Languages Competitions

By Ms Rhiannon Richards, French Teacher and Languages Competitions Organiser

Last week at assembly, numerous language certificates were awarded. Our students participate in three main competitions: the Education Perfect Championships, ACER and OZCLO.

Education Perfect, a platform used widely in our language classes, offers competitions throughout the year, which students of all ages can opt into. Time has been offered in classes to work on these activities, but the main part of the points scoring occurred in dedicated students' spare time. Congratulations, in particular, to Katie Wyman (gold).

ACER offers the opportunity for our students in Year 9 and above to try out their reading and listening understanding skills in the controlled environment of the languages classroom. There were a large number of double High Distinctions across the languages and year levels. A major accomplishment was achieved by our Year 12 International Baccalaureate Diploma student Freya Alblas, who gained a new medal category for the best French Level 3 score in the entire competition. Congratulations, Freya.

Lastly, there is the Linguistics Olympiad, otherwise known as OZCLO. Several teams in Years 9-12 pitted their wits by recognising patterns and cracking codes in lesser-known languages in the first round. Our Year 12 team of Brian Chen, Malachi Quach and Terry Yang gained a gold certificate, with the highest score for a senior team in the ACT for the second consecutive year. They then advanced to the national round, which proved to be even more challenging. Congratulations on this excellent outcome.

We look forward to seeing many of these students participate again. In addition, we would like to thank the organisers at ACER and the professors at the ANU and OZCLO for their tireless work to provide such excellent opportunities for students.