Bernard Pivot arrives at the Brooklyn Technical High School (BTHS), at least in spirit. Fort Greene High School will host, on Saturday April 1, a dictation in French open to several public establishments in New York. In total, nearly eighty students from seven high schools (list in box) will participate in this first, organized by the Honorary French Society of « Brooklyn Tech ».
A “typically French” competition
Last year, this club of high school students taking French lessons set up a spelling bee, a competition where each competitor spells more or less complicated words until a winner is chosen, in the language of Molière. It was reserved for BTHS students only.
Faced with the success of the initiative, the organizers wanted to see something bigger and different. « We wanted the final competition to be typically French »explains Pascale Midy, teacher of French as a Foreign Language (FLE) at the school, considered the largest in the United States with 6,000 students. « We feel that our young people, at least, are amused by the logical aspect of dictation that we do not find in the American spelling bee exercise, for example. ».
The establishments chose their competitors on the basis of volunteering or their level. The twelve students who will wear the colors of Brooklyn Tech were selected from a spelling bee internal. Only one of them is a native speaker. « Some students whose mother tongue is French were not selected. Writing and speaking the language are two different things »slips Pascale Midy, who was an economist at the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank in another life.
Have fun first
Four levels of French will be represented during the competition. The participants will be judged on the basis of a paragraph of the text read by Fabrice Jaumont, educational attaché at the Embassy of France in the United States and host of the French Morning podcast, Bilingual Revolution. The copies will be corrected by teachers on site within an hour.
Others be warned: Brooklyn Tech, a science and technology-focused institution, is pumped up for this writing competition. The organizers – young Americans led by Lucy Chen and Paul Semon, two students with a passion for French – are sparing no effort to make the event a success. « It is this generation that will carry the torch of language ».
Especially since other editions are already in the boxes. Pascale Midy’s ambition: to attract more schools next year and add other events, such as a poetry competition. « The idea is to have fun, not to punish the students. Corrected copies will not be redistributed! »
2023-03-30 07:00:00
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