Best Things Come in Speaking Up

Making the speech is exhausting, in  some ways. I made a huge revamp on my speech halfway. I didn’t really memorize it though. I chose ‘Teenage Smoking’ as my topic maybe because my lungs are allergic to smoke and many other things. As I made my speech, I learned a couple of things about cigarettes. I actually enjoyed making the speech.

Preparing for the fest is gruesome, tiring, and exhausting. Insert any word and that will do. Halfway, I revamped my speech, and some people were not happy about it. Of course, my effort was not useless. Ms Vilma actually liked the speech. What displayed here on the blog is an archetype. What I used for the speech is different.

On the D-day, I was nervous - really really nervous. My body was shaking. My mind was fuzzy. But, I still spoke. I couldnt fail now.  I think I did a good enough, but not satisfactory. In events like this, I still needed to do better. It’s still a good experience anyway.

My speech was already good enough, but I didn’t speak good enough. This is my weakness. I still need to train harder.

Based on the result, around 40% liked the way we spoke because it’s clear. They also liked the way we emphasized things. The topics also made a big impact, and they learned alot of things from our speeches. Someone also said that we spoke like professionals.

Mr. Josh, our EFL Teacher made a power-point presentation of our speech. That captured the attention of the audience, and some people may also liked that.

We chose our topics mostly from the concerns of the society like smoking, drugs, pop icon, and preserving our tradition, etc. The audience said that we chose good topics, and they learned a lot of things from us.  The topics are really informative, and it made me happy to see that we may change somebody’s life by doing this speech.

Not only the audience, we also learn new things. I found out new things about cigarettes when I researched about my topic.

Nobody commented on our appearance, but I don’t think we looked ridiculous. The audience also liked our confidence. Of course, we trained really hard for this.

Of course, not all of us did good. Some people didn’t live up to the expectation.



( By : Rambo - Robin )

Speech-Fest 2014 : The Beginning

We got many positive comments from this year’s speech-fest. Some critiqued, some suggested, and even a few gave trivial comments. Many suggested about bravery, more training, confidence, loudness and clarity.

Everyone had their own opinions. To them, some people did a good speech, and some did not in their opinion. Some showed bias to the speakers. Even so,  a very few speakers did not memorize their speeches, did some mistakes, or probably spoke too soft or loud, or did not speak clearly during their speech. This might be the source of the comments saying like; some talked too fast, some have to overcome their stage fright, some have to speak clearly, some have to improve their hand gestures and voice, some have to be more active, etc. Well, it might be true that some people did a few mistakes in the audience’s eyes. But to the speakers, they are already doing their best to overcome their stage fright to deliver their speech.

On the other hand, some positive thoughts were given. Having all these critics and positive comments will surely make the speakers try to improve themselves. Those comments like; good job, nicely done, very good, the speakers were good and their voices were good, etc. These will motivate them for sure. One student even commented that she wants the speakers to do better on next year’s speech-fest, and this is a boost for the confidence of students. This proves that the speakers have done a really good job on this year’s speech-fest, and there might be more positive comments later. We just hope that next year, there will be another successful speech-fest! 


( By : Banshee - Elvira )       

EFL Initiates the First Sekolah Mentari Speech-Fest

 Friday, 4 April 2014. Sekolah Mentari Grand Surya held its first “Speech Fest”. This is an activity which helps us develop our confidence by talking in front of a big crowd. Speech Fest’s contestants were from the Grade 7, but not all of them joined. Only 14 of the lucky ones were chosen, the rest were hoped to do in another venue.

All of the EFL students were picked. However 1 student from the EFL was not able to join and the rest 7 contestants were form the ESL. The grade 7 had to wear formal clothes to school. The activity started from 08.30 am -9.30 am in our school auditorium. The theme of this year’s was “The Voice of the Youth is the Echo of Tomorrow”. The judges were the audience and were composed of Grade 4, Grade 5 and Grade 6.

The judges were given evaluation sheets where they had to vote. They gad to vote their top 5 contestants, top 5 topics, reasons and their comments. The EFL have work very hard to count those cotes and came out with the results and the top 5 contestant were Vianca, Bastian, Elvira, Gaby and Robin. Vianca got the highest vote, 59 votes out of 74 papers that were counted. She was also the first one to perform. The 2^nd highest with just a 2-vote difference was Bastian who got 57 votes. The 3^rd had a very important wake up call to the youth, it’s Elvira with 47 votes. Next one was Gaby, with her “confidence topic” getting 39 votes. The last but not the least, was Robin was Robin with 26 votes.

Aside from the top 5, we also had our bottom 5. This will make them improve their speech and public speaking. The person who had the lowest score was Regine, 5 votes only. The second to the last was Angela who got very interesting topic but she only got 8 votes. Next were Grecia and Tamara, they got a total of 12 votes. In the 8^th position, we got Thea, with 17 votes. With 18 votes, we have Jennyfer with her cellphone topic.

This activity had brought everyone joy. Not only the students were, satisfied but also the principals and teachers. Like our principal said, Pak Hari, “This activity is really good and I personally support the kids of the future class to do this next year. For this year’s speech fest, the students have performed their best and have chosen good topics related to the youth. Even though 1 of the 14 had difficulties, it’s all good.” It’s his closing remarks for the 2014 “Speech Fest”


( By : T-Rex - Vianca )

Sekolah Mentari Holds Speech-Fest 2014

            Friday, April 4th 2014. The very first Speech-Fest was held at Sekolah Mentari Grand Surya. It was held from 8.30 A.M – 9.30 A.M. Some Grade 7 students participated as the speakers on the Speech-Fest. There were 14 speakers, 7 from the EFL and 7 from the ESL. The judges were also the audience who were Grade 4 – Grade 6 students. Each of them was given an evaluation paper to evaluate the speakers.

            The top 5 topics are “Drugs” by Bastian who won the first place with 43 votes, “Bullying” by Reynaldi and “Choosing the Right Pop Icon” by Vianca who won the second place with 39 votes, “Teenage Smoking” by Robin who won the third place with 30 votes, “Preserve Our Tradition” by Elvira and “The Importance of Self Esteem” by Gaby who won the fourth place with 28 votes, “Flood, Sweat and Tear” by Tamara and “Eradicate Child Labor” by Grace who won the fifth place with 27 votes.

The bottom 5 topics are “The Dangerous of Sugar” by Grecia and “Teenage Using Cellphone” by Jennyfer with 24 votes, “The Issue of Teenage Pregnancy” by Regine with 20 votes, “Fighting Corruption” by Thea with 16 votes, “TV Censorship” by Angela with 10 votes and “Racism” by Kenneth with 4 votes.

            Most students chose “Drugs” as the best interesting topic because nowadays, many peoples from adults to kids used drug. Drugs are really dangerous and it can cause death. Students also chose “Choosing the Right Pop Icon” as one of the best topics. Most of the reasons were because the topic was about Miley Cyrus and Miley Cyrus is infamous. “Bullying” was also chosen as one of the best topics because, bullying often happens at schools and it can cause the victim to commit suicide. Students know much about these topics.

            Speech-Fest 2014 ran smoothly. All the speakers spoke clearly. The topics that they chose were all good. Sekolah Mentari Grand Surya Middle School Principal, Mr. Hari, hopes that the speakers and all students of Sekolah Mentari Grand Surya can truly improve in public speaking.



( By : Kyuubi - Grace )