Lingofest
Our Lingofest – the Languages Faculty House Competition – is a Speaking Competition which saw over 450 Years 7-9 students represent their Houses in a foreign language reading competition. They read aloud songs and poems in 5 languages and were given points for pronunciation, intonation and dramatic effect. All students recorded or made videos and uploaded their performance to Google Classroom. You can see/hear some of the recordings here!
Italian
The Italian department focused on contemporary poetry. Year 7 students read Sembra questo, sembra quello by Maria Enrica Agostinelli while Year 8 explored personification of the months of the year in I mesi dell’anno by Renzo Pezzani. Year 9 took on Gianni Rodari’s evocative description of the wind in Il Vento. So much effort had gone into pronunciation and intonation and it was fabulous to listen to the girls enjoying and exploring the sounds of la bella lingua!
German
The German Lingofest final saw pupils read or perform a variety of texts. Year 7 said and performed a well known German Nursery rhyme ‘Backe, backe Kuchen’. There were lots of videos and gesticulation to entertain and make the meaning clear. Year 8 read or sang the well-known and much enjoyed carnival song ‘Das Fliegerlied’ with appropriate sound effects. Year 9 read a poem ‘das Farbengedicht’, written by another student about how the colours can make us feel. All of our students gave their very best and scored lots of House Points for their efforts.
Russian
The Russian department used the Lingofest 2024 as an opportunity to look at a piece of poetry on the topic that each year group is currently focusing on. Year 7 performed a passionate poem about pencil cases. Year 8 students performed a poem by someone from a town called Znamensk in which there were lots of descriptive adjectives. Year 9 pretended to be preschoolers desperate to get to school because they can’t read or write yet. Mrs Willett was very pleased with the effort students went to and enjoyed hearing the poems and dialogues being read so well. Prizes were awarded as such:
French
Spanish
Spanish pupils at Key Stage 3 put on some lovely performances of a variety of poems by writers from the Spanish-speaking world. Year 7 students performed an excerpt of ‘En un trozo de papel’, a beautiful poem about the imagination by Galician poet Antonio García Teijeiro. Year 8 did some excellent, well-pronounced performances of ‘Mariposa’ by one of the 20th century’s most famous Spanish poets: Federico García Lorca. Meanwhile, Year 9 students did really well with their renditions of ‘El viento en la isla’ by Chilean poet and Nobel Prize-winner Pablo Neruda. Well done to all who participated!
