The Dictée du Balfroid, a national French spelling competition for sixth grade students held annually in Belgium since 1988, saw an exceptional performance this year from Ayah Alsabagh, a 12-year-old Syrian student. Ayah achieved the highest score in Luxembourg province (Belgium), making only two minor errors in the 2025 edition of the contest.
Ayah placed first among the 85 participants from Luxembourg province at the Balfroid dictation competition, held last Saturday in Namur. Her near-perfect performance was marked by just two small mistakes: a past participle agreement and the word visceral. Out of 350 contestants nationwide, she ranked an impressive fourth overall, tying with two other students.
Although French is not her first language, Ayah’s success did not come entirely as a surprise. "I expected to do well. When they handed back the corrected text, I knew immediately I had made only two mistakes," she recalls. "But I was still surprised to learn I had earned the best score in the province!"
Ayah added: "I mainly prepared for the dictation at school. Mila and I" – editor’s note: Bastogne had two finalists, Ayah Alsabagh and Mila Louis – "trained using the same format as the Balfroid, with the long dictation followed by 10 words."
Natural talent for languages, arts
Fluent in Arabic, French, English and Albanian, and currently learning Korean, Ayah shows a clear gift for languages. Her success is more a result of intuitive intelligence and logical thinking than of rote memorization or heavy reading.
She also shines in visual arts. “It’s genetic,” Ayah says with a smile. “It comes from my father. By age 5, I could draw faces very accurately.”
Pride of Royal Atheneum of Bastogne
The Royal Atheneum of Bastogne, a public secondary school under the authority of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, had two students qualify for the 2025 Balfroid final: Mila Louis, who made six mistakes and Ayah Alsabagh, who led the province with just two.
Élodie Gosset, director of the Gare-Bois d'Hazy elementary school and the Bastogne secondary school, expressed her pride:
"We’re truly proud of Ayah – it's an honor. Some students have a natural aptitude. Ayah is one of those: she works instinctively and it shows."
