Languages
The 2019 Dante Alighieri Poetry Competition Finals
Buongiorno! On Thursday 18 July, finalists of the Dante Alighieri Poetry Recitation Competition headed to The University of Melbourne to recite our poem for the second time. The seven finalists were Claire Jansz and Amelie Monaghan from Year 9, Laura Cussigh, Laura Mitchell and Holly Sutherland from Year 10 and Sofia Bondarenko and Belinda Gale from Year 11.
The aim of the poetry competition is for Italian language students to exercise their language skills and learn more about the Italian culture, through Italian poetry.
At the Copland Theatre of The University of Melbourne, there were over 260 students (out of a total of 2800 participants from all of Victoria this year) who had achieved scores of 100% and were recalled for the finals. We were called out in our sections and then recited the poem to our assessors. Although a bit nerve racking, the assessors were really nice and once we got the Italian rolling off the tongue our nerves were gone! We always love attending the Dante Alighieri Poetry Competitions because it is a very enriching experience.
Thank you to Signora Weberruss for taking us on this excursion!
Laura Mitchell
Year 10
Results
All 7 students did very well on the day and enjoyed the interaction with other students of Italian from other schools.
Two of our finalists, Holly Sutherland and Laura Mitchell, both from Year 10, progressed into the second round of the finals and Laura was invited to recite her poem a third time in the third round, and it is likely that she has gained a first, second or third place in her category! We were informed by the organisers that this year’s standard was higher than in previous years and the competition was very tight.
Congratulations to all 19 students from Kilbreda College who participated in this year’s competition. The awards presentation ceremony is scheduled for Friday 6 September at The University of Melbourne.
Marlene Weberruss
Italian Teacher
Year 10 Italian Day Out
On Friday 19 July, Kilbreda’s Year 10 Italian class went on an excursion to the Catholic Leadership Centre in East Melbourne for a day designed to further strengthen our knowledge and skills in Italian. It was also an opportunity to learn about the benefits of continuing our study of a language through Years 11 and 12.
On the day, there were 24 schools from across Victoria participating. All the students were from Year 10 and together, we participated in various language activities; quizzes, drama, Italian music and a short Italian movie. In the introduction to the day, we were shown some videos about the importance of learning a second language, followed by two university students of Italian who spoke to us about their experiences of learning the language.
Matthew Absalom, a professor of Italian from The University of Melbourne also spoke about the benefits of learning Italian. The day was a good opportunity to interact with other students from different schools learning Italian, and for us to think of future pathways and careers relating to using the language.
Overall, it was enjoyable and informative for all the students and teachers, to understand the benefits of a language in our future pathways.
Emily Corbitt, Sarah McKenna
and Grace Corbitt
Year 10