1-on-1 Performance & Speaking Coaching · Grades 6–12 · Taipei
Performance & Speaking Competitions, from text to performance.
1-on-1 coaching for Grades 6–12 international school families in Taipei whose children pursue dramatic monologue, performance, or speaking competitions. Primary focus on the World Monologue Games, with adjacent coaching for local Taipei speech competitions including the Rotary English Speech Contest and Taiwan's National English Speech Competition for Senior High School Students, school-internal events, and broader public speaking development.
What Families Receive
Performance and speaking coaching at the level competition judges reward.
Parents come to Performance & Speaking Competitions at Harland looking for a coach who can take their child's interest in dramatic performance or speaking and develop it to the level a competition like the World Monologue Games requires. The program covers what a competition season demands. Selecting and adapting monologue material that fits the student's age, vocal range, and the categories the target competition accepts. Building character interpretation through script analysis, table work, and choices the student can defend in front of a judge. Developing voice production, articulation, and physical performance under the constraints competition formats impose, including the framing and pacing video-judged competitions favor. Preparing the submission itself, whether that is a filmed monologue uploaded to the WMG platform or a live performance at a school-internal event. These are the elements behind every competition entry that holds up under judging, because monologue selection, character work, and delivery have to align with what each competition demands.
School drama participation and competition performance reward different things. School drama rewards ensemble work, production participation, and the collaborative craft of building a show with a cast. Competition performance rewards solo character depth, the dramatic interpretation craft a single performer brings to a single piece, and the technical precision a judging panel can evaluate in two to three minutes. A student who is strong in school drama is not automatically strong in competition performance. The formats favor different skills. Both are legitimate developmental paths. Performance & Speaking Competitions coaches for the second.
Performance & Speaking Competitions at Harland is structured around the competition the student is preparing for and the timeline available. Pathways typically run across two to four units depending on the student's target and starting point. For students preparing for a full World Monologue Games cycle, the pathway is the longer four-unit arc: monologue selection and script analysis, character interpretation and rehearsal, voice and physical performance refinement, and submission preparation. For students preparing for a single local speech competition such as the Rotary Club of Taipei English Speech Contest or the National English Speech Competition for Senior High School Students, the pathway compresses to two or three units: material selection and argument or character development, delivery refinement, and event preparation. The World Monologue Games is the primary anchor for most students. One of our teachers has served as a WMG judge, which gives the program direct visibility into how the competition assesses performance work. Students preparing for adjacent competitions follow the same building blocks with target-specific adjustments. Harland's pedagogy is content-based learning. Coaches work on the monologue or speech the student is preparing, not generic technique exercises. Skill compounds performance over performance.
Progress shows up in places parents can see. A student who can read a monologue and make specific character choices that hold up under questioning. Filmed performances that show vocal range, physical presence, and the kind of dramatic detail judges look for. A student who comes home from a lesson able to talk about what was covered, why a choice was made, and what the next round of rehearsal needs to address.
How We Teach It
Coaching that builds craft through the performance itself.
Performance and speaking coaching is taught the way the craft is built: through the specific monologue, character, or piece the student is preparing. Lessons center on the student's selected material, with the coach working on what the piece requires rather than running generic drills.
Early in a competition cycle, lessons focus on monologue selection and script analysis. Selecting the right piece is a craft in itself: the material has to fit the student's age and vocal range, sit within the competition's category requirements, and offer enough dramatic content to reward developed interpretation. Once a piece is chosen, the coach works through script analysis with the student: what the character wants, what stands in the way, how the piece moves emotionally, where the turns happen. These are the questions that turn a reading into a performance.
As the cycle progresses, the coaching shifts toward character interpretation and rehearsal. The student makes specific choices about voice, physicality, and emotional life, and the coach works on whether those choices hold up across repeated performances. The 1-on-1 format means the student gets sustained attention on the specific piece they are preparing, with the coach responding to what is on the floor in front of them rather than to abstract technique. The coach distinguishes what the student is showing from what the student intends to show, performance after performance. Skill and stage presence develop together. Neither moves far in isolation.
Late in the cycle, the coaching focuses on submission preparation. For video-judged competitions like the World Monologue Games, that includes the framing, lighting, and pacing the format favors, as well as the technical work of capturing a performance that does justice to the rehearsed piece. For live competitions, it includes the stage-presence and pacing work that distinguishes a strong live performance from a strong rehearsal. The final deliverable is the submission itself, which the student can see judged externally against the competition's standards.
Curriculum and the Competition Cycle
A modular pathway, calibrated to the target competition.
Performance and speaking competitions in Taipei and beyond run on different cycles. The World Monologue Games runs annually, with registration typically opening in the first part of the calendar year, submission windows running through the year, and regional and global finals later in the year. The Rotary Club of Taipei English Speech Contest has run for over 70 years and follows its own annual schedule. Taiwan's National English Speech Competition for Senior High School Students has run for over two decades and is offered through municipal pathways including Taipei City. School-internal speech and drama events at international schools in Taipei follow their own academic-year rhythms. Families considering Performance & Speaking Competitions for the first time often start the consultation a season ahead of the target competition, giving the cycle enough runway to prepare credibly. Families returning for another cycle often begin coaching in summer to redirect after the previous season.
The program is built around the student's competition target and timeline rather than a single fixed structure. Pathways typically run across two to four units. Unit-types are defined as building blocks: material selection and analysis (a chosen monologue, a developed speech topic, an analyzed piece), interpretation and rehearsal (character work for performance pieces, argument structure and stance work for speech competitions), performance or delivery refinement (voice, physicality, pacing under format constraints), and submission or event preparation (filming for video-judged competitions, live-delivery rehearsal for in-person events). Each unit closes in a defined deliverable. A student preparing for a full WMG cycle moves through the four-unit arc. A student preparing for a single local speech competition moves through a compressed two-or-three-unit pathway. A student preparing for multiple events in the same year follows the building blocks more than once with different material. After each unit, the pathway is reviewed and adjusted around what the unit has revealed. Harland is not a drama school or theatre production company. We coach individual students preparing for individual competitions, and we do not currently coach NSDA Speech events (Original Oratory, Extemporaneous, Informative). For students specifically pursuing NSDA Speech, our Student Coordinator can discuss whether the broader speaking craft we teach transfers to those formats and recommend specialist coaches if needed.
The format also lets coaches calibrate to the student's starting point. A student with school drama or choir experience but new to solo competition focuses early units on translating ensemble craft into individually-judged work. A student with a strong argumentative voice but limited stage presence focuses early units on physical and vocal performance under judging conditions. A student returning from a previous competition cycle addresses the specific gap the prior season revealed, whether that is interpretation depth, technical execution, or material fit. A student preparing for both WMG and a local speech competition in parallel follows two threads with shared craft work where they reinforce each other. Each pathway begins where the student is.
Prerequisites and What Comes Next
Where Performance & Speaking fits in your child's year.
Before starting
Performance & Speaking Competitions assumes the student has some interest in dramatic performance, speaking, or both. School drama club, choir, school speech events, or simply enthusiasm for the craft are common entry points. Formal acting training is not required. The students who do best in performance competitions are often those who bring curiosity and willingness to make specific choices, not those with the most prior training.
For students new to performance competition, the consultation and assessment class establishes where the student is, what target competition fits, and what the first cycle's preparation arc looks like. For students returning after a previous competition cycle, the conversation starts from what worked and what did not in the prior cycle. For students with formal drama training looking for sharper coaching on the competition format specifically, the pathway focuses on translating existing craft into competition-readable performance.
What comes after
Performance and speaking work compounds across cycles. Students who complete a first competition cycle often continue with Harland for a second or third, building on the craft developed across previous seasons. Some students who develop the craft seriously across high school continue with university programs in theatre, performance studies, communications, or related fields. Others use the craft as foundation for adjacent work: Model United Nations delegation speaking, Debate & Rhetoric competitive debate, or general public speaking development that supports university applications and beyond.
The longer-term aim of Performance & Speaking Competitions is to develop dramatic interpretation craft and stage presence that serves the student whether or not the outcome lands. Universities reading these students' applications see grit, perseverance, and dramatic interpretation craft. A parent who is no longer worried about whether their child can stand up in front of a judging panel and deliver a prepared piece with intention is the point of all of it.
Common Questions
Common questions about Performance & Speaking Competitions at Harland.
Who is Performance & Speaking Competitions at Harland for? +
What competitions do you coach for? +
Can my child begin Performance & Speaking coaching over the summer? +
My child has no formal acting or speech training. Is this for them? +
How many lessons does a typical competition cycle involve? +
How are lessons scheduled, and what if we need to reschedule? +
How do you measure progress? +
How do we begin? +
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