TUFS Students Place First and Second in Malay Speech Contest

December 20, 2018

On Saturday, 2 December, the Japan Malay Speech Contest took place at the ASEAN-Japan Centre. The competition was hosted by the Japan-Malaysia Association in cooperation with the Embassy of Malaysia in Japan and Tourism Malaysia.

Erii Koyama and So Kimura, who are both third year students of the School of Languages and Cultures, placed first and second, respectively.

Erii Koyama will represent Japan at the International Speech Competition in Malay, Prime Minister's Cup next year.

Comment – Erii Koyama

For this competition, I drew on my experiences as an exchange student in Malaysia, and gave my speech to the topic of “What Japan can learn from Malaysia’s multi-ethnic society”.
Aside from improving my speech and Malay skills, through this speech I was able to challenge a topic I had little expertise on, and could use trial and error to plan out my ideas to finally create one speech, an experience that has become a huge source of sustenance for me.
This was my second time participating in this competition, and I am very happy that I was able to try again and surpass my previous result.
To Professor Faridah who supported me in every way, my friends in the Malaysian department, and Mr. Arai who organized this competition, I would like to say thank you very much.

Comment - So Kimura

I drew on my experiences as an exchange student and spoke about the importance of understanding other cultures.
Up until now I had focused my efforts on English speech competitions with the TUFS English Speaking Society, so I was very intrigued by how effective speech structures differ between languages, which made this a very valuable experience for me.
In particular, I felt that Malay speeches tend to show more awareness of the audience and question them more than English speeches.
I was also able to meet students from other universities who also study Malay, which became a big motivation for my own Malay studies.
I am grateful from the bottom of my heart for Professor Faridah, who guided me and became like a relative to me, all the other teachers who helped me, and for all my friends who helped me practice my speech.