ENGLISH SPEAKING CONTEST TOPICS (2022-2023)

Note: Words set to bold and italics are just notes, do not use them in the speeches.
Etc. = et cetera
Topic 1: How has COVID-19 affected your life?
On 31st December 2019, an unknown virus first appeared in Wuhan, Mainland China from a
seafood market. 11 days later, the first death was reported. Facing the frightening disease,
scientists began to research the virus sample. But when they were trying their best to do so, 9
days later, Japan, South Korea, and the United States confirmed the first COVID-19 cases.
There was no cure at the time, Wuhan, a populous city, was set in lockdown. On March 11,
2020, WHO has declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. Many countries have suffered from
the major surge in cases, including Vietnam in 2021.
So how has COVID-19 affected our life? First and foremost, the virus has made stagnation
in many public activities. Take schools for instance. Because of the danger the virus brought
about, many school around the world had to be closed down. Students were obliged to study
online, but we cannot ignore the fact that the effect was much worse than studying face to
face. Events had been cancelled also, no matter how big it was. Night curfew was enacted by
the government in many countries. People were restricted to go out.
It seems to confirm the truth that the pandemic had badly affected the exportation and
importation of many countries. The virus was concerned to infect from people to people
through containers. As a matter of fact, many nations reduced the export and import scale. It
is undeniable that exporting and importing are two significant profits of every country. This
fact led to a result in financial difficulties in many countries. Take the United States for
example. It is the central of many technologies to develop, such as electronic chips,
computers, laptops, phones, etc. Due to the pandemic, the profit the country got was
extremely low, leading to shortage of money to pay salaries to workers. And there were
many of them striking on companies for not giving adequate money depended to their
working frequency.
Last but not least, COVID-19 has changed the whole world. It has changed how we live
everyday. Although the world has produced many effective cures and vaccines, we cannot
prevent the virus from forming new types. According to the majority of scientists, COVID-
19 will not completely disappear out of the world, so one has to adapt themself to the virus.
From these arguments, one must conclude that COVID-19 has caused overwhelming
damage to the world. Luckily, the virus has spread more slowly nowadays, so we are less
worried. But this is also a warning bell to every country in the world when discovering an
unknown virus. This pandemic has taught us not to be subjective with new disease, because
when we are like that, we do not know if anything bad would happen next.
Topic 2: How to speak confidently in public?
Let us start by considering the fact that it is very important for you to speak confidently in
public, and doing it brings many benefits. We live in a world, in which confidence is
something obliged in our life. But many people are unsure of themselves. So how to speak
confidently in public? And now, let’s get started.
First and foremost, you all know that you cannot get over the fear of speaking in public on
your own. Thus, finding a supportive friend or family member to help you practise and give
feedback is a good idea.
Second, it is no doubt that everyone can make a mistake when speaking in public. And
because of that, many people lose their confidence. But if you have actually made a mistake,
just keep going and do not mind the error. The main objective of speaking is to transmit
information, not to know if you made faults. So when you just ignore the mistake and
continue your presentation, your confidence will be still there.
Futhermore, it seems to confirm the idea that even if you do not feel confident inside, face
the audience with confidence. The more you maintain eye contact with people, the more
likely they will be able to connect with what you are saying. And when you smile, they will
feel happy and find your presentation trusthy. You can also tell yourself: “You can do it” to
boost your confidence and set your mind at rest.
The most striking feature of the problem is that: speak from your heart rather than read off of
notes or a script. When you speak basing to a pattern, you will likely forget some words in
that pattern, and you will try to find words that are suitable for replace them. This will slow
down your speaking speed, and also reduce your confidence. So if you speak from your
heart, you just say everything you think. You do not need to remember anything, so speaking
a presentation without a stumble is easy to do. But this skill requires you to be passionate
about what you are talking about and know your audience in order to speak to their needs.
Last but not least, take some deep breaths. When it is time for speaking, you will not feel out
of breath and find yourself gasping for air halfway through your talk.
In conclusion, I can say that although the information I have given is not adequate, but these
are the most important ways you can apply to speak confidently in public.
Topic 3: What is more important, the appearance or the character of a person? Why?
Many people think that the appearance of a person is the most important of a person, but
others do not agree. In my sight of view, both are important, but beauty is only skin-deep,
handsome is as handsome does. This is my perspective about this problem.
 Beauty is only skin-deep: vẻ đẹp không khẳng định được nhân cách của ai đó.
 Handsome is as handsome does: tính cách quan trọng hơn vẻ bề ngoài.
  Bài văn này sử dụng hai câu thành ngữ trên để thay thế cho đề bài, tránh gây ra sự
lặp lại không nên có.
First and foremost, nowadays, people often look down on people who do not have good
morality. Having a good appearance does not mean your character is good. Take the women
in films for instance. There are many films reflecting women good-looking but behave
badly. The appearance is just an outer beauty of human, it just let people know how beautiful
or pretty you are, and if they know you are not righteous, you will be isolated from the
society. Everyone will feel contempt with you, and you may suffer from depression.
It seems to confirm the idea that a person who is kind-hearted and pays regard to people will
be many people’s good book. When you help a person, that individual will find out your
personality and will help you back. Moreover, you can even be known widely because of
your helpful morality. Then everyone will love and respect you, no matter how bad your
looking is. As said above, your appearance is just an outer beauty of human. You may be
also popular because of your complexion, but if you are evil and people find out, your life is
basically done because people will remember you for long.
Last but not least, the appearance cannot hide your personality. Your behavior will highlight
your morality after all. If your sitting pose or standing pose is bad although you are pretty,
people will immediately think of you being a bad person. The way you speak also
symbolizes your personality. If you say rude things about someone, people will consider you
a terrible individual.
Taken everything into considerable, I can say that although the appearance of a person is
important, the personality is much more necessary. If I were to choose one out of two, I will
probably choose personality. Living with good personality will be much easier, unlike with
good looking, when you need to be careful of everything around you.

Topic 4: Is there value in homework? Why? Why not?

Before seeing through the speech, some points need to be highlighted here: in the modern
time, homework is used for consolidating lessons or improving your intelligence. It is
generally agreed that homework does have value. But actually, for me, it is only good if
students eventually come down to the homework. I only partly agree about this statement.
And now, I will present my perspective about this problem.
Let’s talk about the pros first. First and foremost, homework is the work that students have
to do at home. It strenghthen your knowledge. And because of the role it plays, people agree
that homework is obliged to students. Some parents in Vietnam even ask the teachers to give
more homework so that their sons and daughters can be better at studying anything.
Futhermore, homework improves your intelligence. It helps you have a more provident look
at everything like in maths or physics. We live in a world, in which intelligence is very
important. Homework is literally the best thing you can use to improve it. Homework is also
used by teachers to fill up the free time students have. In modern time, many people use
smartphones or laptops to play game for entertainment, but they are not good for your
health. Because of this, teachers give students exercises to do so as to fill up the free time,
which makes your health better.
The other side of the coin is that homework does not have value if not used correctly and
effectively. As the era is developing fast, more applications have been created in order to
support pupils with exercises, no matter how hard are. And unfortunately, the students
usually abuse these apps to do homework. They do homework just as to please their
teachers’ need. This eventually make homework completely useless against pupils. Also,
students have the tension to ask the others for the answers, then copy them. In this scenario,
homework is also useless for who asked the solution.
Taken everything into considerable, one can say that homework does have value if we look
down to it. But if we do the opposite thing, homework is basicaly just, a waste of time – it
doesn’t improve any of your skills, and it can even make your studying results worse due to
you not doing homework by trying your best. If you happen to do the homework, look down
to it, it gives you many advantages you always dream of.
Topic 5: What are the impacts of technology on our health?
Before seeing through the speech, some points need to be highlighted here: technology was
created for supporting humans. It is generally agreed today technology has helped us a lot in
many fields, especially in healthcare and machines. But, we have to accept the truth that
everything has two sides: positive and negative. Today, I will present to you my perspective
about this problem.
Let’s begin by talking about the benefits of it. First and foremost, in the past, hospitals had to
save patients’ records only on papers. If the administrators were not careful, the records
would be easy to be lost. But as the technology developed, computer was invented. And the
superior feature of it is to save data and multi-task working. Moreover, when the cloud
storage was invented, storing data is easier than ever. Hospitals will never be afraid of losing
their data because of hard drive error.
Doubtless, as the production line grows fast, and more genius people are present, medicines
and vaccines are much more effective. New treatments have been discovered so as to
support patients. Ventilation machines, blood filtering machine, blood pressure measurer,
etc. have been invented for saving critical patients. The death rate has dropped down very
deeply due to the enormous help technology brings to us. Cancer is easier to treat and it is no
longer an incurable disease. Or take the COVID-19 disease for instance. Before the vaccine
was created, people around the world were all afraid of it. Cure was not found, and so was
vaccine. When someone was infected with COVID-19, he/she will be worried about their
health. Sequels have chance to appear. The death rate was 2%, meaning that every two of
one hundred people having COVID-19 would die. But now, as the vaccine was invented,
the death rate has dropped. According to some experts, it has reduced from 2% to 1%.
We cannot ignore the fact that many technology companies have created softwares that help
people measure many things about their health. People can download certain applications to
get tips about healthcare or diet. They can also buy devices to support. Not to say, many big
companies such as Apple, Samsung have created smart clocks measuring blood pressure,
distance you have run, calories you have burnt, etc. They have supported humans very
effectively.
One should, however, not forget that technology does have drawbacks. First, we live in a
world, in which environment is getting polluted badly. And technology is one of the main
causes of pollution. Smokes from factories, products with unsuitable materials, etc. can
cause air, land and water pollutions. Aquatic animals will be likely to die. Many families
will not have fresh water for drinking, rich soils for planting flowers, vegetables or fruits, or
be uncomfortable because you inhale dirty air everyday. Moreover, according to the World
Health Organization, every year, there are 7 million of deaths caused by air pollution; 9
thousand of deaths, around 20 thousand people suffers from cancer, 44% of the children are
infestated by the small intestine, 27% of under 5-year-old children doesn’t have enough
nutrition for life.
On the other hand, we can observe that people abuse phones, televisions, computers more.
And we all know that it do harm to our health. We will not have good concentration skill,
sleeplessness, brain problems and more. Aging will occur sooner than usual, meaning that
your life span is shortened. And no one wants to live a short life.
Last but not least, we do know that machines sometime explode if we don’t use them
carefully, or they can even blow up on their owns. And when you hear my line above, you
may have come to the conclusion that machines are not always stable. Take the Samsung
Galaxy Note 7 for example. In 2016, many cases of phone explosion were reported. Injuries
were encountered also. Having found the root of the serious that the batteries had errors,
Samsung have withdrawn all the phones, and the production of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7
had to come to a stop. The incident has caused Samsung a loss of 3 billion USD.
Taken everything into considerable, I can say that although technology does bring many
benefits to us, supports us in many activities, especially in healthcare, but we cannot ignore
the truth that it also does harm to us if we don’t know how to use them.
Topic 6: What’s the importance of extracurricular activities?
Let’s start by considering the fact that nowadays, as the epoch is developing rapidly, young
and old do more extracurricular activities. Extracurricular activities are operations people do
outside working hours. And because these activities are kinda beneficial, many people love
doing them. This speech will present you the importance of extracurricular activities.
First and foremost, we cannot ignore the truth that you can have more knowledge about
many things that are essential to us. As we know, when we do extracurricular activities, you
may be doing it with some more people. And if you are not good at something, they will
instruct you how to correct it. Moreover, they can even teach you their understanding about
more advanced fields or problems and how to solve them. And from this fact, we can come
to a conclusion that doing extracurricular activities can help you gain more experience in
work. Having more experience means you are more likely to be promoted to better position
in your job. You will be more respected by people around you, as you are experienced. You
may be more well-known, too.
Another way of looking at this question is that you can find more friends, partners and
improve your relationship between many people. You can cooperate with many more
people, making your work easier. Also, when you get on well with many people, it will bring
you enormous benefits. They will care about you more, and you will be more loved.
Futhermore, we live in a world, in which technology is developing faster than ever. More
skills are needed if you want to cope with the era. Doing extracurricular activities will help
you improve many of these. For instance, if a work is too heavy for you, you can call your
friends to help you. But just friends are not enough, you need teamwork and organization
skills. These skills are heavily developed along with the period you do the extracurricular
activities. When you have friends, the work will be much easier. It will take less time to
finish it also. Moreover, you may even get a very successful outcome. Or if you don’t want
to call friends and want do do the work by your own, you will need the problem solving
skill. As you do this kind of activities, your flexibility when facing up to certain
circumstances is improved. With this ability, it will be easier for you to find the shortest way
to accomplish the work. And if you have too many work and you get to finish all before
deadline, time management skill is imperative.
Last but not least, extracurricular will also help people get out of problems. Like the
homeless, you can make food, a lot of food, to fill up their hungry stomach. You can even
get blankets for them. You can also raise funds to finance a hospital chairty campaign so as
to revive patients who are suffering from critical diseases or phenomena. These charities will
help people a lot. The ones who receive your help will never forget your merit, and will be
very appreciated of it.
From these arguments, one can conclude that people are doing extracurricular activities
more and more just because of these benefits. Doing these activities is not a time-wasting
thing, it’s to help people. Not only do people who you help get benefits but you also receive
advantages.
Topic 7: What are the pros and cons of online learning?
Before seeing through the speech, some points need to be highlighted here: along with the
development of technology, many inventions have been created. Many of them have
changed how the world is developing, like the light bulk having filament as tungsten,
transistor, etc. But, little remains to be said, the Internet is one of the best creations of all
time through human history. But for the Internet, humans wouldn’t have had such a
comfortable and convenient life like the present. In January 2020, COVID-19 spread at the
speed of unbelievable, and online learning was chosen to be a way to study. Many students
feel like studying in this way because of the superior features, but on the flip side of the coin,
some people would rather study at direct classes than online. This presentation will present
you my perspective about this problem.
Let’s start by considering the pros first. First and foremost, we cannot ignore the fact that
because of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, many school all over the world had to be closed
down for the safety of students. The root of this closure was that vaccines and cures weren’t
discovered, so many people were scared of the virus. Parents were very afraid of their
children not having enough knowledge at their age during the quarantine. But, for the birth
of online learning, studying is much easier. Students can still study with their teachers
through online meeting applications such as Zoom, Cisco, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet,
etc. The effectiveness still remains as excellent. You can also study on your own, too.
Next, there’s a fact that however bad the weather is, it will not affect the Internet connection
too much. Because of this, you will not need to be worried about the weather. Or if the
distance from your house to school is too long, studying on the Internet is also a great
option. Moreover, you can study anywhere, anytime. For example, when you travel to a
wonder, you want to look up the information about it, you can just type the name of the
attraction to get knowledge about it. Or when you have too many documents and books, if
you aren’t connected the Internet, you will need to bring them with you if you want to go
somewhere to study. But, with the support of network, you just have to get yourself a mobile
phone, or a tablet, or a laptop. You can store information there by storing them in cloud
storage or mass storage device, and when you want to see it, you just need to call it up, and
you have had a equipment that stores all of the learning you need.
To finish the advantages of online learning, let’s say about lessons. Lessons are what people
use to study. And to help students study effectively, the lessons need to be well-designed and
have important knowledge. Online learning is the best way to study this kind of lessons. It is
more colorful, the content is presented much more scientifically. As the technology is
developing in an incredible speed, the questions are even attached to the lessons, and
students can choose the answer right on the screen.
But on the other hand, we know that everything has its own pros and cons. And now we will
talk about the drawbacks. First, studying online is not as efficient as study directly. When we
study online, schools cannot apply rules to control the students. Because of this, pupils will
surely lose their concentration, study less seriously. Discipline is loosened, like you don’t
need to wear uniform everyday, you can do other work besides studying. And what is more
is that despite the quality of online lessons mentioned above, they are still not as good as
lessons when studying with teachers face to face. Thus, the effectiveness when studying
online, although it is still excellent, is not as good as studying at school.
Futhermore, studying online requires you to look at the screen for a long time. And this will
make your eyesight worse. You may suffer from various diseases and syndromes about eyes
such as nearsighted, longsighted, etc. And this thing will affect your life quality, very much.
Moreover, you cannot take part in outdoor activities often. As you all know, outdoor
activities improve many of your things. For instance, when going outdoor, you can breathe
the fresh air outside, and you can do physical exercises also. They all assist your life to be
better and you will feel more healthy. Studying online will result in spending less on these
activities.
One more point that needs to be mentioned is that the examination will not be fair. Many
students will open documents at all cost to bypass the supervisor. If your teacher commands
you to read an essay without looking at it, you can just, take a picture of it, then open that
picture again on your computer or phone.
On the whole, the problem has two main features, these are the advantages and
disadvantages of online learning. Studying online will be extremely effective if you are
disciplined enough, but if not, online learning will be effectiveless.
Topic 8: Should public transport be made free? Why/why not?
Before seeing through the speech, some points need to be highlighted here: public transport
has been more and more popular nowadays. More and more people are using this means of
transport because of its superior features. Many people want the government to make the
public transport free, but others don’t agree with this suggestion. And this presentation will
present you my perspective about the both sides of the problem.
Let’s start by considering why people want it to be costless first. First and foremost, the
homeless, the poor, people out of work or suffering from financial problems can still go to
wherever they want. People will go by public transportation more because it costs nothing to
travel to the destination you want to go. Moreover, it reduces smoke emitted into the air.
This means that pollution will be less than before.
Next, you can get to the destination without driving, saving energy for other activities. And
the driver will drive you. And you just need to relax in the vehicle. You can surf the Internet,
communicate with passengers around you, enjoy a small meal on the public transport, enjoy
the view outside, read a book or just sleep to be ready for work. Many people are not
capable of driving, so public transport is the only option for them sometimes to get to their
destination.
Moreover, no one likes to be stuck in a traffic jam because it wastes time and it also exists
risk. Traffic jam is a phenomenon when there are too many vehicle going on the road. And
the population is increasing in an incredible speed nowadays, meaning that traffic jams will
appear much more. But with the public vehicle, since one of that has many seats, some
has 40, some has 50, some even has mobile bed for passengers, the vehicles on road will be
reduced and the jams will be less than before.
Futhermore, it reduces air pollution. We all know that most of the vehicles nowadays emit
smoke, especially carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide causes greenhouse phenomenon, which
increases the average temperature of the Earth. When the greenhouse gas reaches the limit,
the planet will be hotter than ever. Ice will melt, causing water level rise. Many cities will be
wiped out, including Ho Chi Minh City, a large Vietnam economic center, according to
scientists. Many people will face up to the death, which everyone doesn’t want. The more
vehicles people drive, the more gas they will emit. And as said above, public transport
reduces the number of transport. This means that the gas will be emitted less, and the process
of planet heating will be slowed down. The number of deaths related to air pollution will fall
down. Life quality will be better.
Moreover, we can save fuel efficiency through going on public transport. Need to remind
again, this kind of vehicle reduces the number of transport. The fuel used in the world
everyday will be reduced, and the fuel saved will be used on many more purposes. Saving
fuel is also a way to make our country more wealthy. A public vehicle usually has about 50
seats, which means that if the seats are filled up, we can save an enormous times of the fuel
consumed by the transport. Not to mention, nowadays, there are even vehicles using
electricity to operate, and it doesn’t emit gas. Thus, going by public transport can also save
fuel.
On the other hand, some people do not agree to make public transportation free. Everything
has its own reasons to happen. First, the public transportation provider will suffer from
finanical problems. As they get nothing from driving their customers to the destination, they
will soon go bankrupt. They will, soon, not be able to pay the salaries to the workers and the
fuel. From this, the public transportation will be reduced.
Futhermore, personal transportation is much more convenient because you can go to
anywhere, anytime. If you go on a public transport, you will be unable to get off the vehicle
to do anything you want. But if it’s a personal vehicle, you can do whatever you want.
Moreover, using your own transportation when going on a short distance will be just too
enough. At this circumstance, getting on a public transportation is a waste of time.
Taken everything into considerable, it’s up to everybody to decide whether to want to make
public transportation free or not. Actually, I only partly agree with this opinion. Everything
has two sides: good and bad. Both making and not making the public transportation free
have its own advantages.