Time Again to Rhyme for Joel & Pierson Students

Students from two Clinton schools once again participated in the statewide celebration of languages known as the Connecticut C.O.L.T. (Council of Language Teachers) Rhyme Festival. 

More than 238 students from 17 schools took part in the 22nd annual event. This year’s theme was “Bridges of Peace.”

The event took place on March 21 at the Western Connecticut Academy for International Studies Elementary Magnet School in Danbury. 

An amazing 21 languages were represented at the event including Bosnian, Catalan, Chinese, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Khmer, Malayalam, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, Urdu and Vietnamese.  

These 21 languages were showcased by students performing songs, poems, tongue-twisters and rhymes.  

Clinton Public Schools, who were last year’s hosts, performed in two categories: group songs for languages learned in school and individual performances of heritage languages, which are languages spoken at home.  

In the group category, fifth graders from Pierson performed the song “Paz, Paz, Paz” and third graders from Joel performed the song “La víbora de la mar,” both in Spanish.   

Individual standout performers included Adeline Riccio, who sang a song in Russian; Tarik Hasic, who recited a poem in his native Bosnian; and Adrianna Valsamis, who recited a poem in Greek. All three of the individual performers are third graders at the Joel School. 

Patch thanks Maria Moran, Joel School Spanish teacher, for providing information for this article.