. She was also nominated to participate in the All-USA high school Japanese speech contest as a regional winner on May 26 in Irvine, California.
“It’s a great experience for me because I’ve always been scared of public speaking, but the speech brought me some confidence,” Su said. “I’ve learned a lot from other people’s speeches because they speak about a lot of different topics. The Japanese department at Coronado did a great job. Vergara sensei taught me so much, and I really appreciate what she did – spending time before and after school helping us as often as we needed it until our speeches got better.”
Quinn competed against other native Japanese speakers in the heritage division. He spoke about the Japanese vacation system.
“I have a different level of confidence when I speak in Japanese because in Japanese almost no one basically understands what I’m saying, but in English people can understand what I say, so I can’t really mess up,” Quinn said.
