Doing a poetry reading in a speech festival helped this student with the DSE speech examination. Despite this experience, she does not read much, just CNN.

A teacher helped this student improve her speech and aural skills by encouraging her to take part in a speaking festival. The same teacher also suggested she read movie subtitles to develop better pronunciation. She also read newspapers.

Competing in a secondary school Speech Festival expanded this Business major’s vocabulary. He used English textbooks at school and enjoyed the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

The school Speech Festival required this Occupational Therapy major to read a poem with emotion. She is getting used to doing English presentations in university.

Taking part in English speech competitions made up for the lack of speaking opportunities in primary and secondary school for this Physiotherapy major. She has read popular fiction but is also studying the stories of the victims of war.

Taking part in a speech festival made this student feel like he was learning from the new vocabulary and poems. He cannot remember the English classics he has read. He reads journal articles in university.

Reading novels and doing reports in front of the class in primary school was hard but helpful for this Business major. Participating in the speech festival made her start looking at poems. She likes the writing style and meaning of Pride and Prejudice.

Reciting a poem for the Speech Festival was difficult but it was fun to be able to understand the meaning behind it. This Business major was confused with some of the terms when he first started reading university texts.

Joining a speech festival allowed this Psychology major to practise public speaking. She learnt reverse poems during secondary school and found it very interesting.