Every year, high school students compete in the Young Philologists competition. This year was the 55th. Young philologists from all over the country (they say there were about a hundred) met on March 30-31 at the Steponas Darius and Stasios Girėnas gymnasium in Kaunas. Students competed in poetry, prose, folklore, speech, literary criticism essays, essay writing and journalism, translation sections.
Several high schools in the region have distinguished themselves
This year, several representatives of our region were very successful. Kalvarija municipality and gymnasium were represented in the folklore section of the competition by Emilija Amšiejūtė, a student of class II b, who was prepared by Lithuanian language teacher Vida Brogytė. Emilija’s first attempt to participate in this most prestigious competition was awarded a III degree diploma by the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports.
Two students of Marijampolė Rygiškii Jonos Gymnasium, prepared by teacher Regina Dilienė, were also awarded third-grade diplomas: Saulė Rūtelionytė, a third-grade student, and Ieva Gudaitytė, a third-grade student, for good work in literary science and criticism.
Rūta Marazaitė and Tomas Blažiulionis, students of class III G from Marijampolė Sūduva Gymnasium participated in the competition. Tomas received a 1st degree diploma for translation from English, and Rūta received a 3rd degree diploma for translations from German. Teachers Nijolė Grinytė, Inga Jurčikonytė-Kaminskienė and Virginija Gurevičienė helped the students to prepare.
It is obvious that gymnasiums have their strong subjects: Kalvarija gymnasium excels in ethnography, Rygiškės Jonos in literary theory, journalism, and Sūduva gymnasium in translation.
For many years, he has won prizes in the field of translations
I. Jurčikonytė-Kaminskienė, the English teacher of Sūduva Gymnasium interviewed by “Suvalkietis”, said that the students of the gymnasium participate in more than one competition.
When asked how she succeeds in encouraging students to actively participate in competitions, the teacher said that she is constantly looking for those pearls among high school students who are interested in languages and have a literary streak. And a successful translation requires excellent knowledge of both languages - Lithuanian and some foreign language.
“If I feel that the student is a writer, leaning more towards the literary side, I suggest that he participate in a competition, I help him prepare,” said the teacher. She told that even now the representatives of the high school are participating in a competition related to information technology, where they need to create an advertisement, and for this they need knowledge of the English language, because the descriptive part of the task must be done in English.
The teacher said that she has been successful so far, because when she encourages a student to participate in the competition, they do not refuse. However, she assured that it is absolutely difficult to find one who is not only good in English but also in mother tongue. This is indeed a rare and successful combination, because today more students know English well than have excellent knowledge of the Lithuanian language, a strong sense of the mother tongue and sufficient theoretical knowledge.
That the teachers of Sūduva Gymnasium are accompanied by success is also confirmed by the fact that for the last five or six years in a row they have successfully participated in the Young Philologists competition. “Apparently, our joint work with the Lithuanian language teacher Virginija Gurevičiene has really gone well, we successfully complement each other, because in the municipal tour, in the translation section, the students we have prepared have been taking the first places for several years in a row.
And it is the second time in the country that she has won the first place: last year, Evelina Bartišiūtė received the 1st degree diploma. T. Blažiulionis received the second degree diploma of the ministry last year, so we took the prize places in the country for the third time”, said I. Jurčikonytė-Kaminskienė, emphasizing that she constantly encourages children to participate everywhere, not just to stay locked up in their gymnasium.
Recently, her students performed well in the essay translation competition organized by the Language Center of State Institutions. Rūta Marazaitė (class IIIG), Tomas Blažiulionis (class IIIG), Austėja Naujokaitė (class IVA), Dovydas Jablonskis (class IVC) and Indrė Petrushkevičiūtė (class IIIS) successfully tried their hand at it. And Benas Knizikevičius and Lukas Grubis, students of another English language teacher of this high school, Gintarės Baltrūnienė, wrote excellent essays about the importance of NATO in English for the competition “We are NATO” and were awarded in the Seimas.
