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Competitive Events

Notes:

(1) The following list of events is tentative and subject to staffing, spatial and demand limitations.  For example, any event that cannot be adequately staffed, housed or for which there is too little demand to ensure meaningful competition will be dropped and affected participants will be asked to reregister for an alternative event.

(2)  The Spanish content of all events has been thoroughly vetted by Dr. Maritza Bell-Corrales, the Spanish Linguist in Georgia Southern University's Department of Foreign Languages, who has graciously agreed to serve as pro bono consultant to LAD.

(3) When there is a workshop component of the competitive event, BPC staffers will provide basic instruction in the relevant skill, e.g., BPC soccer players will provide tips on shooting, passing, dribbling, etc. to student participants at the beginning of the competition.

(4) When applicable, our two competitive levels are I (first-year Spanish) and II (second & third year Spanish).

(5) When and how often an event is offered is indicated within each of the following event descriptions, e.g., Boys soccer will be offered in all three event rounds and is listed as a Round#1, Round#2 and Round#3 event.   A first, second and third-place winner will be selected for each round of competition.   By contrast, Commands, Translation and The Subjunctive are offered only once as a Round #!, Round #2 or Round #3 event respectively.

Competetitive Events for LAD08

Cognates:  This Round #1, Round#2 and Round#3 event will test the ability of students to list and recognize Spanish/English cognates.  Participants will be asked to list as many  true and false English/Spanish cognates as the student can recall and correctly write from memory in Spanish within a 10-minute period.  Participants will then be given a fill-in-the blank or matching quiz to test their ability to recognize true and false Spanish/English cognates.   This event is limited to 2 participants per school per round and will be judged at levels I and II.

Commands:  This Round #1 event will test the ability of students to correctly use formal and informal commands in Spanish based on various situations and contexts and in response to verbal and/or written instructions in Spanish or English.  This event is limited to 2 participants per school per round and will be judged at levels I and II.

Comedy Skits

In this Round #1, Round #2 and Round #3 competition student groups will compete by performing original comedy skits of no more than ten (10) minutes in Spanish. Costumes are encouraged, but not required. Skits will be judged in terms of originality, fluidity and humor. Due to time constraints, capacity is limited to one skit per school.   Round assignment will be scheduled separately by e-mail to Professor Bell on a first come, first served basis.  The first-place winners of this event will be given the opportunity to perform during lunch or the awards ceremony.

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Culture

This Round #1, Round#2 and Round#3 event will test the ability of students to identify and use Latino gestures, demonstrate the appropriate use of formal and familiar tenses, and demonstrate how to properly meet and greet different categories of persons, ranging from a little kid to a BPC professor.  Participants will be tested through a written quiz and through a live demonstration. This event is limited to 2 participants per school per round and will be judged at levels I and II.  To find online web sites that demonstrate the kinds of gestures to be tested enter "gestos espanoles" in your web browser or use the following http://gamp.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~ueda/gestos/

Essays

Essays on the theme “La educacion:  el mejor camino hacia el futuro" ” should be mailed to Professor James Bell by March 21, 2008.  Essays will be judged on originality, creativity, organization style and grammar.  Essays must be original and in Spanish, with teacher input limited to editing grammar and format.   In terms of format, essays must show: (a) the student’s name, school and level of Spanish (I or II) in the upper left corner of each page.   (b) the title of the essay centered two single spaces below the info in the upper left-hand corner of the first page, and finally, (c) the body of the essay typed or printed, double-spaced, and not to exceed two pages. The first-place essay will be posted on the LAD08 home page.  To generate essays, we suggest that participating teachers may want to host an essay contest among their students.   This event is limited to two essays per school per level and will be judged at levels I and II.

Geography

This Round #1, Round#2 and Round#3 event will test the ability of students to locate and name major Latin American geographical features and landmarks such as inter-country regions, countries, capital cities, islands, rivers, mountains, lakes, major tourist attractions, etc. Participants will be given a map with fill-in-the-blank labels and/or a quiz, consisting of fill-in-the-blank sentences and/or matching columns. This event is limited to 2 participants per school per round and will be judged at Levels I and II.

Jeopardia:

This event will be conducted by Spanish majors at BPC and will be held after lunch in Gillis Gym.  It features a Jeopardy-style competition between teams representing each participating school.  Teams of three students will compete in answering questions in Spanish from five categories:  Hispanic Histoy, Hispanic Geography, Hispanic Culture, Hispanc Politics, Hispanic Food.  Teams can include a single native or heritage Hispanic speaking student, but this student cannot be the team's spokesperson, a position to be filled only by a non-native or non-heritage Hispanic speaker.  Teams will begin with 500 points and will select questions in Spanish ranging in difficulty from 20-point (relatively easy) to 100-point (relatively hard) questions.  Questions will be delivered in sealed envelopes to be opened when given permission by the MC.  If no teams is able to answer a question within one (1) minute, a buzzer will sound and the next team will select another question.  Answers must be written in complete sentences and read by each team's spokes-person, and will be assessed not only in terms of accuracy, but also in terms of grammar and pronunciation.  For example, an accurate answer can earn from 20 to 100 points, depending upon its level of difficulty.  However, if an otherwise accurate answer contains a significant grammatical error, one quarter of its initial points will be forfited.  Likewise, if an otherwise accurate answer contains a significant pronunciation flaw, one quarter of its original points will be forfited.  In short, to earn and retain full point value, questions must be answered accurately and contain no significant grammatical or pronunciation errors.  In other words, an otherwise accurate answer could lose half its initial points, if it contains significant grammatical or pronunciation errors.  An incorrect answer will result in a reduction of however many points the question is worth from the team's beginning 500 points, so team members must carefully consider each and every answer before hitting their answer buttons.  Dr. Maritza Bell-Corrales, a native of Colombia and a Spanish Linguist in the Foreign Language Department of Georgia Southern University and Dr. William Denni, Assistant Professor of Spanish at BPC, will judge team answers, and their decisions are final.  The event will continue until all questions are asked or for 30 minutes, whichever comes first.   Team members will go to the head of the lunch line so that they can meet with the Jeopardia Master of Ceremonies at 12:15 to go over procedures and rules.

Listening comprehension:  This Round #1, Round#2 and Round#3 event will test the ability of participants to listen to a brief verbal narration in Spanish, repeated twice, concerning an everyday event in a typical student's life, such as going to school, playing a sport, hanging out with friends etc., and then write answers in Spanish to a series of verbal questions in Spanish on the content of the narration.  This event is limited to 2 participants per school per round and will be judged at levels I and II.

Posters

The Modern Language Department of Brewton-Parker is looking for a logo for LAD2008.  Original designs should be submitted on 2 x 3 foot, hard-backed, poster board by individuals, groups, classes or schools. Posters will be judged by a committee of BPC’s Modern Language and Arts faculty and Creative Art students.  First, second and third-place winners will be given the opportunity to show their posters during lunch or the awards ceremony.  In addition, the first-place poster will be adopted as the official LAD logo for LAD2008.  The theme for the LAD08 poster competition is:"El calentamiento global" .  Posters are limited to three per school.

The preterite and the imperfect tenses

This Round #1, Round#2 and Round#3 event will test the ability of students to correctly identify and use the preterite and the imperfect: tenses of Spanish verbs. Participants will be given a quiz, consisting of fill-in-the blank sentences in which they will have to choose, depending upon each sentence’s context, between the preterite and the imperfect tenses, as well as provide the correct tense and person of each verb. This event is limited to 2 participants per school per round and will be judged at Levels I and II.

Pronunciation:  This Round #1, Round#2 and Round#3 event will test the ability of students to correctly divide 10 Spanish words into sylables, underline the stressed sylable and then correclty pronounce the words.  This event is limited to 2 participants per school per round and will be judged at Levels I and II.

Reading comprehension: This Round #1, Round#2 and Round#3 event will test the ability of students to read a short passage in Spanish and then answer questions drawn from the reading.

This event is limited to 2 participants per school per round and will be judged at Levels I and II.

Sciences:  This Round #1, Round #2 and Round #3 event is a new competition in which students will identify items or equipment commonly found in science classrooms or labs, such as an aquarium (un acuario) or a skull (una calavera) by selecting the correct name from a multiple choice list in Spanish.   This event is scheduled separately by Round on a first come, first served basis, is limited to two (2) participants per school per round and will be judged at levels I and II.

Ser, Estar or Tener

This Round #1, Round#2 and Round#3 competition will test the ability of students to correctly use the Spanish verbs “ser, estar y tener ”. Participants will be given a quiz, consisting of fill-in-the-blank sentences in which they will have to choose, depending upon the context of each sentence, between the verbs “ser”, “estar” or "tener", as well as provide the correct tense and person of each verb.  This event is limited to 2 participants per school per round and will be judged at Levels I and II.

Soccer (Separate events for girls and for boys)

Separate Round #1, Round#2 and Round#3 Girls’ and boys’ soccer workshop/competitions will be conducted on the BPC soccer field by Spanish-speaking members of the BPC soccer teams. The workshop and competition will involve two levels: (1) Soccer skills, such as shooting, dribbling and passing, which will be judged on the field, and (2) Spanish soccer terminology, which will be introduced and used during the workshop, and evaluated by a brief, fill-in-the-blank quiz at the conclusion of the session. Competitors should bring soccer shoes, socks, shorts, shirt, cap and towel in a bag with their name and the name of their school on the outside. this workshop is limited to 2 participants per school per round.  An illustrative list of English/Spanish soccer terminology can be downloaded and used to prep prospective participants.

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Spelling

This Round #1, Round#2 and Round#3 competition will test the ability of students to correctly spell an array of Spanish words, ranging from the routine (la música) to the not so routine (la rompecabeza). Participants will be tested verbally and in writing. This event is limited to 2 participants per school per round and will be judged at Levels I and II.

The Subjunctive:  This Round #3 event will test the ability of students to correctly identify and use the present subjunctive tense verbally and in writing.  Verbally, each student will be asked several questions in Spanish, some, but not all, of which will require responses in the subjunctive.  In their responses to the questions, students will use the indicative or the subjunctive, depending upon the context of the sentence, and be evaluated on the correctness of their responses.  Students will also be tested with a written exam in which they will have to use verbs in the indicative or the subjunctive, depending upon the context of each sentence.  This event is limited to 2 participants per school per round and will be judged at Level II.

Translation

This Round#2 competition will test the ability of students to correctly translate two paragraphs, one from English to Spanish and the second from Spanish to English, within a 30-minute time period. Participants will be judged primarily on how well they convey the author’s message, but also on word choice, grammar and punctuation. Paper and pencils will be provided. Participants can use English/Spanish dictionaries, but must provide their own,  This event is limited to 2 participants per school per round and will be judged at Levels I and II.

Verb Conjugations:  This Round #1, Round#2 and Round#3 event will test the ability of students to correctly do written conjugations of regular and irregular Spanish verbs in the indicative present, preterite, imperfect, future, conditional, present perfect and past perfect tenses.  This event is limited to 2 participants per school per round and will be judged at Levels I and II