Talent contest with languages

Move over X Factor, pupils at one Dereham school have been holding their own talent competition while also showing off their linguistic skills.Year seven students at Northgate High School have been creating music videos of French songs for a special Francovision Song Contest aimed at boosting their understanding of the language.

Move over X Factor, pupils at one Dereham school have been holding their own talent competition while also showing off their linguistic skills.

Year seven students at Northgate High School have been creating music videos of French songs for a special Francovision Song Contest aimed at boosting their understanding of the language.

Six videos have been created, each by a different class, and the other year groups have been voting for their favourite performances.

Yesterday's final saw 7N's version of Moi, j'aime skier (Me, I like to ski) competing with 7T's production of Le monde entire est un cactus (The whole world is a cactus).

The year 10 and 11 judges enjoyed watching a festive performance by 7N dressed in Santa hats before viewing 7T dancing around with pictures of cactuses and playing air guitars.

And once the 267 votes were counted 7T's Le monde entier est un cactus won the accolade of best video by 153 votes to 114 and the class was presented with a special trophy made from an old tape recorder.

Vincent Everett, head of languages and teacher of the winning class, said: “They did brilliantly and they really made it clear what they were singing about.

“It is the first time we have done the competition and now we hope it will be an annual event for year seven.

“It really helps the pupils use their French and practice memorisation and punctuation. It also helps to give a real buzz about learning French.”

Eleven-year-old Vikki Loughlin, from the winning class, said: “I'm really happy that we won and the whole class is really excited. It has been a lot of fun learning the song, and it has helped us better understand French sounds and words.”