The International English Language Olympiad

Aprile 11, 2019 Categoria: News, Home page

The International English Language Olympiad – Hippo Competition – is organized by Global Hippo Association. It’s an international competition in English, open to students from 6 to 19 years old.

The competition is divided into three rounds: preliminary round, semi-final round and final round. Participants are split into different categories, depending on their age, and into several geographical zones, depending on where they live.

The first Hippo Competition took place in 2013, with 5.000 participants from 6 countries and 43 finalists.

Mrs. Bernadette Walshe, responsible of the project for our school, invited a group of 25 students from the first classes of the middle school, choosen by the teachers,  to take part in the 2019 Hippo Competition (category Hippo 1), the 7^th edition of the English Olympiad, with approximately 36.000 participants from 35 countries.

Leone XIII was one of the schools hosting the preliminary rounds, which took place on 22 February 2019. There was a reading comprehension test (with multiple choice questions) and a listening comprehension test.

The Leone XIII team of participants did very well! Ten students passed the preliminary round and were qualified among the 24 semifinalists for north-west Italy.

The students were Lavinia Vaccarono, Sebastiano Ferrero, Flaminia Marigliano, Anita De Pieri, Benedetta Bonzio, Giulia Laganà, Luca Simini, Aurora De Bellis, Giacomo Salvadori and Marta Scibetta.

Here the official results from the Hippo web site

The semifinals took place in Turin, in the auditorium of Campus Luigi Einaudi (University of Turin) on 30 March 2019. After an early wake-up, the group reached Turin by bus, accompanied by Mrs. Walshe.

The semifinal exam was a bit more difficult and consisted of a reading test with 40 questions, a writing test with 30 questions and a short essay in which we had to describe an animal.

All the students are very proud for having reached the semifinals and hope to make it for the international final round of the Olympiad, which will be held in Lido di Jesolo on 11th and 12th May 2019.

Forza Leone!

Mrs. Bernadette Walshe
English Teacher at Leone XIII