A WELLINGTON School pupil has won an award for his language skills at a national competition.

Osman Omer came second in the German Intermediate Category in the final of the Word Wizard 2018 competition, which took place at the Scottish Parliament on Friday, May 11.

Launched in November last year, the multilingual spelling competition sees 190 pupils from 14 local authorities and independent schools taking part with language classes in French, Gaelic, German, Mandarin and Spanish and it saw 48 pupils from S1 to S3 in the final with an audience of teachers, parents and special guests.

Fhiona Mackay, Director of Scotland’s National Centre for Languages, said: “It’s wonderful to see so many young people taking part in the Word Wizard competition representing a wide range of local authorities. 

“Having an understanding of another language can really transform a person’s life and encourages the development of a whole range of important skills. 

“Through such events, SCILT aims to offer teachers really motivating ways of enhancing the curriculum so that Scottish young people can reap the benefits of learning languages.”

In participant feedback, it was acknowledged that pupils “liked learning new words” and enjoyed using them “in writing at school” and learning new vocabulary allowed them to “show it off”.

It was also seen to “increase knowledge” of vocabulary and “improve” pronunciation and spelling by teachers and the competition was recognised to increase pupil engagement with the languages department and it made pupils “more motivated”.

Word Wizard is supported by the University Council for Modern Languages Scotland (UCMLS).