第十四届"21世纪·联想杯"全国英语演讲比赛网络选拔赛于2008年7月8日在大赛官方网站：
http://contest.21stcentury.com.cn/拉开帷幕。自此，本届大赛全面启动。本届比赛由中国日报社和联想集团联合主办，由21世纪英文报系承办，美国教育考试服务中心（ETS）连续第二年成为大赛的独家英语测评合作伙伴，将为大赛提供专业严谨的测评标准和英语测评领域的专家支持。
"21世纪杯"全国英语演讲比赛由中国最大的英文报系《中国日报》于1996年创办，21世纪英文报系承办，面向全国在校大学生，是中国同类比赛中级别最高、最权威、规模最大、覆盖人群最广的赛事。继2008年北京奥运会之后， 2010年上海世博会将让全球再次聚焦中国。本次大赛将围绕世博会主题--"城市，让生活更美好"在全国范围内展开关于城市生活的价值和发展的英语演讲系列活动。本届大赛网络选拔赛的演讲主题是"品味城市生活"（The City and the Quality of Life）,希望能够引导青年一代更广泛地关注城市的环境建设和规划发展、社会人群的交流和融合，正确面对城市化带来的社会问题和人生挑战，树立积极健康的城市生活价值观。
本届大赛全程分为网络选拔赛、电话口试、四大地区决赛和全国总决赛四个阶段，大赛将ETS权威的全球职业英语测试--托业考试（TOEIC）引入地区赛的环节，做为选手晋级考核的重要参考指标之一。与上届比赛类似，ETS将选派专家主持大赛的电话口试环节。电话口试环节的素材将部分来源于托业考试的场景及话题，更加贴近于真实的应用环境，使大赛测评体系的全面性及实用性得到进一步提升。选手通过比赛不仅锻炼了英语口语能力，更有机会接触到国际知名的语言能力测试体系。
随着新媒体力量的蓬勃发展，本届大赛官方网络平台锐意创新，将采用全新的网络投票模式，并以学校为单位进行网络选拔赛网络投票的排名--投票期间学校排名以该校获得网络投票数最多的选手的票数为排名依据，从而给参赛选手和学校提供实时互动交流平台，充分展现英语学习的魅力，推广英语学习的风气，有助于选拔各高校最高水平的选手晋级。
ETS测评技术（北京）有限公司总经理陈永汉先生表示："在中国，凭借托福考试、托业考试和GRE考试为桥梁，ETS已经成为政府、企业、考生和教育界人士值得信任的朋友和伙伴。我们非常荣幸ETS再度成为大赛的合作伙伴，并将委派拥有丰富经验的考试专家为此次大赛提供测评服务。此外，我们也很高兴大赛组委会再度选择托业考试作为参赛选手晋级的重要考核指标之一。我们相信这将有助于选手在平等、公开、公正的竞争条件下更好地展现自身的能力，让大赛高质量和高水准地顺利进行。"
如需了解第十四届大赛章程、评选方法等相关信息，敬请关注《21世纪英文报》或大赛官方网站：http://contest.21stcentury.com.cn/。凡国家承认的具有高等学历教育招生资格的普通高等学校在校本、专科生均可通过网络上传比赛演讲作品参加比赛，并可在"21色协作式学英语社区"（www.21se.cn）中与网友进行互动交流活动。
"21世纪杯"全国英语演讲比赛
"21世纪杯"全国英语演讲比赛由中国最大的英文报系《中国日报》于1996年创办，21世纪英文报系承办，面向全国在校大学生。迄今为止已经成功举办了13届，每年均能吸引全国800多所高校近100万名学生参与或观摩。比赛自首届起即被指定为每年在伦敦举办的国际英语演讲比赛的中国赛区选拔赛。通过本项比赛选送的选手曾多次在国际演讲比赛中获得冠军、"最佳非英语国家选手奖"、"最受观众欢迎奖"等大奖，在国际英语教育界引起了巨大轰动。目前它已经成为国内公认最高档次和规格的英语比赛之一，在国内外具有很强的影响力和很高的知名度。有关第14届大赛章程、评选方法等具体信息，敬请关注《21世纪英文报》或大赛官方网站：http://contest.21stcentury.com.cn/。
美国教育考试服务中心简介
美国教育考试服务中心（ETS）是一家非营利性机构，致力于向全球的各类人士提供公正有效的测评、研究及相关服务，提高教育质量和公平性。ETS成立于1947年，目前在全球超过180个国家设有9000多个考试中心，每年开发、举办并评估有5000万人次参加的考试。
ETS国际部及其相关分支机构在全球设有办事处，满足包括亚洲、加拿大、欧洲、拉丁美洲、中东和非洲地区机构的需要。ETS为全球个人、商业机构、教育机构、政府部门和协会组织提供有效可靠的测评、研究及相关服务，如定制的职业产品和服务解决方案、以研究为基础的教学工具等。
如需了解更多信息，请浏览ETS全球网站：www.ets.org/etsglobal。
托业考试简介
托业考试用于测量母语为非英语国家的人士在日常国际工作环境中使用英语进行交流的能力。托业考试由美国教育考试服务中心（ETS）于1979年开发，现已成为全球职业英语测评首选标准。90个国家逾8000家公司认可托业考试成绩，2007年有近500万人次参加托业考试。
The online screening process of the fourteenth "21st Century-Lenovo Cup" National English Speaking Competition was kicked off on July 8, 2008 on the competition's official website http://contest.21stcentury.com.cn/, marking the launch of this year's competition. The competition is jointly sponsored by China Daily and Lenovo Group, and is organized by the 21st Century English Newspapers. Educational Testing Service (ETS) has been selected for the second time as the exclusive English testing partner of the "21st Century-Lenovo Cup" National English Speaking Competition and will provide professional testing standards and expert support.
The "21st Century Cup" National English Speaking Competition was created in 1996 by China Daily, the country's largest English-language newspaper, and is organized by the 21st Century English Newspapers. Open to currently-enrolled college students across the country, the competition is unsurpassed in terms of prestige, scale, and coverage. As the 2010 World Expo Shanghai will bring China back into the international spotlight immediately after the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, this year's competition will present a series of English speaking activities to be held across China under the 2010 World Expo Shanghai's theme of "Better City, Better Life", which addresses issues such as the value of city life and its development. The speaking topic for the online screening process of the competition is "The City and the Quality of Life". With this topic, the competition hopes to raise the younger generation's interests in issues including urban environmental construction, planning and development, communication and mergence among different social groups, as well as to help them face the social problems and challenges resulting from the urbanization in a constructive way and establish positive, healthy city life values.
This year's competition will have four phases, including: 1) online screening; 2) phone interview; 3) four parallel regional contests; and 4) national finals. The TOEIC® test, the authoritative Business English test in the world, will be used as an important reference to judge and screen contestants during regional contest phases. Similar to last year's competition, ETS will assign testing experts to host the phone interview section, during which testing materials of situations and topics used in the TOEIC test will be utilized, making the interview more closely related to real business contexts. This will further improve the comprehensiveness and practicality of the competition's evaluation and assessment system. Through the competition, contestants will not only practice their verbal English skills, but also expose themselves to an internationally renowned English proficiency assessment system.
In light of the abundance of new media, the competition's official website will adopt an innovative online voting model to rank the contestants' universities. The position of the candidate who receives the most votes will determine the final ranking of his/her university. This will create a real-time interactive communication platform for candidates and their respective universities, fully demonstrating the charm of English learning, promoting a good atmosphere to study English, and facilitating each university to select their best candidates to join the competition.
"With our product offerings including the TOEFL®, TOEIC® and GRE® tests, ETS has become a trusted partner for government agencies, educational institutions, business communities, and individual test takers in China," explained Eng Han Tan, General Manager of ETS Assessment (Beijing) Co., Ltd. "We are honored that ETS has once again become a partner of the competition and will assign experienced testing experts to provide assessment services for the competition. We are also very glad that the organizing committee chose the TOEIC test once again as one of the important testing standards for screening contestants. We are confident that this will help promote a fair, open and just competing environment, where contestants will be able to fully demonstrate their abilities and ensure the competition's great success."
Detailed rules and judging criteria will be published in the 21st Century English Newspapers and the official website of the competition: http://contest.21stcentury.com.cn/. All currently-enrolled university and college students of state-approved higher education institutions can upload their speech scripts and AV files through the internet and interact with cyber friends on www.21se.cn.
About ETS and ETS Global
ETS is a nonprofit organization with the mission to advance quality and equity in education by providing fair and valid assessments, research and related services for all people worldwide. Founded in 1947, ETS designs, develops, delivers and scores more than 50 million tests annually in more than 180 countries, at over 9,000 locations worldwide.
ETS Global, the international arm of ETS, has subsidiary offices around the world organized in four regional divisions: ETS APAC (Asia Pacific), ETS Canada, ETS EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) and ETS Latin America. In serving individuals, businesses, educational institutions, government agencies and membership organizations worldwide, ETS Global offers valid and reliable assessments, research and related services as its U.S.-based headquarters. It also provides customized solutions to meet the need for university admissions, student learning, teacher professional development and workforce products and services, and research-based teaching and learning tools. For more information, visit the ETS Global website at www.ets.org/etsglobal.
About the TOEIC® Test
The TOEIC® (Test of English for International CommunicationTM) test is an English-language proficiency test for people whose native language is not English. It measures the everyday English skills of people working in an international environment. TOEIC test scores indicate how well people can communicate in English with others in the global workplace. Developed by Educational Testing Service® (ETS®) in 1979, the TOEIC test has become the world's leading test of English-language proficiency in a workplace context. 8,000 corporations in more than 90 countries use the TOEIC test and nearly 5 million TOEIC tests were administered in 2007.
About the "21st Century Cup" National English Speaking Competition"
The "21st Century Cup" National English Speaking Competition was created in 1996 by China Daily, the country's largest English newspaper, and is organized by the 21st Century English Newspapers. Open to currently-enrolled college students across the country, the competition is unsurpassed in terms of prestige, scale, and coverage. In the past 12 competitions, students from more than 800 colleges and universities across the country have competed, with the number of participants and audience totaling one million. Since its launch, the event has served as a China area screening competition for the International English Speaking Competition - an annual event held in London, U.K. Winners of the "21st Century Cup" have repeatedly impressed the international English education community by taking first place and other important honors such as the "Award for Candidates of Non-English Speaking Countries" and "Audience Choice Award" in the International English Speaking Competition. Recognized as a China's top English speaking competition, the "21 Century Cup" has built a strong reputation and impact at home and abroad. Detailed rules and judging criteria will be published in the 21st Century English Newspapers and the official website of the competition: http://contest.21stcentury.com.cn/.
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