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Chloé Van Doorn and Marième Dior Nafy Ba grand prize winners of the Dictée P.G.L. 2008-2009

June 19, 2009

Montréal, Monday 17 May 2009 — Chloé Van Doorn from École Saint-Jean de Granby in Quebec and Marième Dior Nafy Ba from Senegal won the top honours at the Grande Finale Internationale de la Dictée P.G.L. This dictation read by Marina Orsini, actress and host, focused on health and had many pitfalls for the 103 participants gathered in the Salle Pauline-Julien at Collège Gérald-Godin in Montréal.

Chloé Van Doorn competed in the “Francophone class” category; she eluded all the obstacles and submitted a dictation with only 1.5 errors. Marième Dior Nafy Ba won first place in the “French as a second language class” category, making only 1 error. Each winner received a scholarship worth $2,000 among other prizes.

Other students also had admirable performances, including Catherine Saint-Pierre from L’école Gabriel – Le Courtois de Sainte-Anne-des-Monts (Francophone class category) and Samba Diouldé Alp Sall from Mali (French immersion class category) who won second place and scholarships of $1,000, and France Rodrigue from L’école de l’Arc-en-ciel in Thetford Mines (Francophone class category) and Wendellé Stive Ax Kargourou from Burkina Faso (French immersion class category) who came in third place and received scholarships of $500.

These six winners also received an Ipod Shuffle MP3 player from Canada Post, a backpack from Hydro-Québec, a trophy and a copy of Le Petit druide des synonymes.

The Dictée P.G.L. took place throughout Canada, the United States and several French-speaking African countries. Winners were also named in five regions. Here are the results.

Francophone class Category
QuebecChloé Van Doorn, École Saint-Jean de Granby
OntarioMyriam Villeneuve, École élémentaire catholique de Casselman
Atlantic ProvincesDaphné Palaco-Tobia, École Beaubassin, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Western Provinces and TerritoriesGabriel Risbud-Vincent, École Sainte-Jeanne-d’Arc, Edmonton, Alberta
Outside CanadaMimi Zambetti from International School of the Peninsula, Palo Alto, California
French as a second language class Category
QuebecCamille O’Brien, École Saint-Anthony de Pierrefonds
OntarioCatherine Vlasov, Mississauga Campus Toronto French School, Mississauga
Atlantic ProvincesJoshua Gosse, Cowan Heights Elementary School, St-John’s, Newfoundland
Western Provinces and TerritoriesHelen Gemmrich, Bayside Middle School, Bentwood Bay, British Columbia
Outside Canada Marième Dior Nafy Ba, Senegal

The 103 finalists of this 18th edition of the Grande finale internationale de la Dictée P.G.L. also received many prizes from Hydro-Québec, Druide Informatique, Larousse, Québec-Amérique, Radio-Canada, Trécarré, Canada Post, Scholastic and Soulières éditeur.

The event hosted by Daniel Malenfant, actor, host and improviser, will be aired starting June 13, 2009, on the Canal Savoir and Canal Vox stations.

Try your hand at the dictation done by the children by visiting the Fondation Paul Gérin-Lajoie Web site (French only) at www.fondationpgl.ca and clicking on terrain de jeu.