COMPETITIONS

POSTER COMPETITION:

Each school is allowed to send up to five posters for each language taught at the school.  Foreign language teachers should hold a preliminary competition to decide on the posters to be entered in the final competition.  The theme of this year’s competition will be the following:  "Famous Monuments" or "Famous People in History”such as the Eiffel Tower and Napoleon or the Mexican pyramids and Montezuma. As always, the most visually striking and creative posters employing the best use of the target language stand the best chance of winning first prize. Posters that demonstrate historical investigation or present data will also be judged more favorably.

Posters must be delivered to the Department of English and Modern Foreign Languages, 427 Humanities Bldg., by Monday, April 11, 2011, before 5:00 p.m.  Please identify student, school, and category on the back of each poster. Winning posters will be displayed with ribbons on High School Foreign Language Day. Students or teachers may reclaim their posters at the conclusion of High School Day.

LANGUAGE/CULTURE BOWLS IN FRENCH AND SPANISH:

Students will participate in teams of four.  The competition will be held before a live audience, with separate rooms for the French and Spanish contests.  Schools will be limited to sending two teams in French and one team in Spanish.   This limit of one Spanish team comes as a result of rescheduling the event in different rooms.  Please note:  Because of previous complaints, we kindly ask that you do not allow your native or near-native speakers to participate in the Language Bowl.  This has been seen as an unfair practice by all participants, and we trust that you do not violate this rule.

Language question format:  multiple-choice questions read orally and projected one-by-one on a large screen for a brief time.

Culture question format:  a person, place, thing, event or activity relevant to Francophone or Hispanic culture, as the case may be, will be described in English.  Teams will have 15 seconds to write an answer. 

A “special note” for French contestants:  Topics and specifics will be limited to those items suggested in the AATF’s National French Contest Specifications (through Level 2) http://www.frenchteachers.org/concours/gc_specs.html .

 

Answers will be checked orally and teams having the correct answer will be recognized.  At the end of the contest ,correct answers will be tallied to identify winning teams.

VIDEOTAPED SKITS IN FRENCH AND SPANISH:

Under their teacher’s guidance, students should prepare and film skits in French or Spanish no longer than five minutes in length.  The skits should be performed by teams of at least three students.  As regards subject matter, the skits should relate to the topics, situations, and vocabulary generally presented in the foreign-language classroom.  Skits will be judged according to the following criteria:  correctness of the language, content, fluency and pronunciation of the performers, costumes and decor, and overall creativity.  The skits should be filmed only in VHS, VHS-C, or DVD and the videocassettes/DVDs  (with a title, name of performers, name of school and teacher) and should be delivered to English &Modern Foreign Languages by Monday, April 11, 2011 before 5:00 p.m.  Schools may submit no more than two videos in French and two in Spanish. PLEASE RECORD EACH SKIT ON A SEPARATE VIDEO CASSETTE OR DVD (DVD –R preferred).  Videos/DVDs will be shown to those attending High School Day in the 11:10-12:00 time slot.

BAKE-OFF:  (two categories for awards in French and Spanish – Desserts and others)

Students at all levels are invited to enter a dish in this competition.  Students may enter individually or as a group.  The dish entered should represent the culture which they are studying in high school.  They will be judged on presentation and taste.  For each dish entered, contestants must supply two (2) recipes (one written in the appropriate foreign language and one in English).  These recipes must be TYPED and sent (or brought) to the English and Modern Foreign Language Department, 427 Humanities, by Monday, April 11, 2011, before 5 p.m.  The dishes need to be brought to the University Center by 9:00 a.m. Thursday, April 21, 2011, with a 2nd copy of their recipe.

We will begin the day with a “presentation of nations" ceremony which will feature UT-Martin international students who come from various countries around the world. These students will display clothes and other items representative of their culture and will give lively demonstrations. In addition, UTM faculty will offer Power Point presentations on Brazil, Germany and Japan, and French and Spanish majors will give overviews of UTM’s study-abroad programs in Quebec, France, Mexico, and Spain. We will follow these activities with Language/Culture Bowls in French and Spanish, which will allow your students to test their knowledge of the language and culture of the Francophone and Hispanic countries they have been studying in class. And, finally, we will screen short, videotaped skits in French and Spanish, performed and filmed by your students, which will demonstrate their linguistic and acting skills. Our High School Day will also include events which have been perennial favorites, such as the “Bake Off” and Poster Competition. Students will then be able to eat lunch in the cafeteria or in the food court before ending the day with an awards ceremony.

Since our expanded University Center offers us additional space, we will be able to welcome more participants than in the past. Consequently, we invite you to bring not only all your second- and third- year students, but also up to twenty of your first-year students. After conferring with your students, select those who will participate in the various competitions. Enter your students in as many events as possible.

A registration fee of $5.00 (non-refundable) will be collected from each student who attends to cover the cost of contest materials, awards, and incidental expenses.  Please return the enclosed registration form and payment (checks only, made payable to the University of Tennessee at Martin) to the Department of English and Modern Foreign Languages, 427 Humanities Bldg., UT-Martin, Martin, TN  38238, by Monday, April 11, 2011.

 High School Foreign Language Day 2009 should be a great occasion. Please don't hesitate to call me or my colleagues (731-881-7420), if you have any questions or suggestions.

We have a PDF file with the current state of the schedule.