MFL Speaking Competition

Pilton hosted its annual Routes into Languages MFL speaking competition on March 4th, and like every year, we took some competitors as well as three students to perform in foreign language entertainment during the lunch break.

Hetty and Sylvia spent a few lunchtimes practising and honing their presentations, in French and Spanish respectively (picture below), while Arthur came after school to work on his speech which combined French with a host of other languages he’s learning! It was lovely to support these committed linguists!

Lucy and Layla practised singing in Korean (picture below) and Kitty worked on a choreography she performed on a French song sung and played live by other students from Pilton – a real example of inter-school cooperation driven by an interest in foreign languages.

The quality of the day’s performances was much higher than last year (and than the photos I tried to take during the event!). The KS3 category, which our three competitors performed in, was the biggest and therefore harder to win. 

Despite this, Arthur came away with a runner-up trophy and prizes. Hetty and Sylvia spoke brilliantly, with accurate and flowing pronunciation and little to no reliance on their notes, but that wasn’t quite enough to beat a few students who leant harder into humour – we know what angle to choose next year!

We did win the lunchtime quiz and enjoyed our prize chocolates, and Lucy, Layla and Kitty also received a prize as a token of our appreciation for their providing entertainment. Unfortunately the photos I took of their singing and dancing all came out blurry (I must have been enjoying the show too much to settle my hand!) so no images of this.

We’re now looking forward to this event in 2027, hopefully with some KS4 entries as well as KS3, and a variety of languages. This was a fun and inspiring day for MFL!