2014 ACT Mandarin Presentation Contest Award Ceremony held in Australia

Nearly 900 students—from one university or one of 11 primary or secondary schools in the ACT—took part in the 2014 contest, and 57 winners were selected. Each participating school or university uses its own preferred contest format. These include giving an oral presentation, free style dialogue, doing a film review, a speaking contest, creating a short film, and/or interviews.

Each year’s award winners are invited to formally receive their awards at a ceremony co-organized by TECO’s Education Division and the ACT Education and Training Directorate. Ms Katharine Chang, the Representative of Taiwan in Australia, spoke at the 2014 ceremony, saying Mandarin is a language for the ‘future’ and having proficiency in Mandarin will help students to access a larger job market in the Asia-Pacific countries. She urged the students to deepen their knowledge of the Mandarin language, and related culture by studying in Taiwan.

Ms Diane Joseph, Director-General of the ACT Education and Training Directorate, congratulated the students and their teachers too for taking part in the in the contest activities and attending the ceremony. She was delighted by the excellent quality of the finalists, representing the students’ high levels of commitment towards their language studies, and the hard work and dedication of ACT language teachers.

The annual ceremony provides a great opportunity for students and teachers of Mandarin to meet up. This year’s award ceremony concluded with a presentation of 11 items, designed by the students with the help of their teachers. These clearly displayed the students’ creativity and growing ability to put their Mandarin language skills and knowledge to use in a broad range of ways. For example, Vanessa Wong and Jack Schipp from Melrose High School shared details of their education exchange visit to Taiwan; 40 Year 3 and Year 4 students from Mawson Primary School sang a song and gave a Wushu gymnastics demonstration; and Dickson College students had created a short video called (in translation) “Master Chef of Chinese Food”.

Photo L to R: Peter Clayden, deputy principal, Canberra College; Phil Beecher, principal, Canberra High School; Simon Vaughan, principal, Melrose High School; Robin Egerton, deputy principal, Lake Tuggeranong College; Diane Joseph, Director-General, ACT Education & Training Directorate (ETD); Katharine Chang, Representative, TECO; Andy Bi, executive director, TECO’s Education Division; Leanne Wrights, Director of Learning and Teaching, ETD; and Martin Hine, curriculum manager, Learning and Teaching, ETD