Filipino students share their dreams and experiences in the first Korean speech contest
The Ministry of Education of Korea, and the Korean Embassy in the Philippines, in cooperation with Department of Education of the Philippines (DepEd) held its first online speech contest last November 12, 2022 participated by contestants from each DepEd Special Program for Foreign Language participating schools around the country. Erica Nituan, a Grade 10 student from San Bartolome High School was the Grand winner of the said contest. The 2022 Online Korean Speech Contest is an event made to provide an opportunity to the students to share their dreams and experiences while speaking in Korean, and be motivated and inspired by their fellow contestants.
Erica Nituan bested the competition with her speech entitled ‘How did Korean Learning influence your life now and your plans for the future?’ as she narrated how the Korean language gave her the boost of confidence she needs after the pandemic. She shared in her speech, “It affected my future because learning Korean is the reason I developed and improved my confidence. Now that I have trust in myself, I believe that I can do anything in the future without the fear of facing failures.” and sent message of encouragement to the viewers to not be afraid to try out new things. Her representing school, San Bartolome High School has been teaching Korean as part of its SPFL program since 2017.
Contest runner-up Nyvelle Celorio, who won with her speech entitled ‘A good word that leads to a good place’ where she talked about how a word from someone could inspire others. Her speech touched the hearts of the viewers as she narrated a poem from the book ‘Thank you for making me love you’. The other runner-up, Roxynne Espeleta, won with her speech entitled ‘I Know, I Love You!’ which dwelled upon how her fond of Hallyu opened doors for her to learn the Korean language. Her speech was cheerfully ended by singing a phrase from the song Je T’aime of JOY.
The 2022 Online Korean Speech Contest was opened to one representative student of Grades 7 – 10 from each DepEd Special Program for Foreign Languages (SPFL) Korean implementing school. Currently, there are 50 SPFL Korean implementing schools with 113 teachers nation-wide. Korean Embassy in the Philippines has been providing training and resources to support the teaching of Korean language in the Philippines. In line with this effort, the schools of the three winners of this contest are provided with the mini-Korean library, consisting of various Korean novels and textbooks carefully curated by Korean Embassy. Through this mini library, Korean Embassy hopes for the students to feel closer to Korea and its culture. #