JLRC Language Festival 2014

The Josephite Language and Reading Club (JLRC) was founded in 2004 with the goal of providing the students of St. Joseph Higher Secondary School proper guidance in achieving proficiency in the skills related to language -- in English as well as in Bangla. A part of this endeavour has been the organising of a yearly festival where schools from all over Dhaka are invited to participate and the students take part in interactive programmes that make them explore their talents and interests in the various aspects of language. This year, the 11th JLRC Language Festival was held at the premises of St. Joseph Higher Secondary school on November 8. It was a daylong event which was attended by hundreds of students from more than a dozen schools in Dhaka.

The club arranged a number of events for students, taking place through the course of the day. These events like the Spelling Competition, English Olympiad, Intensive Reading Test and Story Writing Competition tested their skills in English language. A quiz competition was held where the students were told to read some classic literature in both Bangla and English and questions were asked from these books. Later in the day an Extempore Speech Competition was held, followed by the prize giving ceremony.

The prize giving ceremony was attended by Vice Principal of the school, Br. Victor Bikash Rozario, CSC; Chairman of the Bishwa Shahittyo Kendro, Professor Abdullah Abu Sayeed and Executive Director of Campaign for Popular Education, Rasheda K Chowdhury. They presented the winners from the competitions with crests and books, courtesy of the club. The winning entry in the Story Writing Competition is published in the Fable Factory section of SHOUT. JLRC arranged an English Language Course earlier in the year for students under 12 (Classes 3-5), where they were trained to achieve proper pronunciation and necessary writing skills. The participants were presented with certificates by the guests, who later delivered words of encouragement.

All in all, it was a busy day on the campus of St. Joseph Higher Secondary school. The Chief Moderator of JLRC, Uttom Halder, was ecstatic with what went down and said, “What JLRC looks to achieve is an improvement in language skills for students in general, and when 600 enthusiastic students turn up for our Language Festival, I think it's safe to say this was a step forward in achieving that goal.”