Goethe German Poetry Competition
Recently, we had the opportunity to participate in the Goethe German Poetry Competition, hosted by The University of Melbourne. This competition was for Years 10-12 and required us to recite a poem out of a selection of choices in front of a panel of judges. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the event was held online through Zoom; however, this had little effect on the competition itself and everything ran smoothly!
This year, a total of seven students from Mac.Rob participated in this competition, including Sarah (10D), Kesha, Chau, and Wendy (11D), Vyomikaa and Evonne (11G), and Cherry (12D).
The results were better than we could have hoped for! Out of the many schools that participated, Mac.Rob students performed quite well, with Kesha and Chau placing first and second for Year 11 entries, and Cherry placing third for Year 12 entries. We are sure all participants could agree that it was an incredible and enriching experience where we got to challenge our German capabilities and extend on the curriculum! To read their winning entries, click here.
Personally, the competition helped us immensely, even in small ways such as a boost in confidence with our German. This event greatly improved our pronunciation, tone, and intonation, and being non-native German speakers, these aspects are quite difficult to grasp.
Some examples are the German 'r' and 'l', which are hard to pronounce for English speakers. It was so much more than just being able to recite words from memory. We also had to express the author's intentions and emotions through our recital, and hence, we needed a deep understanding of the piece we chose. Despite shaking with nervousness before entering the Zoom call, the judges were super sweet and friendly which made it a lot easier to calm ourselves as well.
It was a really fun experience overall and the one-on-one sessions with Frau Hohmann helped us make lots of progress (hearing compliments and encouragement from Frau Hohmann was definitely a bonus!). We highly encourage each and every one of our German students to take part in this competition in the coming years - you won't regret it!
Kesha and Chau, Year 11