For the first time, the Escola Portuguesa de Macau (the Portuguese school of Macau)
participated in a quiz competition which was organized by Communicare Trust at
DEITI studio (Goa University).
Three girls, namely Leonor Silva, Teresa Senna Fernandes and
Joana Yee accompanied by their teacher Henrique Caetano stayed at Fundação
Oriente and Communicare Trust located in Dona Paula. They participated in the
Portuguese quiz.
The name of the quiz is Kaleidoscope and students all over Goa
from the higher secondary schools were invited to participate for the same.
There were five different quizzes in five different languages namely:
Portuguese, Hindi, Konkani, Marathi and French.
“Through Kaleidoscope the trust seeks to encourage students from
higher secondary schools to develop an interest in various languages taught at
school. The whole idea was to practice the speaking component of the language
since the school give a lot of importance to the written component,” said
Nalini Elvino de Sousa, manager of the trust.
“Many times the school asks me: what about English? Why don’t
you have a quiz in English? And I reply that there are many quizzes already in
English. The idea is to give a chance to other languages taught in school and
that are not given much attention. The students put all their effort studying
Maths, Physics and second languages are not given importance. This is a way to
highlight their importance and for the students to realize how much fun they
can have, and how much they can learn when these languages,” added Nailini
In the case of Konkani and Hindi, there was an elimination round
so that the best eight teams could play.
This was the 8th edition of Kaleidoscope. Every year the themes
are different. Communicare Trust organizes a writing competition in the
beginning of the year and the students write about the topics/ themes for the
year. The best 4 articles are then used as study material for the quiz. Also,
at a later stage, the best 10 articles are printed as a book named “First
Draft” which is distributed to all the schools who participated.
For this edition, the quiz consisted of questions based on
articles written by the students on 10th, 11th and 12th stds of Goa on Tiatr,
artists of Goa, musicians of Goa and traditional Goan games. There were also
questions on general knowledge, sports and culture.
The quiz has various rounds, each with their specific rules
testing student’s knowledge in different fields like the one mentioned.
“Besides, we look to inculcate an interest of general knowledge
amongst students about different issues such as sports, water harvesting, waste
management, tourism, organic farming etc,” added the organisers.
These quizzes were recorded at the studio in Goa University and
later on will be aired on a local TV channel. They will also be available on
YouTube at a later stage.
The audience too played an active part in the quiz.
Participant’s unanswered questions were then directed to the audience at the
event. The audience interaction turned out to be a key factor as in certain
rounds; contestants were allowed to take help from their supporters present in
the audience
The organisers added that the quiz was also a way for the
students of diferente schools to interact, with the added advantage of the
Portuguese students who werel be able to share their culture with their
counterparts in Macau (China).
Interestingly enough, one of the students, Joana Yee, has Goan
ancestors and she was eager to finally see the land where her grandparents were
born.
Her grandparents used to live in Fontainhas and moved to
Mozambique to work. From there they went to Macau and the roots got lost.
During her stay in Fundação Oriente, a relative of the family recognised Joana
and invited her for breakfast. They had a picture of Joana when she was a baby
and according to them, she did not changed much. During the program
Kaleidoscope, Joana met a teacher from Ponda who also was able to link her
family to a family she knew in Ponda. Joana was thrilled to find out all these
connections. She also visited the school People’s High school and the principal
as well as the staff were kind enough to show her the school year books and she
found the details of her grandmother sisters who study there many years back.
On this aspect, Nalini said she was very excited about this
visit because one of the aims of the trust is to foster communication between
different countries, find out about each other’s culture and the common aspects
that they share.
This
year for the Portuguese quiz, EPM was the winner, followed by Our Lady of the
Rosary HSS, Dona Paula. The third place went again to EPM and fourth was
Damodar Higher Secondary school.
