Sprachfest polka band contestants at a previous year's event
'Sprachfest' contest set for Feb. 2 at 1604 Campus
(Jan. 29, 2002)--The German program of the UTSA Department of Modern Languages and Literatures invites members of the Tri-Campuses to the ninth annual Sprachfest (German Contest), which begins at 8:30 a.m. Feb. 2 and continues all day. Most events will take place in or near the Humanities and Social Sciences Building Galleria.
Some 700 students from 30 regional high schools and middle schools are expected for the competition, which includes extemporaneous speaking, skits, gingerbread housemaking, folk dancing, polka bands, singing and video, poster and T-shirt contests.
Judges will select the winners in a variety of categories including dialogue, prose, reading comprehension, skits, poetry, photo essays, poster design and needlepoint. Winners in each categories will advance to state competition later this year.
Sprachfest was first held in San Antonio in the fall of '76 at MacArthur High School. The event moved to Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos until it came to UTSA in 1994. Similar regional contests are held each year in Dallas and Houston. On the last Saturday in February, the top five winners in each category at all three contests meet at Baylor University in Waco for the Texas State German Contest.
Annually more than 90 schools and approximately 1,500 students participate in the four contests in Texas. It is the largest and most active German contest system in the United States. Their success is due in part to a tradition begun nearly 60 years ago at UT Austin and Texas Tech University in Lubbock, where high school students went to compete and the universities presented plays for them.
Today college and university professors and students are judges with at least 135 judges at each competition. Trophies and ribbons are given to the top 10 winners in each category. There are 33 categories and half of these have sections for each of the four levels of German studies.
For more information contact Sheila Johnson,
UTSA associate professor of modern languages, at (210) 458-5214, e-mail
Sprachfest director Mary El-Beheri or visit the Sprachfest
Web site.
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© The University of Texas at San Antonio, 2001