Bryan Woon, an Industrial Economics final year student at University of Warwick, has won the first place at a national Japanese speech contest. He gave a speech entitled "Is the Japanese salaryman fast becoming a relic of the past?" and answered questions from a panel of judges all in Japanese.

He is currently taking Learning Japanese 4 at the Language Centre, and entered Category 2 at the Fourth Japanese Speech Contest for University Students held at SOAS, University of London on February 21 2009. The contest was organised by the BATJ (British Association for Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language) and the JFLLC (the Japan Foundation London Language Centre) and 14 British universities which offer Japanese as a degree or non-degree course participated in the contest this year. The contest has two categories; Category 1 (studying Japanese as a main subject) and Category 2 (studying Japanese as an elective or optional course). Each category had 5 finalists who were selected by telephone interview in December.

As a winner of Category 2, Bryan was awarded a certificate and a prize of a laptop PC. His Japanese tutor at the Language centre, Mrs Katsuko Nagata, commented that Bryan is a truly able and hard-working student with a genuine interest in the Japanese language and society. The Director of the Language Centre, Mr Evan Stewart, gave his congratulations to Bryan on his achievement, and also to Mrs Nagata for her dedication in supporting and encouraging her students.