第二届北德州中文演讲比赛赞助邀请函/Sponsor Invitation Second North Texas Chinese Speech Contest

January 14, 2012

Dear Sir/Madam,

Happy New Year! As the Year of Dragon approaches, we are pleased to announce that Dallas Modern Chinese Language School (DMCLS), together with the Lone Star Youth Association (LSYA) (formal organization including the Dallas Youth Volunteer Association - DYVA), will host the Second North Texas Chinese Speech Contest in the Spring of 2012, building upon the extremely successful event of the First North Texas Chinese Speech Contest last Spring.

The North Texas Chinese Speech Contest provides a platform for all the young learners of the Chinese language to improve their Chinese communication skills as well as educate the young people about the importance of public image and the spirit of leadership. The contest also serves as a platform for catalyzing more and faster exchanges among all the local Chinese schools, promoting Chinese education in the North Texas region, and serving as a bridge for businesses connecting to local Chinese community and whoever has an interest in China and Chinese culture. Here are some statistics for last year’s event:

• 14 North Texas Chinese schools participated
• 151 contestants form different cultural (heritage and non-heritage) backgrounds entered the contest
• 17 sponsors supported the First Contest
• More than 400 audience attended the ceremony

The Second North Texas Chinese Speech Contest will be organized again by Dallas Modern Chinese Language School and Lone Star Youth Association. The event is open to all K-12 school students in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. We expect that there will be more contestants entering the contest with a larger audience than the First Contest. It will truly be a major event in the North Texas to bring together everyone interested in China, Chinese culture, and the Chinese language. The Chinese culture is well appreciated and the Chinese community is expanding in this region. There are more than 20 Chinese schools in the area today. You, like a lot of other kind business owners, are behind all these success stories. For that, we are very grateful! Indeed, without your generosity and that of many other business owners like you, many of the Chinese events in this region wouldn’t be as successful. We sincerely hope that, once again, you will lend us a helping hand by sponsoring the Second North Texas Chinese Speech Contest.

Founded in 1994 as a non-political and non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, DMCLS has grown to be one of the largest weekend Chinese schools in North Texas, currently with over 400 students. Please review the attached form and kindly reply whether you are able to sponsor this event in any shape or form by March 20, 2012. You can send the email to (2012ntcsc@gmail.com), or if you have any questions, please contact DMCLS at 214-403-6257.

We look forward to your support and participation!

Yours Sincerely,

Contest Committee of North Texas Chinese Speech Contest

Dallas Modern Chinese Language School

Lone Star Youth Association

Sponsor Chinese Speech Contest

Name of the sponsor：

Contact person： Telephone：

Email：

Please mail, together with check, to: Beneficiary: DMCLS

PO Box 261868, Plano, TX 75026

The First North Texas Chinese Speech Contest - A successful event [Post-event report]

One hundred and fifty-one contestants, from fourteen Chinese schools and various home schools in the North Texas area, were in the University of Texas at Dallas on Saturday, April 30^th, 2011 for the first annual North Texas Chinese Speech Contest (NTCSC). NTCSC was organized by the Dallas Modern Chinese Language School (DMCLS) and the Dallas Youth Volunteer Association (DYVA).

The contestants, aged from 5 to 16 years old and from K-11, were divided into 10 groups based on their grade level and delivered speeches in Chinese with varied time limits, depending on the divisions they belonged to.

The entire contest flow procedure and judge standards were adopted from Toastmaster International, an established model, to help ensure the fairness of the competition.

Most of the contestants delivered high quality public speeches. They not only had loud voices with vocal variety, but they also used plenty of body language. Those contestants were born or grew up in the U.S., but speak fluent Chinese, which is very competitive and made the judge’s job harder. Two to three judges in each group used the score card to make the final list, and the Chief Judge made the final decision.

The top three winners in each group were awarded a nice acrylic trophy. The rest of the contestants all received honorable mentions to encourage participation for the contest. Just like the Board Chairman of DMCLS said, every contestant is a winner. The goal of having this Chinese speech contest is to promote and enhance the study and application of Chinese in the North Texas area. Learning and speaking Chinese is not limited to Chinese families; in fact, more and more non-Chinese people are learning the language. Of the winners of this contest, some were from American and Indian families. When our MC called a third place winner, who was from India, everyone clapped even more enthusiastically for her. This presents a motivating challenge for students from native Chinese families. As in the congratulation letter, our Chief Judge said that this is an event everyone should be proud of. It is not only making an imprint, it is a start of a better tomorrow for promoting public speaking and the Chinese language. Even though the Chinese Speech Contest has concluded, learning Chinese has just started.

It is the committee members who put forth much effort that make this event a success. The planning can only be described as persistent, collaborative, professional, and committed. The committee members had been working hard for almost four months. There were more than 20 recorded meetings. The committee also contacted dozens of Chinese school heads and had a conference with principals and their designees to promote the speech contest as well as teaching and learning of Chinese. Each school sent students and selected teachers to serve as the judges.

The committee also conducted several speech workshops. Several locally famous speakers were in the training. The training workshops were all full. The teachers and board members from DMCLS, and the youth volunteers from DYVA, taking full advantage, also attended the judge training to ensure the professional quality of judge candidates.

The volunteering spirit of the youth also proved highly impressive. The youth volunteers are from one of the organizers (DYVA). The members were students from 8^th to 11^th grade; they took time from an already busy schedule and actively did their best. The volunteers helped by applying for TI CIT funding, editing co-organizer and sponsor invitation letters, setting up the web pages and communicating with contestants via group email, designing and printing the nametags, and creating, collecting, and analyzing the survey. First of all, the youth learned a lot from this event by participating in the organization and gaining hands-on experience.

Together, we made it: we learned Chinese, spoke Chinese, and helped create bilingual professionals.

We’d like to thank our sponsors:

Platinum sponsors: Texas Instruments and University of Texas at Dallas

Diamond sponsors: Confucius Institutes (UTD), AXA Advisors, DFW-AACC and Cathy Fang

Gold sponsors: ItalkBB and ACP

Silver sponsors: D-F Chinese School, Metro Bank and USCCC

Bronze sponsors: Chen Xingsheng, Jiang-Xi Folk Club and Ming Zeng

DMCLS, DYVA and several committee members also made their contributions

We also want to thank our co-organizers:

DMCLS, DYVA, and Think Up

IVY International Education Center

New Star Leadership Education Center

OverSeas Chinese School

Plano Day School

QD Academy

Buddha's Light Private School

FRISCO Chinese School

Mandarin Chinese School

HUA-HSING Chinese School

TongXin Learning Center

Hua Cheng Chinese School

Woodgate School

Teacher Lai Zhang

The First North Texas Chinese Speech Contest, UT at Dallas, April 30, 2011

尊敬的先生/女士：

新年好!龙年将近，达拉斯现代汉语学校(Dallas Modern Chinese Language School - DMCLS) 北德州青少年协会(Lone Star Youth Association - LSYA)目前正在联手筹划举办第二届北德州中文演讲比赛。比赛将于3月24日在德州大学达拉斯分校举行。

北德州中文演讲比赛为本地区学习中文的学生提供一个生动活泼的学习平台,在帮助他们提高中文口语表达能力的同时，也促使他们注意仪表风度方面的修养，并锻炼他们的领导能力、增加他们的自信心。我们也希望通过这种比赛增进各中文学校之间的联谊和交流，进一步推动北德州地区的中文教育,并为华人社区及对中文，中国和华夏文化感兴趣的人与社区商家提供一种交流的渠道。去年首届北德州中文演讲比赛有14家中文学校参加、共有151名参赛者-其中有些来自没有中文背景的家庭、有17家商家、团体提供赞助。

这次北德州地区的比赛还将由达拉斯现代汉语学校及北德州青少年协会(注册协会，含达拉斯青少年自愿者协会)发起主办，面向达福地区所有接受过中文教育的中小学学生。我们预计这次活动参赛人数将会超过上届，并将是北德州华人社区的又一次重要活动。我们深知过去的这些年，您一直都在关注和赞助华人社区的各种活动。事实是，没有您和其他商家、团体的慷慨相助，就没有北德州华人社区今天的蓬博发展。北德州二十几所中文学校之所以能发展到今天的规模，都是包括您在内的所有人的一点一滴的努力。在此，我们向您表示深深的感谢！我们并诚挚地希望您能再次伸出援手，赞助第二届北德州中文演讲比赛。

达拉斯现代汉语学校成立于1994年,是一个非政治非营利组织，现有400多名在校学生,是北德州地区最大的周末中文学校之一。学校网址www.dmcls.org。请您审阅附表，并请于3月20日前回复您是否愿意以某一种或多种方式成为比赛的赞助单位。请将赞助回复表格通过电子邮件发至：2012ntcsc@gmail.com。如有问题，请与现代汉语学校联系，电话（214-403-6257）。

热切期望您的参与和支持。

此致敬礼！

北德州中文演讲比赛委员会

达拉斯现代汉语学校校长

You can download Chinese/English version in word doc from

http://www.lonestaryouthassociation.com/2012csc/