Thai Skills Demonstrated in Cambridge Competition

On Sunday morning, November 2, fourteen Thai students and young professionals demonstrated their public speaking skills on stage at the Cambridge Best Business English Speaker Competition at Sasin Institute of Business Administration of Chulalongkorn University. Their aim was not only to win one of two places to represent Thailand in the Asia International Final but also a range of exciting prizes from HP, CyberDict and Corporate English Consulting.

Born after January 1, 1982, the young Thai contestants were screened for ability in business English this year using the Cambridge BULATS test. With Cambridge ESOL inviting only the highest scoring test candidates, both the judges and the audience were extremely impressed by the very high level of business English proficiency displayed.

Overall, the larger pool of BULATS test candidates hoping to enter the competition were from fifteen different universities and colleges around Thailand. However, the final fourteen who competed were from Asian Institute of Technology, Assumption University, Chulalongkorn University, Dhurakit Pundit University, St. John's University and Thammasat University. All were thoroughly prepared and gave everything as they spoke on stage in business English.

There were two rounds and two topics for the competition. In the first, contestants gave PowerPoint presentations at a conference of travel agents about why Thailand is Asia's best tourist destination. In the second, contestants were only allowed 15 minutes preparation time to propose a development project to their city's government for a plot of newly released land. Lastly, this was followed by a question and answer session with the judges about the proposal they delivered in the second round.

The judges agreed the level of public speaking demonstrated by the young Thais was much higher than anyone had expected. The six member judging panel consisted of Dr Charles Cheung, Managing Director of CyberDict, Apiwut Pimolsaengsuriya, Managing Director of Orchid Slingshot, Dr Duncan Rayner, Regional Manager Asia for Cambridge Esol, Christopher Hope, Business English Trainer for TESCO-Lotus, Dr Tim Cornwall, Director of Thailand Educators Network and Pichai Likhitdechasakdi, Distinguished Toastmaster and founding member of Siam Toastmasters' Club.

While on the whole the skills displayed were incredibly high, only two contestants could be invited to compete in the Asia International Final. Those winning two contestants were recent graduates of Assumption University and Chulalongkorn University, Chananyou Muadmanee and Tanyathorn Pluemmanus respectively.

Chananyou and Tanyathorn will represent Thailand against the winning two contestants from India, China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia in Singapore in February, 2009. In Singapore they will compete for a range of international prizes including a full MBA scholarship package with the University of Newcastle offered through PSB Academy in Singapore as well as study packages with Phoenix Academy in Perth, Australia and London Metropolitan University, UK. Meanwhile, national level prizes already won included two HP Compaq Presario notebook computers and an iPAQ512 voice messenger, two CyberDict 11 and eight CyberDict 2 electronic dictionaries, and fourteen Corporate English Consulting courses.

Mark Bickerton, Director of Student Recruitment and International Development for London Metropolitan University, said "English is the global language of business and of the increasingly global finance industry. We are pleased to support this competition and to offer one winner an amazing and intense week at London Metropolitan University in the City of London. With so many talented participants, it will be an exciting event".

Meanwhile Brian Walsh, Director of Phoenix Academy, said, "English is the language of global business and all of the participants in the competition are highly skilled in this area. The competition will be exciting and it will be a difficult choice, but Phoenix Academy will be very pleased to offer a 4 week business communication course to a winning student. The course will give the students the chance to refine their business communication skills further".

The competition was organized internationally by ESOL Examinations, University of Cambridge which is a leading global authority on assessing business communication skills and creates the IELTS and BULATS tests. Locally, the competition was run by Corporate English Consulting which is a licensed Cambridge ESOL agent for the business English BULATS test.

Anthony Hollick is the managing director of the Bangkok-based Corporate English Consulting