It was the 8th edition of the National English Language Competition „Face of America” organized by the UMCS Science Promotion and Popularization Office and the UMCS Center for Teaching and Certification of Foreign Languages. This time, students from over 130 schools from all over Poland took part in it.
High school students from Zamość showed already at the first stage that they make a strong team. Their essay took third place of all those sent, and this Victoria Szajner, Mateusz Czerw and Konrad Kaim gave promotion to the next round of competition, in which, like 50 other teams, they had to write a lexical and grammar test. It went so well that they were among the top 21 teams qualified for the final. This time, the competition task required a broad knowledge of the history, culture and the present day of the United States.
Only Mateusz, a third-grade student with a European profile, was the only one who had encountered such tasks before, because he took part in the competition last year. He was also the only one of the winning three to see the country concerned by the competition with his own eyes.
– I spent my previous holidays in Canada and from there I went on a trip to the USA. I visited Washington, says the teenager. He says the city impressed him. But did this visit help the contest? I don’t think so.
She admits that school and English lessons certainly prepared them to some extent for the grammar test. The tutors of the team, English teachers Joanna Korona and Elżbieta Paszko, created a team, guided the youth somehow, dropped off a book on history, but in fact Victoria, Konrad and Mateusz owe their win mainly to their own curiosity about the world.
– Because in this culture school there were things that are not in the books. In order to answer the questions, you simply had to have an idea of the world – explains Mateusz.
– It is enough to be a little interested in what is going on – adds Victoria, a student of class II c, i.e. language. And she explains that she draws her knowledge mainly from social media, from the Internet, where she tries to find what is valuable.
“I’m just interested in politics and the general situation in the world. Like everyone else, I browse social media, sometimes I watch a documentary, sometimes I come across an interesting book – says Konrad, a student of the 3rd class of mathematics and geography.
So they are all the more satisfied with their win, especially since they saw competitors from high schools in Warsaw or Gdańskwho, during Tuesday’s final in Lublin, were sitting in their books just before the start of the test.
And they, without cramming, turned out to be unbeatable. They knew, for example, that a driving license in New York need to be renewed every eight years, which states do not border Louisiana, they recognized the place perfectly from the photo of the capital of Texas. They also knew that the word “OUTWEIGH” should be supplemented with a quote from former US President Bill Clinton: “When our memories …… our dreams, it is then that we become old.”
And they were appreciated for it. They heard: You are the best! They received congratulations and diplomas, but also valuable material prizes, including tablets. – It is a pity that no tickets to the USA – high school students from Zamość laugh.
