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| The winner of the 2016 Oratorical Contest – grade 7 student Nadia M. |
Public speaking is an important social skill that can be acquired through practice at an early age. The more opportunities a student has to develop this skill, the more comfortable and proficient they will be at a later age. To help facilitate this process, IHMS offers students in the upper grades two different public speaking opportunities:
| A Debate Club, organized and run by the school’s vice principal, Mr. Banias. This is an optional extra-curricular activity for grade 7 and 8 students only. | ||
| An Oratorical Contest, which is run every year in May where every grade 6 to 8 student is asked to deliver a 2-3 minute speech to their classmates on a preselected topic. |
All grade 6-8 students participate in the Oratorical Contest (the speech is used as a part of their ELA mark). The preselected topics for each grade were as follows:
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After each student delivered their speech to the rest of the class, they were given a mark by their teacher, and the six best speakers were selected as semi-finalists. These semi-finalists recited their speeches for a second time to a pair of judges, and the six are reduced down to 3 finalists. These finalists become contestants in the Oratorical Contest for their grade.
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| The nine contestants arranged in their speaking order |
The Oratorical Contest is sponsored by a defunct organization called the Fidelity Club which has been providing prize money for more than 20 years. The prizes are:
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This year, the 22nd annual Oratorical Contest was held on Thursday, May 18 in the school gym. The finalists for each grade were:
Grade 6 Finalists |
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| Donovan M. | Eric S. | Ihor S. |
Grade 7 Finalists |
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| James B. | Myles C. | Nadia M. |
Grade 8 Finalists |
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| Yaroslav P. | Anna R. | Rachel S. |
These nine finalists were selected the previous week in order to give them enough time to memorize and perfect their speeches. They practised in front of each other and were given constructive advice and feedback by the supervising teachers. This helped to improve the overall quality of their speeches.
The judges for this year’s Oratorical Contest were:
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| The three judges – Mr. Fil, Mr. Banias, and Ms. Bacon |
Each of the nine contestants presented their speech in the school gym in front of the grade 5-8 students, their teachers, and the three judges. A few parents also showed up. Mr. Picklyk was the MC for the Oratorical Contest.
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| Mr. Picklyk was the MC for the Oratorical Contest. A few parents and grandparents attended |
The contest began just after 9:00 a.m., and by 9:40 a.m., it was over. The students were dismissed back to their classes to allow the judges time to make the difficult decision of selecting the top three contestants. Everyone reconvened in the gym at 10:40 a.m. to hear the final results as announced by Mr. Picklyk.
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| One of the contestants, Nadia M,, presenting her speech |
Mr. Banias, spoke briefly about the high quality of this year’s competition and then presented the first, second, and third place certificates to the respective winners.
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| Mr. Banias did an excellent job representing the judging panel. In the above photo, he spent some time discussing judging protocol and the high quality of this year’s speeches |
2016 Oratorical Contest standings:
1st place |
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2nd place |
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3rd place |
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Congratulations to all nine contestants for a job well done.
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| The nine contestants (with the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners kneeling in the front) posing with certificates after the contest. To view in larger format, please click here |