Challenges & Competitions

A number of ALL's member-led local groups (Branches, Networks and Primary Hubs), Language Networks and partners run challenges and competitions for language learners in their local area, or at a regional or national level. Information about competitions which are currently open for entry can be found below. Competition results and success stories can be found under the News tab.

Competitions

Primary Bee – For Year 5 & 6 – French, German and Spanish

Routes into Languages Competitions
Date: Tuesday 26 September 2023 – 08:00 to Friday 26 July 2024 – 17:00
Event Type: Competition
Region: East of England
Location: National
THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE PRIMARY BEE

The aim of the Primary Bee is for students in who have started learning a foreign language ab initio in KS2 to practise and improve their vocabulary, pronunciation and memory skills in the target language (French, Spanish and German).

Spelling Bee – For Year 7s – French, German and Spanish

Routes into Languages Competitions
Date: Tuesday 26 September 2023 – 09:30 to Sunday 21 July 2024 – 16:00
Event Type: Competition
Region: East of England
Location: Regional with the National Final at Cambridge University
The National Spelling Bee continues for Year 7s (French, German and Spanish)!

With word lists informed by the latest research, the aim of the Spelling Bee is for students in Year 7 who are learning a foreign language to practise and improve their vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation and memory skills in the target language.

Translation Bee – For Years 8 & 9

Routes into Languages Competitions
Date: Tuesday 26 September 2023 – 09:45 to Sunday 21 July 2024 – 17:00
Event Type: Competition
Region: East of England
Location: National

Offering direct progression from the Spelling Bee competition comes the Translation Bee. Building on the requirements of the new KS3 curriculum, with its emphasis on translation and grammatical manipulation etc, the aim of the Translation Bee is for students to practise and improve a range of skills vital to preparation for starting a GCSE course: vocabulary, pronunciation, memory, verb conjugation, tenses, sentence formation.

Language Leader Award

Routes into Languages Competitions
Date: Tuesday 26 September 2023 – 11:00 to Friday 19 July 2024 – 00:00
Event Type: Award
Region: East of England
Location: National

The Language Leader Award helps students (usually, though not exclusively Year 9s) learn to lead, using language teaching as the medium. You teach your leaders to teach languages and they team-teach them in their feeder primary schools. Throughout the programme they develop their leadership skills, reflecting and growing in confidence while enhancing their generic, transferable skills whilst also acting as ambassadors for languages in their schools.

Languages Challenge

Routes into Languages Competitions
Date: Tuesday 26 September 2023 – 01:00 to Friday 26 July 2024 – 01:00
Region: East of England
Location: National

The Languages Challenge gives your (usually) Year 7s the chance to complete all sorts of language-based tasks so they can improve their knowledge and understanding of other languages and cultures.

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This annual prize for poetry in translation is open for submissions for 2025!

For further information please: Click here

Strictly Speaking

An outline of how to run a Strictly Speaking Poetry Recitation competition within a class, your school or between a group of schools, complete with sample anthologies in three languages.

Strictly Speaking 2022 - a school / student review

Review of a Strictly Speaking celebration in German 2022

Strictly Speaking is a poetry recitation event, with a class round of a rehearsed poem, and, for those who proceed to a second round, an unseen poem. An outline of how to run your own event is available to download here.

As teachers, we were really delighted to see how positively and enthusiastically the students participated in the event. All 120 of our Year 8s joined in, and in the class rounds they all had a chance to perform their poem and listen to each other. The students demonstrated great creativity in performing the poems. Some participants sang or rapped their poem to great effect, and all of them enjoyed the Year group final. It was a really fun celebration of German poetry.

Oscar Year 8 (winner)

When I first stepped on stage I felt overwhelmed and extremely nervous. After I performed my first poem though, the crowd went wild, and this gave me the confidence to then perform my mystery poem. Thinking of a musical rhythm was a great way to pronounce and deliver the words in an easier but sophisticated way.

When my name was called out as the winner I was astonished and extremely happy, I was very grateful, and loved performing.

It was a great achievement and am really hoping to continue my German into the future.

Alfie Year 8

I found the German speaking competition something that really brought everyone taking German together, I can remember after I finished that all of the other contestants congratulated me on my performance. I think this is this sort of environment that makes me enjoy speaking German so much.

Anthea Bell Prize for Young Translators 2023 - a school and student view from N Ireland

You can take the skills you learn in class a little bit further. We both really enjoyed seeing texts, poems and stories in different languages. We see lots of books in English, but it was fun to see real texts in French and Spanish.

Please click here for more information.

Languages East Competition Winners 2023

Congratulations to all who participated in 2023 in any of the RiL Bees or other activities. Details of the winners are here, along with a description of the activities and how schools can access them.