English Day 2019 took place on September 25th. In the morning and afternoon, the Languages Institute had special activities for the UAO community in the Yquinde Auditorium, Library Hall and around the university such as the English Day opening, Test Your Knowledge Contest, Hall of Fame, EF conference, Trivia Hunts and Fun walls. In the evening, the Song Challenge was the closing for the event at the Quincha Auditorium.
These spaces promoted and allowed the university community to participate in activities that call for integration, recreation and understanding of current cultural and academic contexts to understand the importance of English today. Also, the UAO community is involved in an internationalization process through the use of English participating in playful, cognitive and academic activities in order to generate a closer approach to the language.
This year we had a special collaboration in activities such as:
- Fun Walls by the Library, EF, Humanities School and the Languages Institute that were located at the Library Hall for the community to participate through ludic games and practice English.
- Test Your Knowledge Contest was a space in which Universities such as Cooperativa, Santiago and UAO competed against each other to find out how much they knew about English Speaking Countries. This year Autónoma University was the winner of the first place. Congratulations to Maria Fernanda Brand and Santiago Mira who represented the university.
- The Hall of Fame is a project that the eleventh graders of the school Antonio José Camacho have developed during the second term of the school year with their English teacher Carmen Yela. They chose a comic character, looked for information about it using ICT, designed brochures, and prepared their oral presentations with decorations and costumes for the UAO community.
- The EF conference, given by Alexandra Ortiz encouraged the community to be a global citizen in a world where we have to be competitive and seek to stand out and look at cultural differences.
- The Song Challenge was an event for students to feel engaged with the language through music, which most young students enjoy and love. This year Autónoma, ICESI, Libre, Cooperativa and Santiago universities got together for this successful challenge. A total of 28 students auditioned and 10 finalists were chosen to compete for the first, second and third place.
This year the audience had a wonderful time because the stage, lights, setting, decoration, and contestants were amazing. We had the pleasure to have Isabella Castillo Bernal who was the 2018 Song Challenge winner to close the show, also an outstanding performance by the teacher Marc Botero who surprised the audience rapping. Additionally, the support given by the Media Production Center and UAOPlay was wonderful. People had the opportunity to interact through Facebook live and send comments to their favorites.
The 2019 winners were:
- First place Maria Antonia Narvaez from Icesi University.
- Second place Diego Morcillo from Autónoma University.
- Third place Cristhofer Davila Ramirez from Icesi University.
All the participants received certificates and prizes as recognition of their commitment and interest on the Song Challenge. We thank EF, Cambridge, Cengage, Sitel, Pearson, the Humanities School, the Communications Department, Human Resources, the Marketing Department, Universidad ICESI, Universidad Santiago, Universidad Libre and Universidad Cooperativa for sponsoring this event and making it possible.
The Languages Institute wants to thank the whole community for being part of this wonderful event. There was an excellent attendance to the different activities carried out.
- Opening and Test Your Knowledge Contest: 92
- Employee Trivia Hunt: 8
- Students Trivia Hunt: 64
- Hall of Fame: 72
- EF conference:49
- Fun Walls: 600
- Song Challenge: 126
See you next year in the English Day 2020!