English at its best!!! – Fremdsprachenwettbewerb 2019

On the 26th of February Eva Fink (7d), Antonia Fink (7c) and I (Jonas Schmälzle,7d) went to the foreign language competition in Dornbirn, in which candidates from all over Vorarlberg compete against each other through demonstration of their English skills. Eva and Antonia competed as our primary candidates, while I went to the competition as an alternate. Just like last year, this was made possible by our English teacher Beate Steger and Kate Berkley, our English Assistant. Kate helped us prepare for the competition by giving us feedback during speaking practice as well as confidence in our abilities. This helped us a lot and we want to sincerely thank her for it.

We arrived in Dornbirn by bus just on time to start the competition. The competition worked as follows, with the contestants demonstrating their skills in three different tasks: First, a panel discussion in which four to five candidates discussed a topic, moderated by a native speaker. Those who the jury found to be the most outstanding proceeded to the next round, where those candidates then delivered a speech after some preparation time. Only three people were chosen to show their language skills, spontaneity, and creativity in the final role playing round. After that, the winner was selected.

Just as I had expected, both our candidates managed to do the very well in the first round and got into the second one. Then, all the candidates that had been chosen went outside to prepare their speeches and one after the other delivered them in front of an audience composed of teachers and students who had come to watch, and, most importantly, in front of the jury. One could not deny that all the competitors had great speeches and were talented, which definitely did not make the decision for the jury very easy. Nevertheless, they had to choose three candidates to proceed to the final round and they picked Antonia as one of them. Eva came in fifth place, which is still really great considering the skill shown by the other competitors.

In the final round, the roleplay, all three contestants did their best to convince the jury of their superior English skills. As the tasks of this round are always considered to be the most difficult, even the members of the jury admitted that they themselves could not have done a better job and that the differences between all the candidates were minimal. In the end, Antonia did us all proud by placing third in the competition! CONGRATULATIONS on your OUTSTANDING performances, Eva and Antonia!!

 

Jonas Schmälzle