Ontario concours et festival d’art oratoire

Concours et festival d’art oratoire is a provincial French public-speaking contest for FSL students in grade 4 through 12 studying in an Ontario English First Language school. It is organized by the Ontario Modern Language Teachers’ Association and Canadian Parents for French (Ontario). This is an annual contest held every May at York University’s Glendon Campus in Toronto.

This event began in 1975 in the Ottawa-Carleton area and expanded to a provincial event when the Ontario Modern Language Teachers’ Association (OMLTA) and Canadian Parents for French (CPF) joined forces in 1985 as co-sponsors. Concours et Festival d’art oratoire is an opportunity to integrate public speaking into regular classroom activity and to involve community members outside the classroom for judging and administration of classroom and school level events.

There are four categories – Core, Extended, Immersion and Francophone. Students in grades 4 through 8 participate in the non-competitive festival event in the morning and students in grades 9 through 12 participate in the competitive concours format in the afternoon for cash prizes. Winners from the grade 11-12 categories move on to the CPF National competition. These four finalists (one per FSL Category) will go on to represent Ontario at the CPF National Concours d’art oratoire.