Life With Leslie: Story Telling Competition

Last week, I was asked by a friend if I would help out by being part of a jury for a kids story telling competition. Being more than happy to help out, I agreed not knowing any details, figuring it was just for the kids that take English classes at his after school center. Come to find out it was actually a legit competition! It was held at a Elementary-High school and a bunch of kids from different Elementary schools were competing in different events all week--story telling(in English!!) was just one of the events.
When I got there, there were 26 elementary age students from different schools around Malang participating. They were supposed to choose a fable/story from Indonesia or another country. They memorized the story, retold it in front of the audience and were scored based on their story-telling competency(pronunciation, performance, presentation, how well they followed the story, etc.). I'm probably not the best person for a jury, because I thought they were all great---I was probably the equivalent to Paula in American Idol. We listened to all of them give their stories, then chose 10 finalists who told their stories again. From the 10 we chose the top 3 winners. They all did such a great job!! I was amazed at how well they spoke English(kids start learning English now in SD, or elementary school).

A picture of all the contestants...They were so cute and got all dressed up in costumes for their stories. Most of the ones that were dressed up were for the Indonesian stories, but there were a few little red riding hoods there too :)