The 2020 National “FLTRP·ETIC CUP” English Speech Contest (Beijing Finals) was successfully held on November 8, 2020, at the New Century Nikko Hotel in Beijing. The contest was jointly organized by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, the National Administry Committee on Teaching English Language to Majors in Higher Education under the Ministry of Education, and ELT Advisory Board under the Ministry of Education. It was hosted by Beijing Forestry University.

Themed “Challenge to All”, the topic of the final keeps abreast with current affairs. Altogether, 46 contestants from 46 universities in Beijing, including Tsinghua University, Peking University, China Foreign Affairs University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Renmin University of China and BUCT, participated in this contest.

Under the guidance of Ms. Jing Zhang, Aotikul Aniwar, a sophomore from the Department of English, successfully made to top fifteen in the first round of impromptu speech in the morning and advanced to the second round in the afternoon. In the second round, he delivered another two speeches, an impromptu one and a prepared one. After that he answered two rounds of targeted in-depth questions from experts and scholars. Aotikul Aniwar, with his good command of the English language and discernment, brought a wonderful speech mixed with seriousness and amusement, puns, and brilliant metaphors, and left a deep impression on all the audiences present. Ten professors and scholars from different universities in Beijing made fair and professional evaluations. Ranking No.4 among all the contestants made into the final, Aotikul Aniwar won the first prize in the 2020 “FLTRP·ETIC CUP” English Speech Contest (Beijing Finals). Other first prize winners were Xiangyi Zhu from Communication University of China, Luo Fengjun from Beijing Wuzi University, and three others; the Grand Prize was won by Chang Liu from University of International Business and Economics, and two others.

 The “FLTRP·ETIC CUP” English Speech Contest was founded in 2002 and has since become one of the most popular and prestigious English speech contests in China. The contest is graded into three stages: the campus preliminary round, the provincial-level round, and the national finals. The preliminary round is organized by the School of Humanities and Law and strongly supported by Teaching Administraion Office. Ms. Yaining Zhang, who is in charge of the “extracurricular activities”, is responsible for organizing the preliminary test.

The final round of the provincial level is divided into the knockout stage and the final PK. Only top 15 players can go to the final PK, and there are 3 Grand Prizes,5 first prizes, 7 second prizes, and 31 third prizes.

In such a fierce competition, Aotikul Aniwar’s achievement fully reflects the huge success of SHL’s education, which stresses international perspective, patriotic feelings, language and cross-cultural competence, logic as well as analytical and problem-solving abilities.

  Photo&text by Jiaxin Li from School of Humanities and Law