Children's Work: Talk Challenge

Pupils from Burlington Junior School celebrated European Day of Languages, last Tuesday, at King James School in Knaresborough. They were taking part in the Yorkshire final of the Eurotalk Language Challenge 2006. This software based competition commenced in the spring when primary children from all over the British Isles began learning German using the computer and were tested by completing various games and challenges on-line. The 30 top scoring children from each of the 10 regions were then invited to the regional semi-finals for which they had 2 months to become familiar with the Thai language. A tough challenge normally but made even more severe by the time restrictions placed on them.

Almost 50 children put themselves forward at Burlington for the challenge and after much hard work Jack Torbett (10), Aidan Hardy (9) and Thomas Papworth (8) found themselves in Knaresborough on Tuesday. They had to complete 5 timed rounds of language recognition where rapid reflexes and quick thinking were required. The boys demonstrated their knowledge of the language in a wide variety of topics including colours, food, numbers, phrases and general knowledge. They were even a little frustrated that questions from other areas that they had studied didn’t arise.

The standard was very impressive and all the competitors showed why they had earned their places in the semi-finals. The challenge finally reached it’s nail-biting conclusion with Aidan Hardy in a strong 12th place and Jack Torbett finishing 9th, despite a teriffic surge half-way through when he was actually placed 4th. Thomas Papworth was outstanding on the day with only one point separating his 3rd place from the 2nd placed Asma Elkhazmi (Bradford).

Thomas, together with the 1st and 2nd placed children, will now be competing in the National Final in London in November at Olympia. For this challenge Thomas has 2 months to learn Swahili. The overall winner will receive a trip to Africa as a prize, where they will have the opportunity to try out their new language skills. The school and parents are very proud of the hard work that all the children have put in.