English Speaking Board (International) Ltd

Category: Speech

  • Celebrating success! 2018 Young Speakers of the Year

    English Speaking Board (International) Ltd. held its annual Young Speakers of the Year Showcase on Saturday, 17th November. Winners travelled from around the country to Liverpool to attend the celebration and receive their awards.

    Out of 14,000 learners who took ESB Speech assessments in 2017-18, twelve were selected as winners in recognition of their outstanding oracy skills.

    The 2018 Young Speakers of the Year are:
    Ethan Campbell – Elmhurst School for Boys, London
    Karris Holm – Bruton School for Girls, Bruton
    Lilian Bingham – St Bede’s & St Joseph’s Catholic College, Bradford
    Simran Sajan – Moreton Hall, Oswestry
    Sebastian Clarke – Broomfield House School, Surrey
    Charlie Cook – Hartismere School, Suffolk
    Sam Colyer – Plymouth Grove Primary School, Manchester
    Charlotte Scurr – Carleton House Prep School, Liverpool
    Rosie Spence – Bricklehurst Manor School, East Sussex
    Alice Beveridge – Westholme School, Blackburn
    Hannah McKee – Bolton School, Bolton
    Sophie Norman – Epsom College, Surrey

    The celebration featured three additional categories alongside the Young Speaker Awards. The ‘Spirit of ESB’ Awards recognise and encourage the potential of all learners, rewarding individuals who showed great promise in their assessments. The Burniston Bell Award recognises teachers who demonstrate exceptional commitment to teaching ESB in their centre. Finally, the prestigious Richard Ellis Award was introduced this year in honour of ESB’s former Trustee, Richard, to reward an individual who has shown outstanding dedication to ESB.

    The 2018 winners of the Spirit of ESB Award are:
    Charlie Campbell – Thistley Hough Academy, Stoke
    Safa Said – Sir William Burrough Primary School, London

    The 2018 winner of the Burniston Bell Award is:
    Christine Faithfull – Teacher at Abbey Gate College, Chester

    The 2018 winner of the Richard Ellis Award is:
    Merriel Halsall-Williams

    Each learner performed to an audience of family, friends and teachers, impressing everyone with their skills and abilities, and their charisma and confidence.

    In recognition of her role as a student, teacher, examiner, International Director, Trustee, and Honorary Vice-President, Merriel Halsall-Williams was presented with the Richard Ellis Award for promoting the English Speaking Board’s values.

    ESB’s Chief Executive, Tina Renshaw, says: “The standard from all candidates put forward this year was very impressive indeed. It is wonderful to reward their achievements and then share their passions at our annual Showcase.”

    Worthy winner, Karris Holm summed up the excitement of the day “I’d always been intimidated by public speaking, but this weekend has been really enjoyable – the lovely atmosphere at the event made the whole day a really positive exp­­­­erience!”­­­

  • English Speaking Board Ambassador goes live on BBC Breakfast

    English Speaking Board Ambassador goes live on BBC Breakfast

    Hrishi Venkatesh (ESB Ambassador) and Tina Renshaw (Chief Executive, CEO)

    English Speaking Board (International) Ltd. was delighted to showcase one of its Ambassadors on BBC Breakfast television this morning.

    Hrishi Vankatesh, one of ESB’s newest Ambassadors, spoke about how he has become a confident communicator through his ESB assessments. He also shared his top tips for people who are nervous of speaking in public.

    He also spoke about his personal journey being diagnosed on the Autistic Spectrum and how ESB has helped him to grow in confidence and communicate well with others.

    Please watch Hrishi speak on BBC Breakfast in the clip below.

    ESB’s Chief Executive, Tina Renshaw accompanied Hrishi to the BBC studios, and says, “We enjoyed an exciting morning taking part in a topical dialogue on the importance of oracy. Hrishi spoke eloquently to the BBC audience of over 1.5 million viewers. It was very supportive of presenter Dan Walker to take such a personal interest in the issue by tweeting to his 515,000 followers about the value of public speaking.”

    On the programme, Hrishi, said: “When I started with English Speaking Board, it really helped to boost my confidence and just made me feel like people wanted to hear what I wanted to say.”

    Tina added: “Hrishi’s performance on BBC Breakfast follows his recent appearance at the Houses of Parliament speaking on ESB’s behalf on the subject of oracy. He is also joining us at our Young Speaker of the Year event in November, as a worthy winner of our ESB Ambassador award.

    “ESB supports schools, young people’s groups, colleges and universities to build confidence in communicating, speaking and listening.  We have a fantastic track record for 65 years in giving young people a voice, oracy skills and a recognised qualification. We’d love to hear how we can support you.”

    If you would like to learn more about the range of qualifications we offer, and join the ESB conversation, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us on speech@esbuk.org.

  • Promoting oracy in China

    Promoting oracy in China

    china tcb
    The Culture Bridge

    Shanghai Concord Bilingual School in China has announced plans to run ESB assessments as part of its 2018-2019 curriculum.

    The school is a partner school of Concord College in Shropshire, which has been a supporter of ESB for many years. Shanghai Concord (SCBS) opened in September 2017, within the Huangpu District of Shanghai, a prime location in China’s global financial hub. The Bilingual school’s commitment to include ESB assessments is the result of the partnership between English Speaking Board (International) Ltd. and The Culture Bridge.

    ESB and TCB’s partnership began in March 2017. Since then, Cambridge-based TCB has been working closely with ESB to promote ESB in China.

    ESB’s Chief Executive Tina Renshaw is extremely positive about the partnership, saying:

    Expanding ESB’s reach further internationally has long been an ambition, but thanks to our relationship with The Culture Bridge this has now become a reality. Having ESB’s awarded qualifications available in one of the most prominent international markets is a major step forward for us.

    ESB Logo

    The Culture Bridge (TCB) was founded by Jon Fearon-Jones in November 2011 to act as a bridge between different countries, languages and cultures. Originally, TCB operated out of Macau, China, as a cultural and educational exchange programme before moving to Cambridge.

    Says Jon,

    Encouraging different cultures to engage with each other and explore different languages is our primary objective. The range of benefits created from having Chinese learners engage with ESB qualifications is countless.

    About The Culture Bridge
    The Culture Bridge CIC (TCB) is a social enterprise company, approved by the UK’s community interest company regulator, and is a provider of educational and cultural services and programmes. TCB acts as an organiser for the delivery and assessment of internationally recognised qualifications. TCB firmly believes that there are more similarities than differences between people living in very different parts of the world. It aims to be a bridge for people and institutions by enabling and encouraging mutual trust, collaboration and the optimisation of benefits for all.
    www.TheCultureBridge.org

    To find out more about ESB’s work with TCB, please click here.

     

     

  • We’re upgrading our Speech qualifications

    We are excited to announce the rebranding of our portfolio of Graded Examinations in Speech qualifications in September 2018.

    As part of this rebranding project, we will be simplifying the qualification titles of our Graded Examinations in Speech, so that they are more relevant and straightforward for teachers, parents and learners. In particular, we will be removing the ‘Junior’ and ‘Senior’ labels from our qualification titles.

    We have been working hard to improve our qualifications to help us to further achieve our goal of recognising and encouraging the potential of all. As a result of the rebranding project, a learner in secondary school who would benefit from the Grade 1 examination would not feel discouraged by the existing ‘Junior Medallion’ title. Conversely, a learner in primary school who would benefit from the Grade 2 examination would not be discouraged by the ‘Senior Introductory’ label.

    Please see to here to view a table of all the affected qualifications, as well as a list of frequently asked questions.

    As always, if you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us by email at: product@esbuk.org or alternatively you may wish to speak to us on: 01695 573439 (extension 221).