Over the March long weekend, 3 Carleton students and their instructor Hyounjeong Yoo made the trip to Toronto for the Toronto Korean Speech Contest.
Now in its 11th year, the TKSC brings together students of Korean from across Canada and the US (and some from Japan!) in a one-day speaking competition at the University of Toronto.
This year, Carleton’s entrants (one beginner and two advanced) were among the almost 60 participants competing in four categories novice to advanced with serious prizes up for grabs including round-trip tickets to Seoul and the opportunity to take part in a summer language program in Korea.
Depending on category, speeches were between 3-4 minutes in length and had titles like: “Please answer my friend”, “Dialect alive, I’m alive”, and “The reason I like South Korea.”
A speech by Carleton’s Yuwei Zhang, “Culture shock and relationships”, won second place in the Advanced category.
Korean is a relatively new addition to Modern Language offerings at Carleton but, if the final performance at the recent Linguavision Song Competition – a K-Pop medley complete with choreography and screaming fans – is any indication, there is a growing interest among students in both the language and its culture.
For more information about the competition, visit the TKSC website.