Lisa Scott
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Mar 26/04) - The glee on Julia Marsh's face when she discovered she was heading to Montreal erased all the stress of the test she wrote moments before.

Grade 5 Ecole Allain St-Cyr student Julia Marsh will head to Montreal May 23 to represent the NWT in an international French spelling contest. - Lisa Scott/NNSL photo

The Ecole Allain St-Cyr student sat down with the winners from schools in Yellowknife, Iqaluit and Whitehorse on Tuesday to determine who would be going to Montreal on May 23 to write the French spelling test all over again.

The students were vying for a place at La Grande Finale Internationale de la Dictee, an international competition that tests their written knowledge of French.

"I kind of felt like screaming," said Marsh when assistant principal of Ecole St. Joseph, Dawn MacKillop, gave her the good news.

Marsh was competing against Whitehorse students in the Francophone division of the competition.

Students Angus Wilson, Andrea Nilson and Luke Orchard from Yellowknife were all competing for the one French Immersion spot available.

2003 winner Angus Wilson from William McDonald school lost in a tie-breaker to a Whitehorse student.

McKillop is just happy to send off a Yellowknife student to Montreal, where she will compete against peers from the United States, Canada and Senegal.

"It's a great opportunity for them to be involved in a competition that promotes French," she said.