This Friday, May 23, the diplomas and prizes were awarded to the 112 overall winners of the 7th Interschool English Contest of Catalonia “The Fonix 2014”, organized by International House and INEFC of Montjuïc for the seventh consecutive year. the Fundació Catalana del Esplai with the support of the Department of Education.
43,000 schoolchildren from 5th grade of primary school to 2nd year of high school from public, private and subsidized schools throughout Catalonia took part in the local and territorial phases of the competition.
This Friday, May 23, the diplomas and prizes were awarded to the 112 overall winners of the 7th Interschool English Contest of Catalonia “The Fonix 2014”, organized by International House and INEFC of Montjuïc for the seventh consecutive year. the Fundació Catalana de l’Esplai with the support of the Departament d’Ensenyament. On this occasion, 43,000 students from 10 to 18 years of age from public, private and subsidized schools in Catalonia competed for important prizes related to the teaching of the English language.
The contest is a playful and pedagogical activity born as a dynamic tool for English for educators and also overwhelming for schoolchildren. As part of the Plan for the improvement of the English language in schools, it is organized in three phases, local, territorial and final, with important prizes for the winners and finalists such as stays in an English-speaking country, and English Summer Camps, weekends in summer camps, English distance learning courses and school material kits.
On March 1, the territorial test was held at the Catalan universities with the 1,900 finalists, chosen by the respective schools. All students took written and oral tests to demonstrate their knowledge of the English language. The best 112 classified from the different educational levels were chosen and participated in a grand final to decide the podiums that took place on April 26th at CENTRO ESPLAI (headquarters of the Fundació Catalana del Esplai in El Prat de Llobregat).
It should be noted that since its creation in 2008, The Fonix competition has experienced a remarkable annual growth and is probably one of the most multitudinous activities carried out in the European Union in the field of education, since it has gone from 24,000 participants from 240 schools in the first edition to 43,000 students from 5th grade to 2nd year of Bachillerato and Middle and Higher Vocational Training from 430 Catalan schools this year. There has also been a Balearic edition of the competition since 2009. The sponsoring entities have given a total of more than 1,000 prizes during these years, including stays abroad, fields and lots of equipment.
Spreading the use of English among schoolchildren
One of the basic objectives pursued by the organizers of “The Fonix” Interschool Contest, International House and Fundesplai, is the dissemination of the use of English among schoolchildren, aware of the enormous and ever-increasing importance of this language in all areas of today’s society.