Plymouth College sixth former, Harris Tzokas, 16, has won the KS5 non-native section of the Routes into Languages MFL Speaking Competition. Harris impressed the judges talking in Spanish about the success of Film Director Pedro Almodóvar and his controversial films.
Lola Oke, 11, was runner-up for KS3 in the near-native section. The Year 7 pupil spoke in French about her hobbies, which included swimming, horse riding and running.
Eight Plymouth College linguists competed against 70 students from across the region at the event in Barnstaple. Four spoke in Spanish, two in French and two in German. As well as presentation skills, judges were looking for spontaneity, fluency, accent, interest, range and originality in the students’ language skills.
Harris and Lola now go through to the final at Bristol University in June. Last year Luc Dewulf won the overall near-native KS5 final for French and Sauri Roche-Walker was overall runner-up in the non-native KS5 final for Spanish.
“All our pupils spoke really well and had developed in confidence to show their ability in a language,” said Head of French and Spanish, Philip Randall. “Being able to speak an additional language opens up so many opportunities for studying and working with languages in the future.”
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