SZ student wins top prize in national English competition

Dressed up in traditional Chinese clothing, Chen Guanlin, a 12-year-old student from Shenzhen, performed extremely well at the 23rd Star of Outlook English Talent Competition national final recently held in Beijing and won the first place in Grade 4-6 group of primary schools after four rounds.

Chen Guanlin delivers an English speech during the 23rd Star of Outlook English Talent Competition national final held in Beijing on Aug. 2-3.Courtesy of the interviewee

Although Chen couldn’t attend the competition in Beijing due to the pandemic, his performances impressed the judges via screen.

In the first speech session, Chen told the story from a famous Confucius quote: “In a group of three people, there will be someone whom I can learn from,” to present the key argument of his speech, “Winning isn’t everything, but learning is.”

Chen started taking part in English speaking contests since he was in the second grade and achieved great results. In Chen’s eyes, competition has become a way of learning and growing.

“Brilliant competitors are my role models. Competing with them made me become more motivated to achieve new goals. Some of the competitors became partners so we practice together,” said Chen.

Chen said he is not a kind of person who was born for the stage. “At the very beginning, I could feel my whole body shaking because I was too nervous. Now, I still have stage fright sometimes but only a little bit,” said Chen.

Chen graduated from Chunlei Primary School of Baihe Foreign Language Education Group this summer. Chen appreciated help from the school teachers, especially his instructor Fu Xinxuan, who assisted him in preparing for many contests.

Many would wonder how a kid at such young age can speak nearly perfect English. Chen started learning English when he was 4 years old and had no problem in having daily English conversations with foreigners a year later, according to Chen’s father Chen Guoshun.

The father told Shenzhen Daily he didn’t send his son to any English training programs. At the very beginning, he just played quality English audio and video contents to let his son learn.

A music teacher, the father values the sound system of a language and believed that good quality audio and video contents that at the same time are comprehensible to children are key language learning resources at the primary stage.

“In the music industry, we have a term called inner hearing. I think this can be applied to language learning. You first notice a sound and then connect it to a word. When I was helping my son learn English, I ensured phonemes always come first, and then letters,” Chen said.