UNESHCO (UNY English Competition) is a National English Competition for university students held annually by UKM Bahasa Asing SAFEL (Student Activity Forum of Foreign Languages), and one of the annual programs by the Public Speaking Department. This Competition is one of the agendas in commemorating Dies Natalis UNY which consists of Speech and Micro-teaching competitions. This competition was a part of the UNYFEST #8 who manages the Dies Natalis UNY.
UNESHCO has been organized four times since 2016. UNESHCO #5 was held on August 29th-30th 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year UNESHCO was held online through the Zoom platform. UNESHCO #5 brings the theme “Ready to Speak, Dare to Compete, and Head to the Peak”.
The first day of UNESHCO #5 was the preliminary round for the speech competition. In this round, 6 judges assessed the video speeches sent by the participants. During the registration period, participants were asked to send a speech video, namely a motivational speech with the theme “Encourage the Audience to Create a Change”. After the assessment, the top 6 finalists will be invited to the zoom platform to conduct the final session.
The second day of UNESHCO #5 was the final speech competition and the assessment of the top 10 Micro-teaching finalists. The final speech competition session is carried out through Zoom. The final session was divided into 2 rounds, namely extemporaneous speech and impromptu speech. During the final speech session, a video assessment of the top 10 micro-teaching finalists was also held.
This year, 61 participants registered for the speech competition from 31 universities in Indonesia, while the participants who registered for the Micro-teaching competition were 46 participants from 13 universities. The results of both competitions were announced at the closing ceremony of UNYFEST #8 on August 31st, 2020 through Zoom.
The winner of speech competition UNESHCO #5 is taken by Maryam Yasmin from Universitas Sebelas Maret, and followed by Isna Tita Safira from Universitas Islam Indonesia and Millenia Kartika from London School of Public Relation as the first and second runner up. Last, there is Waode Zalfa from Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta as the favourite speaker. Then, in the Micro-teaching competition, the winner is Rizka Aulia from Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, and followed by Hida Rizqi and Bagas Woro from Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta as the first and second runner up.
Many things happened in this year, and the overall results from the UNESHCO #5 are pretty great and satisfying. There are many experiences from the event which was held online for the first time. Hopefully, this pandemic will cease out soon, so in the next year, UNESHCO may be held offline. We all are very grateful for anyone who had supported this event, and we would like to thanks the participants who had joined UNESHCO #5. See you next year at UNESHCO #6! –Maharani
