Ottawa, June 15, 2021 — Canadian Parents for French is pleased to announce the 15 winners of the 2021 national finals of Concours d’art oratoire.
For over 20 years, the Concours d’art oratoire has been a well-recognized CPF signature event and an important opportunity for French second language high school students to demonstrate their public speaking skills in competition with top students from across the country.
Due to the pandemic school closures, the 2020 event was cancelled. This year, as the lockdown restrictions varied greatly between provinces and territories, competitions took place at the school level and substituted in-person presentations with original video speech submissions at the provincial level. From these, the top 3 video placements in their home province or territory were registered to qualify for judging at the national finals which took place virtually between June 1st-10th. A total of 45 videos met the national competition criteria in one of five categories: Core French, Extended French, Early and Late Immersion and Francophone. The speech topics this year addressed democracy, science, fashion, nutrition and more.
“We are delighted to hold the Concours d’art oratoire national finals once again after a pause last year, even if it’s virtually. Each year students look forward to competing among some of Canada’s brightest French as a second language students. We are pleased to give the students a chance to showcase their French-speaking abilities once again,” added Nicole Thibault, CPF National Executive Director, “and we congratulate and thank participants, parents, teachers and our volunteer judges for supporting the competition, as it is instrumental in promoting French second language learning and bilingualism across Canada, this year and every year!”
To watch the winners’ videos, visit: https://cpf.ca/en/concours-dart-oratoire-2021-video-edition/.
The winners of the 2021 CPF National Concours d’art oratoire, video edition are:
Level 1 – Core French
First Place: Sameen Saeed (New Brunswick)
Second Place: Rhea Gupta (Manitoba)
Third Place: Angela Zhang (Ontario)
Level 2 – Core Extended/Enriched/Advanced
First Place: Rachel Lin (Ontario)
Second Place: Bavan Pushpalingam (Ontario)
Third Place: Seanne Buenafe (Manitoba)
Level 3 – Late Immersion
First Place: Salma Khattab (Nova Scotia)
Second Place: Keira Jordan (Manitoba)
Third Place: Julia Keefe (Newfoundland and Labrador)
Level 4 – Early Immersion
First Place: Ozayr Raazi (Saskatchewan)
Second Place: Terry Su (Ontario)
Third Place: Jourmae Abengoza (Manitoba)
Level 5 – Francophone
First Place: Alicia Régnier (Manitoba)
Second Place: Lashyn Ahmad (Alberta)
Third Place: Noura Coulibaly (Saskatchewan)
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Canadian Parents for French is a nationwide, research-informed, volunteer organization that represents 36,000 members across Canada and champions the opportunity to learn and use French for all those who call Canada home.
For more information, please contact:
Marcos Salaiza, Communications Manager
Tel: 613.235.1481 x222 Email: msalaiza@cpf.ca
