Senior Three Speeches

Recently the senior threes took part in their first ever speech competition. First, we watched examples of high quality speeches and discussed what makes a good speech.  

Practice run in small groups

Then the students chose their own topics, wrote their own speeches, had a practice run in class and then the final speech that was judged and graded.  Their were very excited by the independence afforded to them with this project and topics ranged from Christianity to genocide to basketball to fashion. It included personal stories and research. Although, the internet is not currently working on campus for students to use it, I offered my services for computer research so lack of knowledge would not hold them back from an interesting subject.

The students rarely get their picture taken but love when they get the opportunity.
After our practice speeches them all huddled together and posed for me.

I was quite impressed by the final products!  The top three students were chosen from both senior three classes and they competed against top senior three students from another Nyamata secondary school.

Also, as a fun little cultural moment, I went to town to buy some prizes for the final competition and I settled on simple lollypops and biscuits.  When I started picking out twelve candies, the man in charge of the stand burst out laughing and continued until I had paid and walked. Buying in bulk is not at all common here.  When I had bought the biscuits earlier, the vendor asked if I was going to sell them in the street as he could think of no other sensible reason to buy so many.  Quite the opposite of Costco loving USA!

-Kristin