The St Louis RC Girls school is the winner and first challenge trophy holder for the inaugural, Macmillan Education sponsored, Language Buzz competition, amassing a total of 88.3 points at the finals which were held on 23 April, at Westerhall Secondary School, in St David.
St Matthew’s RC and St George’s Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) Primary schools came in second and third, with 87.5 and 85.8 points respectively. The other Language Buzz competition finalists were the Mt Rose Seventh Day Adventist School, Harvey Vale Government School from Carriacou, and the Bonair Government School.
Deanne Francis-Thomas, Curriculum Officer for English Language, is pleased with Language Buzz’s introduction, implementation and the students’ performance throughout the competition and at the finals. “Let me first of all congratulate you boys and girls for the excellent performance today. You are all winners. I was blown away from start to finish,” Francis-Thomas said.
The competition consisted of 3 rounds. Round 1 focused on narrative writing and oral delivery of that writing. Round 2 consisted of the oral quiz, which looked at word meaning, synonyms, antonyms, sentence completion, spelling, grammar, capitalisation, genres of writing and comprehension. Round 3 consisted of writing and enacting persuasive dialogue.
In round 1, the school getting the most points for narrative writing was the St Louis RC Girls School, while the St Matthew’s RC School topped the oral reading section. In round 2 the St George’s SDA School achieved a perfect score in the oral quiz, and Bonair Government School was the stand-out school, in the persuasive dialogue segment.
“There were some cases where there was above-grade-level vocabulary, and that was commendable, and the overall maturity of the writing was well above what we would expect, from students your age,” Carlene Perryman-Rouse, Chief Judge for Language Buzz said, among other commendations on the students’ capabilities in the tested areas.
Clemmie Van Hasselt, Macmillan Education’s Marketing Executive, who was present for the finals, said, “I am absolutely astounded at the levels of knowledge, the levels of intelligence, the levels of confidence and the levels of humour that we’ve seen here today.”
Language Arts as a subject equips students with the literacy skills fundamental to academic success and their future careers. Language Buzz is a response to finding more effective tools to enhance the teaching and learning of English Language, hoping to reignite the desire among students to appreciate, learn and properly utilise English Language skills, from an early age. The contest is open to all fourth, fifth and sixth grade primary school students in the state of Grenada, with 3 participants per school.
Maria Viechweg, Deputy Chief Education Officer for Curriculum, said, “The Ministry of Education applauds the efforts of Macmillan, for the sponsorship of this activity. Over the years, indeed, we do have support from the publishers, in varying forms. We do anticipate your continued partnership and support for all of our activities. Our gratitude could never be measured.”
Ministry of Education