By Ms Penny Porter
Head of German
Language Perfect Northern Championships 2018
Students from across Year 7 to Year 10 recently took part in the Language Perfect Northern Championships 2018, the first time that St George’s has taken part in a competition at this level.
Language Perfect is an online programme where students study a range of languages including German, French, Spanish, Latin, Mandarin and Italian (as currently offered at St George’s) but also Japanese, Russian, Maori and many more! Points are gained by translating words and phrases and by answering a range of questions.
Priyan in Year 8 and Nicholas in Year 10 were the overall winners, both obtaining the first ever Gold Awards for St George’s, for each achieving over 3000 points in the competition. Evan in Year 7 gained a Silver Award for achieving over 2000 points (and was very close to Gold).
Matteo, Kosta, Morgana, Sveva, Mariam and Denis all gained Bronze Awards for achieving over 1000 points. Farida, Beatrice, Laxshmi, Alex, Emily, Justine, Gaia and Astrid all achieved Credit Awards for gaining over 500 points.
The Top Performers in Year 7, 8, 9 and 10 were Evan, Priyan, Mariam and Nicholas respectively.
Overall, St George’s came 53rd out of 151 schools participating across the world.
In its category of similar-sized schools, however, St George’s secured 1st place in German, 1st in Italian, 3rd in Russian and 4th in Chinese.
Year 7 student, Evan, commented: “I love doing these activities, as they help me advance my linguistic capabilities! It helps me learn any language I want.”
Matteo, a Year 8 German student, added: “I really enjoy Language Perfect and I think that having a competition is an excellent way of getting everybody involved.”
Vocab Express Competition
As a warm-up to the Language Perfect Northern Championships, some German and Spanish students were invited to take part in the recent Vocab Express competition, a similar competition, where students must complete online language exercises. The results were as follows:
- Top Overall Genius and Top Genius in German: Nicholas (Year 7)
- Runner-up Genius and Runner-up Genius in German: Massimo (Year 7)
- Third place Overall Genius and Third place Genius in German: Evan (Year 7)
- Top Genius in Spanish and Genius Achievement: Beatrice (Year 10)
- Runner-up Genius in Spanish and Genius Achievement: Flavia (Year 10)
Mr Oliver, Vice Principal and Head of Senior School, awarded students their certificates and prizes, courtesy of Goethe-Institut Rome.
Language students at St George’s are now looking forward to the Language Perfect World Championships in May 2019, where they are hoping to aim even higher and get an Emerald Award or possibly even an Elite Award.