At the beginning of summer, the weather is warm and the flowers are blooming. With the relaxation of COVID-19 epidemic control, the doors of major campuses have also opened up, and with the resumption of international flights, the 18th ‘Campus Enteprise Workplace, English Challenge,’ hosted by Shenzhen Technician College has been held.
Shenzhen Technician College launched the ‘Campus-Enterprise Alliance Workplace English Challenge’ to promote amongst the vocational colleges in the Greater Bay Area, the educational benefits of “Job courses and competition certificates”.
This is the 18th year the competition has now been held. The participating teams are all from top-line institutions. These include, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd, iFlytek Co. Ltd., Shenzhen Polytechnic, Shenzhen Institute of Information Technology, Shenzhen Technician College, and iCXC (International Exchange Center). Our iCXC representatives include James, our Local Coordinator, Ashley, a former American exchange student, and Karen from Malaysia who can speak six languages.
In the first part of the event, all participating contestants were invited to answer a simple questionnaire on stage. The contestants chose the correct answer based on the questions displayed on the big screen.
One question asked, “Did you ever feel overwhelmed by English exams when you were a student?” If you are concerned about your performance, don’t worry, this part does not count towards the team’s total score, and the organisers are understanding!
The second part of the event was the routine self-introduction and workplace demonstration section. The participating teams introduced the companies or schools they belonged to, providing the development history, organisational structure, professional categories, and development scale.
In this section, James from iCXC simply used two powerpoint slides to introduce the overall situation and business of the company. It was very well received. The second part was the workplace application section, in which the participating teams used English dialogue focusing on business scenarios drawn on the spot and completed relevant work tasks. As the contestants communicated orally, iFlytek’s real-time speech-to-text technology displayed the English dialogue and Chinese translation of each team on the screen.
These role-playing simulated workplace scenarios with targeted simulation applications, allowed students and participating contestants to complete using English. The scenario we played out, was “Placing an Order”, simulating purchasing materials for the company. This wasn’t a difficult task at all for iCXC’s representatives.
The third part was the “talent show” section. We sang Adam Lambert’s masterpiece “What do ya want From me.” In front of an enthusiastic audience the contestants demonstrated their talents, including tea art, guitar playing, singing, street dance, and even inviting a guest to hit high notes and win the first place in the section. The contestants were very talented!
The final section is the “risk acceleration” section, where the contestants could choose questions worth 10, 20, or 30 points. The higher the points, the more difficult the question. It’s worth mentioning that if a contestant answered a question incorrectly in the 30-point question category, the section ended, and no points were awarded.
The 10-point questions were simple multi-choice questions; the 20-point questions were impromptu speech topics, and the 30-point questions involved listening to a passage and then answering a few questions. Our team chose the 20-point question and the impromptu topic we received was “ Artificial Intelligence”, which is very topical. Our team completed this section with ease.
In the final award ceremony, iCXC won first place in the “Workplace Demonstration” and “Workplace Application” sections, as well as first prize in the overall team score!
Finally, we would like to thank Shenzhen Technician College for organising this event and inviting us to participate. We congratulate the other participating companies and schools for their excellent performances. All performances on the day exceeded expectations, and we look forward to seeing each other and competing again next year!
