The Big Challenge

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Competition data
Title: The Big Challenge
Countries (first edition):

FranceFrance France (1999), Germany (2005), Poland (2005), Spain (2007)
GermanyGermany 
PolandPoland 
SpainSpain 
Length: 45 minutes ( school lesson )
Event cycle:

annually in May

The Big Challenge ( Engl. : The big challenge ) is a pan-European competition for English students in grades 5 to 9.

The competition, which is held annually in May, is a multiple-choice quiz in which students have to find the only correct answer out of four given. The quiz consists of 45 questions that deal with grammar , vocabulary, pronunciation and cultural studies of English-speaking countries. Across Europe, the number of participants in 2009 was 600,000 students in three countries, including Germany.

history

Challenge Day Number of participants
FRA DEU POLE ESP
May 18, 1999 15,000 - - -
May 16, 2000 190,000 - - -
May 10, 2001 280,000 - - -
May 7, 2002 340,000 - - -
May 12, 2003 355,000 - - -
May 7, 2004 350,000 - - -
May 12, 2005 355,000 20,000 50,000 -
May 11, 2006 ? 65,000 60,000 -
May 10, 2007 340,000 115,000 - 10,000
May 6, 2008 335,000 180,000 - 20,000
May 7, 2009 330,000 230,000 - 30,000
May 6, 2010 325,000 275,000 - 40,000
May 12, 2011 310,000 295,000 - 40,000
The number of participants in the country columns has been rounded to the nearest 5,000.

France

Originally, a group of French English teachers developed the quiz as a nationwide comparison of English proficiency, because they felt that it was the most motivating factor for students. The competition took place for the first time on May 18, 1999 , with 17,493 students from the Sixième to the Trosième participating in all of France . Since the first edition was already successful, a company was founded in the following years under the name The Big Challenge , after which the competition, which is now increasingly popular, was named. Already in the first few years the regulations were in almost all respects the same as today's rules. In 2000, the number of participants rose to 200,000 students from 30 percent of the French colleges in the competition, and the teachers' opinions published on the website were exclusively positive. After the number had risen to almost 300,000 participants in 2001, the regional newspapers also began to report on the Big Challenge .

The strong increase in the number of participants continued in 2002 as well, only weakening in 2003 and stagnating in 2004 with around 350,000 participating students. The French Big Challenge 2004 also was marked by a hundred years earlier signed " Entente Cordiale " between Britain and France and the friendship between the two countries. In 2005, the highest number of participants was reached with 355,000 students, since then it has fallen slightly and was at the Big Challenge 2010 at 325,000 students, in 2011 only 310,000.

Germany

At the end of 2004, Germany was the first country to adopt the French idea of ​​the English-language multiple-choice quiz without changing the regulations. At the first German Big Challenge many students went about as well with as the first French host, the number of participants was 20,000. The following year the number tripled to 65,000 students. In 2007, Germany also introduced a novelty in the regulations. Since there - unlike in France, where the Collège is a comprehensive school - there is a separation between grammar school and secondary school , secondary school and other types of schools, the organizers introduced a regulation according to which the grammar school students started in a separate category, the marathon class . From now on, the other types of school contested their own competition, so that twice as many prizes could be awarded. According to their own statement, the organizers only received positive responses as a response. In the Big Challenge 2008 the number of participants rose again to 180,000, which meant that nine times as many students took part in the competition as in the first edition in Germany in 2005. In the two following years, the number of participating students increased by a further 100,000, so that they in 2010 was about 275,000. In 2011 it rose again to around 300,000 students.

Poland

At the same time as Germany, Poland also adopted the idea of ​​the Big Challenge in 2005 . The first year was a great success for Poland, with 50,000 participants taking part in the quiz. The high number of participants and the concept of the competition convinced the Polish Ministry of Education and Sports, which put the Big Challenge on the list of recommended teaching aids for schools in June 2005. At Big Challenge 2006 60,000 Polish students participated and about as many as in Germany. Nevertheless, the competition was canceled in 2007 for organizational reasons. The plan to carry out the Big Challenge again from 2008 could not be fulfilled either.

Spain

Spain joined the competition in early 2007 as the fourth country . However, since Poland was canceled from that year, the number of participating countries remained at three. In the first year the number of students was 8,000, which is well below the number of debut participants in Germany and Poland. In the Big Challenge 2008 , the number of participating students almost tripled to 20,000, and the increase continued in 2009 and 2010 with 30,000 and 40,000 students respectively. In 2011 the number of participants did not increase any further.

Time schedule

In most years, the registration period starts in September, around eight months before Challenge Day . The schools must have registered by March at the latest, and the preparations should be completed by the end of April before the competition takes place in May. Shortly afterwards, the solutions and - usually one month after the Big Challenge - the personal results are available on the Internet, and the prizes will be sent to schools from mid-June. While Challenge Day falls on the same day in all countries, the evaluations can be postponed by a few days depending on the number of participants.

Registration and preparation

The registration forms will be available online from the beginning of September, but the schools will not receive the complete dossiers and the printed forms until the end of November . All students in grades 5 to 9 who have English as a subject and speak it neither as the main language in class (at international schools) nor as a family language - as a child of parents of English origin - can register. Students mistakenly registered according to these criteria will be assessed out of competition, the same applies to previous national or European winners. They can only win the main prize once, in the following Big Challenges the students placed behind them move up.

A school-wide coordinator will be appointed to organize the competition by the end of January. In order for a school to be admitted to the Big Challenge at all , a certain number of students must take part. In Germany and Spain it was 35 participants in 2009, in France it was 25. If the actual number of participants is lower, an additional fee must be paid. The desired registration deadline is at the end of January, the final at the beginning of March. In March and April, the coordinator is responsible for ensuring that rooms and teacher supervision are provided. During this time, the questionnaires are also sent to the school, the coordinator is also appointed for this.

competition

During one lesson of the Challenge Day between the beginning of May and the middle of May, the test is carried out with the participating students in the school. The number of rooms and therefore also the supervisors varies depending on the number of students. If the date set by the organizer cannot be met, the school may, after obtaining special permission, postpone the competition, but not postpone it. After the questionnaires with instructions and the answer sheets have been distributed, the students tick their answer letters on the answer sheet. In addition, the name, class, date of birth and the school's Big Challenge code must be given so that the competition can be evaluated correctly. No aids such as a dictionary may be used during the competition. If possible , the answer sheets should be sent to the organizers on Challenge Day .

Evaluation and prices

One day after the competition, the solutions for all grades can be found on the Internet. In the following month the answers are evaluated and the ranking lists are created. For the number of points, the 54 questions are divided into 18 four-point, five-point and six-point questions, which become more and more difficult as the number of points increases. For a wrong answer, a quarter of the number of points to be achieved will be deducted, a non-answer will not be followed by a change in the number of points. The final number of points is then increased by 80 points so that the maximum number of points is 350 points and the minimum number of points is 12.5 points. Usually no more than two or three students achieve the maximum number of points.

Sorted according to the number of points achieved, two lists are created for each level - separated according to the participants from high schools (marathon category) and those from other school types (sprinter category). These include a school, a state and a federal evaluation.

First of all, regardless of their score and placement, all students receive a small prize and a diploma. In addition, the best students in a school receive an additional prize that changes every year, separated by age. This applies to around 30 to 40 percent of all students. In addition to another special prize, the best nationwide participants also receive a super country cup . At the federal level, the top ten receive another additional award, while the national winners receive a Big Challenge championship trophy instead.

Internet

The Internet Archive has listed the French Big Challenge on the Internet since November 2000 , shortly after the company was founded for the competition. The layout changed several times, but the general structure remained the same until 2008. The quiz logo - which was also only created in its current form in 2004 - always appeared in the middle, around which several sub-items were arranged for information. In addition, there was current news, for example on the evaluation status and the Internet test introduced in 2003, which mainly asked questions from previous events. Similar to the competition regulations, points were awarded for the answers and the result could be entered in a high score . The training quiz was played over a million times between September 2007 and May 2008 alone, of which a tenth took place on the day before the Big Challenge . In June 2008 the layout of the website changed, but the content remained fundamentally the same with a few additions. The Big Challenge Club was founded as a communication opportunity for schoolchildren, and the Teacher's Club was created , in which teachers can prepare for the quiz. The website is available in five versions, one specially adapted for the three host countries France, Germany and Spain as well as a general one in Polish and English.

Others

  • According to the organizer's website, the main objective is to provide an educational incentive for students and to improve their English in a fun way. For this it is important that as many students as possible take part.
  • The competition is financed exclusively by the participation fee of 3.50 euros, which every student has to pay to register.
  • Overall, more students take part in grades 5 and 6 than in grades 7 and 8, so almost 60 percent of the German participants in 2008 came from the lower grades.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The origin of the competition ( Memento of December 16, 2000 in the Internet Archive ) in the Internet Archive (French). Retrieved May 7, 2009.
  2. ↑ Review: Ten years of the Big Challenge on thebigchallenge.com/de. Retrieved May 8, 2009.
  3. ↑ What is The Big Challenge? (PDF; 395 kB) on thebigchallenge.com/de. Retrieved May 9, 2009.
  4. ↑ Regulations of the 2001 competition ( Memento of December 16, 2000 in the Internet Archive ) in the Internet Archive ( French ). Retrieved May 7, 2009.
  5. ↑ Figures on The Big Challenge 2000 ( Memento from January 28, 2001 in the Internet Archive ) in the Internet Archive (French). Retrieved May 7, 2009.
  6. ↑ Figures on The Big Challenge 2001 ( Memento of October 23, 2001 in the Internet Archive ) in the Internet Archive (French). Retrieved May 7, 2009.
  7. ^ French competition page of the year 2004 ( Memento of December 31, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) in the Internet Archive (French). Retrieved May 8, 2009.
  8. ↑ Annual report 2007 on thebigchallenge.com/de. Retrieved May 10, 2009.
  9. ^ Annual report 2005 ( memo of December 30, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) in the Internet Archive (Polish). Retrieved May 10, 2009.
  10. ↑ Spółka THE BIG CHALLENGE ( Memento of October 28, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) in the Internet Archive (Polish). Retrieved May 10, 2009.
  11. ^ Polish competition homepage from April 2007 ( Memento from April 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) in the Internet Archive (Polish). Retrieved May 10, 2009.
  12. ↑ Big Challenge 2009 schedule ( memento of the original from February 12, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at thebigchallenge.com/de. Retrieved May 12, 2009. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thebigchallenge.com
  13. ↑ a b c d e Competition rules (as of 2009) ( Memento of the original from February 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at thebigchallenge.com/de. Retrieved May 12, 2009. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thebigchallenge.com
  14. ↑ Overview of all archived homepage versions ( Memento from June 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) in the Internet Archive . Retrieved May 26, 2009.
  15. ↑ The training quiz on quizz.thebigchallenge.com. Retrieved May 26, 2009.
  16. ↑ a b Annual Report 2008 on thebigchallenge.com/de. Retrieved May 26, 2009.
  17. ↑ About us on thebigchallengeclub.com. Retrieved May 26, 2009.
  18. ↑ Teacher's Club ( Memento of the original dated February 13, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at thebigchallenge.com/de. Retrieved May 26, 2009. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thebigchallenge.com
  19. ↑ Competition homepage