For the last couple of months I have been working with Bitna, a student at my high school, on a speech for a contest she participated in Seoul yesterday. She wanted to improve her English and to get an advantage in entering a good university.
Bitna is a special girl because she is one of the most idylistic and funny people I have met. Yesterday she made pancakes at home to give homeless men in Seoul.
The contest was held in a big hall with three judges who would rate the pronunciation and delivery of the speech. Bitna was really nervous of course. She began her speech and 10 seconds into it, one of the administrators yelled, stop. Oops...they said her name correctly, but gave the wrong contestent number. Either way, she had written a great speech and did a good job delivering it. I was proud of her.
There were several participants who had lived in English speaking countries, so their pronunciation was perfect. I told her prior to the speech that this would be the case and she should not worry about getting a prize because it would not be a fair competition.
The results are going to be mailed later, but they gave us the judges notes yesterday. To our great surprise, when the woman returned with the notes she told Bitna that she had either won the competition or came in second. Her joy was a priceless moment for me.
Sometimes it is great to be a teacher.
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