Plymouth College’s House Modern Foreign Languages competition saw students from Year 7 through to sixth form give presentations in French, German and Spanish.
Launched last year, the event saw students talk on a range of topics including ‘My Family’, ‘My Hobbies’, ‘A Film I Enjoyed’ and ‘My Dream’. Each age group had non-native and near-native categories. The winners and runners-up go through to the regionals at Barnstaple on 10 March. The results were:
Non-Natives Near-Natives
KS3 Winner: KS3 Winner:
Olivia Mears (French) Thomas Cosby (French)
KS3 Runner-Up: KS3 Runner-Up:
Jocelyn Wannell (Spanish) Joseph Thompson (French)
KS4 Winner: KS4 Winner:
Laura Cosby (Spanish) Wolfram O’Connor (French)
KS4 Runner-Up: KS4 Runner-Up:
Ben Gittins (German) Laura Cosby (French)
KS5 Winner: KS5 Winner:
Dana Turogina (French) Charlotte O’Brien Gore (French)
KS5 Runner-Up: KS5 Runner-Up:
Sauri Roche-Walker (Spanish) Luc Dewulf (French)
Retired Spanish teacher, Christine Pearce and last year’s winner, Mae Dartnell, were the judges. Mae went on to be runner-up in the regional competition and made it through to the national final. She is currently taking a gap year before going to university to study languages.
“The thought of speaking in a different language to a large audience was quite frightening at first,” said Mae. “However, with practice, my confidence grew and following the House competition I performed in both French and Spanish in the regional round and French in the final. It was a turning point in my language speaking and this newly-found self-belief enabled me to work in Spain for two months over the summer.”
