On April 10, in the final round of the 16th “21th Century Cup” National English Speaking Competition held in Shenzhen, Xu Jiru from Tsinghua (coached by Professor Wu Xia from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures) won the first place, and she also won “21th Century English Newspaper- The most promising prize” and “The most popular prize.” Xu will go to London as a representative of Chinese students and participate in the “International Public Speaking Competition” to be hosted by The English-Speaking Union (ESU) in May.

This competition sponsored collaboratively by the China Daily and the Executive Office of the Organizing Committee for the 26th Summer Universiade, Shenzhen was organized by the 21th Century English Newspaper. The competition was initiated in May, 2010 and has covered 19 provinces throughout the country. There were 64 contestants in all who entered the final competition and their speeches were around the themes of “Pressure vs. Passion: To Strive, or to Dream?” and “Youth and Faith: Does Belief Make Difference to Our Life?”