On December 21, 2014，the First English Christmas Song Competition, hosted by the English Corner of Shanxi University, started at about 2:30 p.m. on the fifth floor of Wenying Students’ Skill Training Center. Students from 12 schools of the university took part in the competition. Steven, a foreign teacher, Professor Duan Yihao from School of Foreign Languages and two excellent students Jia Yuhan and Zhang Hengkai were invited to the competition as the judges. The competition built a strong atmosphere for English learning, stimulated students' great enthusiasm for learning English and achieved the expected results.
The competition had many bright spots. Aiming to be impartial, open and fair, it adopted a dual scoring method, which means both the professional judges and the public judges scored the contestants. The competition consisted of two rounds. In each round, each contestant group had to sing two songs, one of which must be aChristmas song and the other an English song chosen by contestants themselves. From contestants’ dressing and performance, it could be clearly seen that every contestant had made full preparation. With their sweet melodious songs, the contestants passed on a relaxing and pleasing Christmas atmosphere to the whole audience present. Among all the contestants, those four groups from the School of Music and SFL were especially impressive. With individual soulful singing and tacit team cooperation, their performance, remarkable in both voice and feeling, won unanimous praise from the judges and also brought vitality to this contest.
In this contest, the performances of thecontestants were wonderful and climax came one after another. At the very beginning of the competition, each contestant showed themselves with their distinctive voices. In the first round, the contestants sang with great sensibility several Christmas songs that everyone was familiar with, including “Last Christmas”, “When the Christmas comes to town”, “Jingle Bell”, etc. At the end of the first round, Jia Yuhan, one of the judges, sang the song “Mercy”. Her beautiful voice and perfect tones attracted everyone present. Soon after that, the second round reached a climax ascontestants from SFL and other schools showed their talents and skills to the fullest. With their beautiful songs and excellent stage performance, they brought really a feast to the audiences, who gave bursts of applauds in return. At the end of the competition, Professor Duan Yihao made comments on all competitors. He said that this competition had impressedeveryone with the students’ passion for music, showing the most beautiful voice of youth. Steven, the foreign judge, also encouraged students to continue learning English and use it well.
After careful scoring, the final results were as follows: the team from the School of Music won the first place with the score of 89.875; theteam of sophomores from the School of Foreign Languages and the team from the School of Fine Arts were placed second; the team of freshmen from SFL, the team from the School of Philosophy and Sociology, and the team from the School of Political Science and Public Management were placed third.
After the competition, many photos were taken and winners were awarded small gifts. Besides, Christmas cards were also sent to express festive blessings. From the “Voice of SXU”, the first competition of English Christmas songs, students have not only felt the atmosphere created by the English Corner, but also, by participating in the activities, have learnt English songs, developed their sense of the English language, and even enriched their cultural life.
School of Foreign Languages
December 21, 2014
(2014MTI)