Meet our student - Sheryl

Sheryl is an MYP student at Léman International School Chengdu. She participated in the 8th National Speech & Debate Tournament recently. This tournament is organised by the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA), which aims to help every NSDA member who loves debate and speech to realise their dream. NSDA China has added an independent national competition —— the 2020 NSDA National Finals (online). A total of nearly 400 students have registered for the competition, they come from more than 40 provinces and cities in China, nearly 100 nationally renowned high schools, as well as many overseas high schools in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom to name but three. Sheryl stood out from the crowd and won first place in the junior group of original speech section.

Sheryl joined LIS back in 2014. We have seen her development in many ways in her last six years’ learning journey, from improvement in her English ability to her musical achievement in the NAE Young Virtual Musicians. This time, she once again proved herself in the National Speech & Debate Tournament. We are incredibly proud of Sheryl and have invited her to share her amazing experience with us here.

Hello everyone, I am Sheryl Zha from Year 10. I am so honored to share my experience with you. 

I feel lucky enough to win the nation-wide championship in a speech competition, called the National Speech and Debate Association (Junior High Group in China). To be frank, I was first shocked, then inspired by a speech which alarmed me about how people wasted time on social media without any awareness. My teacher, Mr. Trowt, shared the speech with us from a TED talk. That was my inspiration. The further research I did, the more worried I got. When we’re engaged with our phone or something external, the areas of our brain that are involved in daydreaming and thinking about our own feelings, shut off. Those same areas are also responsible for feeling empathy. However, they only activate when we do nothing.  

That's something today’s teenagers don’t do. We are constantly on social media, and as a result, we are not activating these brain areas that are important for self-reflection, reflecting on other people, and empathy. If there’s no daydreaming, there’s no empathy, and we are at a heightened risk for being raised as a generation that cares less. 

I proposed that people should leave their phones alone once a while during the day, then do “nothing”, but daydreaming. That’s the way to activate empathy. And also make social media more valuable to themselves and others. I urge people to stop striving to be “me-oriented,” instead, strive to be valuable.

Overall it was a truly exciting and memorable experience for me. Honestly, I was sure I lucked out when I first got my ticket to join the national tournament. I knew it was going to be a completely different story to compete with all of the top opponents from every city. I worked harder to do my research, revise my paper. I applied many speech techniques I learned from my classes, from body language and intonation to the way I inhaled and exhaled. Also, I realize how important it is to build a very strong academic foundation. This credit goes to my teachers and my school. I am very grateful that they are always extremely strict to encourage my academic study. Then I have the chance to be brought to a brand new level. For the speech itself, I learned how to express myself confidently and creatively in more than one way. I know it is so vital to engage myself with the issues which have local and global significance.  

Hope you enjoy my story.