Champs-Elysées in Paris to host world's largest spelling test

Participants in the "the world's largest dictation" on 4 June will have to correctly write down a passage of French text read out by the organisers.

Up to 5,100 people are expected to compete in total, with three rounds each open to 1,700 hopefuls – who will sit at school desks set up over 6,600 square metres leading up to the Arc de Triomphe memorial.

Dictations are a mainstay of French education, celebrated by teachers as a pillar of instilling correct grammar and dreaded by schoolchildren, who are forced to do them on an almost daily basis.

To recreate the classroom atmosphere, a huge blackboard will be installed by the Arc de Triomphe, with celebrities among those reading out phrases to the students.

“We wanted to marry the two monuments of French literature and imagination that are dictation and the Champs-Élysées,” said Marc-Antoine Jamet, president of the Champs-Élysées Committee that is organising the event.

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He called it “a marriage of contrasts between the simplicity of the exercise, which requires only a sheet, a pen and words, and the grandeur of the avenue, place of all superlatives in the minds of organisers and millions of visitors who walk its cobblestones every year”.

Children aged 10 years and over can sign up on the Paris city website, with competitors picked at random to take part.

The event aims to beat the existing world record for the largest dictation, held at the Stade de France in 2018 with 1,473 participants.

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