M: Good morning, Ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the 21st Century Erricsson Cup 8th National English Speaking Competition.

　　First, let me introduce the two of us, your hosts for today. I’m Jason Subler from Beijing Broadcasting Institute and standing here beside me is Ms. Qin Yuanyuan, an English program hostefrom Jiangsu Broadcasting Corporation.

　　W: Thank you, Jason. I’m honored today to co-host this year’s speaking competition. I’m known about the 21st Century Cup since my school times. Today, I feel really happy and excited that this competition has come to Nanjing, not only because it is a city that I’m living but because it is a city with splendid culture and history and more importantly, a city with so many English learners.

　　M: Since China Daily started this competition in 1996, it has drawn the attention of thousands of young people and has proven to be the most prestigious English speaking competition in China. It aims to promote English language learning in China and to bridge the different culture of the world.

　　The competition has also been chosen by the London base English Speaking Union as the qualification contest in China for its annual international public speaking competition. Past champions of our competition have gone on to the win the first prize and the best non-native English speaker awards in London. This is the 8th time that China Daily has organized this contest. We hope it will be a good opportunity for the participants to display their talents in language and public speaking and to exchange ideas on important current issues. The scale of our competition has always been expanding. About 500 students from more than 300 universities around China took part in the first round of the competition last October. After regional contests in east, west, south, and north China, the top two winners from each region now come to today’s final competition to compete with contestants from our seed universities .

　　W: There are all together 24 contestants from university around China to compete in today’s English Speaking Competition. M: Ladies and gentlemen, this competition will be mediated by a panel of seven judges. The panel includes experts on communications and on English language teaching and learning. Also on the panel are three “question masters” who will be responsible for raising questions of today’s contestants. Now let’s go over the rules of the competition.