A Study of the Impacts of Participating in the “CCTV CUP” English Public Speaking Contest on the Contestants

Up to now there still lacks relevant study on what role participating in English public speaking contests plays in cultivating students’ English public speaking ability and the instruction of this course. The “CCTV CUP” English public speaking contest is one of the most important contests of this field. Despite a few studies on the “CCTV CUP” in the literature, none of them has focused on the contestants’ perspective. This paper first attempts to describe the “CCTV CUP” English public speaking contest from the perspective of sociocultural theory and social realism. Then it takes 7 final contestants’ “reactions to participating in the contest” for analysis, focusing on what impacts participating in this contest brought on them. The results show that participating in the “CCTV CUP” English public speaking contest not only deepened the contestants’ understandings about English public speaking, but brought significant harvests at ability training, and the increase of life experience and wisdom. At last, it gives relevant suggestions on the instruction of English public speaking course.