留学生日本語発表～交流会

Mid-May, the Japanese Language Programme (JLP) had its annual japanese speech presentation. Students were selected from all the courses which are being offered here at IUJ - basic, elementary, intermediate & advanced. I escaped from being chosen from our class but got picked instead for the MC job, together with Aidong, from China.

We had a draft MC script provided to us the week before, and were given briefing about the agenda for the evening. When I first saw the 4-page script, I thought maybe I should've volunteered myself for the presentation instead.


Later I found out that the rest were the instructions and explanation about what was to happen for the 発表会　presentation. Aidong and I modified the speech and divided the task among ourselves and sent the final copy for amendments by our Jap teacher, 竹内先生.

Just a few hours before the event, we went up to the 3rd floor of the Matsushita Library and Information Center (MLIC) to practice. While going through our script, we somehow added gestures to spice up the speech. We thought it silly at first as it was merely to complement instructions such as to ask the audience to remain seated while instructions were given, and where to stack the chairs after the event.


After everyone had finished giving their presentations, and the audience eager to go on to the next event, Aidong and I walked up to the front and began our roles as MC's for the night. As usual, I get heartbeats double triple the normal speed when I stand in front of an audience. But I managed to smile my way through and that somehow left a good impression.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the rapport we had as MC's and was most willing to cooperate when we asked them to help with setting up the tables for the reception. The JLP coordinator later wrote us an email saying what a wonderful job we did. She even said that never had she seen such cooperation from the audience before, they actually didn't stand up from their seats while the MC's were giving instructions.


What a feeling of satisfaction knowing that we did a good job, and a greater surprise that we got an email of acknowledgement and people coming up to us saying they enjoyed our "performance"! Below is the email, I still had to use the translator to get the meanings of some of the kanji :p

セーラさん、アイドンさん、

おはようございます。
交流会の司会、どうもありがとうございました。

MLICのホールで発表会・交流会を実施するようになって10年以上になりますが、今までで、一番、うまく、指示がだせた交流会の司会者だったと思います。
お客様が一人も席を立たなかったというのは、初めてです。
これも、お二人が、何回も練習し、非常によくわかる説明が出来たからだと思います。

私は入り口のドアのところで聞いていましたが、二人とも、はっきりした日本語でとても良かったと思います。元気で明るく、非常にわかりやすい日本語でした。二人とも非常によく頑張りましたね。ありがとうございました！

中嶋美津子