As English teachers, we couldn’t pass by the 12th Talent Show because we love it! Every year we are looking forward impatiently to this rainbow of beautiful faces, brilliant costumes and decorations, unique voices and, of course, talents – both of our colleague teachers and of our dear children.

This time we witnessed a 6-hour English marathon with over 100 participants from all over the region! And once again we had a chance to be happy – personally and professionally, – to shed some tears, to laugh heartily and to sing along to our favorite tunes! The Talent Show has always been a source of great emotions for everybody; that is why it attracts so many people from so many places. Emotion is a key word for the audience, for the children on stage and ? for the jury as well: if they cry or laugh during the performance, they will never leave it without a prize.

As a member of the TS jury for several years, I’d like to suggest some guidelines. We are English teachers of different ages, backgrounds and preferences, coming from various institutions. But there are things that we all unanimously appreciate:

• fluent English (esp. pronunciation)
• costumes and decorations
• live music (instruments)
• harmony (for group singing)
• original material (difficult to find but always rewarding!)
• efficient stage organization (adequate microphone usage, the speed of setting the stage ready for the action, observing the time limit, etc.)

And there is also a so-called black list of the things spoiling the impression, which includes:

• poor stage organization (children stay too far from the audience where nobody can see or hear them)
• useless additional performers (poor dancers may ruin the impression of a beautiful song)
• inappropriate topics (a 9-year old boy singing about – thoughtless copying of modern pop stars with their vulgar clothing, movements and intonations — it looks like a parody.

In spite of the criticism above we are all absolutely happy with the 12th Talent Show and extremely grateful to you for participating and for supporting this unique English event.

Maria Dyuzheva, jury member