On April 23, 2022, the 27th “21st Century Cup” National English Speech Contest for College Students was held on the online platform of Tencent Conference. The competition was organized by ECNU’s Office of Academic Affairs and the School of Foreign Languages, and hosted by the English Speech and Debate Workshop of SFL. A total of 76 contestants applied for this year's competition. After a comprehensive evaluation of the preliminary and final rounds, two special prizes, three first prizes, five second prizes and eight third prizes were finally selected for the school competition. The two grand prizewinners, He Yujie, 2019 undergraduate student of Sociology, and Zhao Jingyi, 2021 undergraduate student of English, will represent East China Normal University to participate in the Shanghai regional finals.

　　The competition took hot topics such as mental health, the covid-19 epidemic, and online loans as impromptu speech topics. It aims to encourage the contestants to look at social phenomena and international hotspots from a macro perspective, and express their unique opinions, convey rational thoughts, and improve their English expression and impromptu speech skills.

　　In recent years, with the support of OA A and SFL, our university has won the final of the China Daily “21st Century Cup”, winning the third place nationwide in 2020 and 2021. In addition, in the regional final of the youth category of the China Daily “21st Century Cup” held in March this year, our contestant Ma Xinyi, a 2021graduate student of foreign linguistics and applied linguistics, won the first prize and advanced to the national final, which is a historic breakthrough for our school in this category.