After a week of modern foreign language vocabulary tests, the winners for this year’s European Day of Languages (EDL) Championship have been announced. Designed to foster young people’s interest in learning another language, the Championship ran from 26 September until 2 October and was created by Vocab Express, the online modern foreign languages vocabulary learning application.
Put to the test were more than 16,000 students from 194 schools across the United Kingdom. Students correctly answered questions in order to score points towards both their individual scoreboard position and their school league table. Thanks to Vocab Express’ online leader-boards, competing schools were able to track their achievements against one another in real-time. In total, over the space of the week, 6.2 million questions were answered.
The main awards won were the Genius Cup, an award based upon the top 25 student scores at each school, allowing schools of different sizes to compete equally; and the Challenge Cups, based on all student scores at each school. The overall Genius Cup went to Dartford Grammar School for Girls who also took home the individual Genius cups for Spanish and German.
Awards won are as follows:
| Award | Winning School |
| Overall Genius Cup1 | Dartford Grammar School for Girls |
| Overall Challenge Cup Piccolo2 | Cambridge International School |
| Overall Challenge Cup Medio3 | Streatham and Clapham |
| Overall Challenge Cup Grande4 | Dartford Grammar School for Girls |
| The Genius Cup: French | City of London School for Boys |
| The Genius Cup: German | Dartford Grammar School for Girls |
| The Genius Cup: Spanish | Dartford Grammar School for Girls |
| The Genius Cup: Italian | Streatham and Clapham |
| The Genius Cup: Mandarin | Ockbrook School |
| The Genius Cup: Latin | Cambridge International School |
| The Genius Cup: Urdu | Jack Hunt School |
| The Genius Cup: Arabic | Cambridge International School |
1 awarded to the school with the highest cumulative score of its top 25 students
2 all student scores – up to 150 registered students
3 all student scores – between 151 and 500 registered students
4 all student scores – more than 501 registered students
Karine Kleywegt, Curriculum Team Leader for Modern Foreign Languages, Dartford Grammar School for Girls describes the impact of the Championship on students and staff alike: “We are absolutely overwhelmed to have won and very proud of the students for their extraordinary effort! The students were so excited by the prospect of competing against other schools that they were practising through their break times. The Championship appealed to a competitive side for languages we didn’t know they had! It created a great buzz; everyone was talking about it, which helped increase awareness of languages across the school and gave a real sense of community spirit. We will definitely be competing next year and would definitely recommend it to other schools.”
Justin Sycamore, managing director, Vocab Express comments: “Congratulations to the students and staff at Dartford Grammar Schools for Girls for their outstanding achievements in this year’s Championship! The EDL Championship has provided an excellent platform for students to display their knowledge of modern foreign languages whilst helping them to increase their vocabulary at the same time. Active learning, highly motivated students and a rise in attainment levels are an incredibly important part of the Vocab Express mission and we are delighted to see this reflected in the thousands of dedicated students who took part.”
October 2012