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Jean Rawlings (WJEC) and Vladislav Chiblis
WJEC A Level Awards
15th January 2010
WJEC is celebrating the achievements of its A level and Welsh Baccalaureate candidates, by awarding cash prizes and certificates to the highest achievers.
Winner of the German prize is Vladislav Chiblis of Hereford Sixth Form College.
Vladislav gained the highest marks of all the candidates who sat WJEC's A level German examinations in 2009, and will receive a certificate and prize of £50 to mark the occasion, together with a personal letter from Gareth Pierce, WJEC’s Chief Executive, congratulating him on his tremendous results, “an outstanding achievement, and evidence of the hard work that you and your teachers put into preparing for the examinations.”
Vladislav also sat Spanish and French A Level with WJEC and was one of the top six in both subjects of over a thousand entries in Spanish and two thousand in French. He has a keen interest in languages and speaks seven others: Russian (which is his mother tongue), Latvian, Italian, French, German, English, Spanish (Valencian/Catalan), and also studied Esperanto.
Before moving from Latvia to England at the age of fifteen, Vladislav spoke very little English, yet went on to sit his GCSEs at an English-speaking school, subsequently achieving a number of GCSEs at A and A* grade including English Language and Literature. He began learning Spanish, French, Italian and German at the same time.
“I love languages because whilst studying them you learn about other things, culture, history – I love history – geography, politics…that’s why I liked WJEC’s language courses so much, there’s a guided study option. You can choose to focus on a book, a film or a particular area. I decided to look at Turkish people learning German for my German A Level and in my Spanish module I analysed the repercussions of the “Law of Historic Memory” in Spain.
Currently working in hotel management in Catalonia during his gap year, Vladislav is hoping to study languages at University after heading to Italy to follow an intensive three month Italian Culture course and then to France to do some volunteer work.