Crystal Zhou and Isabella Ross have the gift of the gab.
The Westbourne Grammar School students were recently named senior and junior winners of the Wynspeak youth public speaking competition.
They were among 74 students from 23 schools in the western suburbs to take part in the competition earlier this month.
Both progressed to the finals, where they each beat seven other contestants to win their sections.
Year 12’s Crystal was the senior winner after speaking about her experiences as an international student from China.
She said speaking on the topic was easy because she had noticed a lot of differences between life in Australia and China in the two years she had been studying at Westbourne.
“It is quite different,” she said.
“There’s a lot of focus on self-study time here, but in China teachers push you to learn. I’ve had to learn to control my time to make sure I have time to study.
“People are very friendly here. It’s OK to say ‘Hi’ to a stranger, but in China they wouldn’t respond.”
Isabella, who is in year 9, won the junior section with a speech on teamwork.
“I like to do light-hearted and passionate speeches so I spoke about putting the ‘I’ into teamwork,” she said.
“It was about group projects and how difficult it can be at times. I wanted to stand up for the people who prefer to work on their own.”
The competition was the first time both students had competed in Wynspeak.
They will now compete at the state final of the Rostrum Voice of Youth competition later this month.
