As a consequence of discussions with European diplomats and the suggestions of the officials from quality assurance team (inspectors) of the Ministry of National Education, the contest was first organized in Romania in 2004 by the Foundation for European Integration SIGMA, Bucharest.
International Kangaroo Linguistic Contest (IKLC) is organized in 4 languages: English, German, French and Spanish. The main architect behind IKLC is Dr. Boris Singer. IKLC turned out to be an effective contest for the students’ productive learning. The fact that English is now inarguably the main language of international communication, the IKLC of English is becoming increasingly a valuable contest. The structure of this contest is the same as that of International Kangaroo Mathematics Contest. IKLC addresses students in grades l – Xll and requires both knowledge of the language and civilization, as well as inspiration, intuition and creativity. The multiple choice tests contain questions with different degrees of difficulty and the topics are grouped by education levels.
The contest lasts 60 minutes. The students of grade 1 - 4 have to answer 24 questions. Questions 1 – 8 are worth three points each, questions 9 – 16 four points each, questions 17 – 24 five points each. All students of grades 5 -12 will answer 30 questions. Questions 1 – 10 are worth three points each, questions 11 – 20 four points each, questions 21 – 30 five points each. The marking of the papers is computerized, ensuring impartial calculation of scores and determining of rankings.
Kangaroo Linguistic Contest was initiated and organized first time in Romania and was then taken to Italy; later it extended in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Pakistan. In some of these countries the contest has a different name.
In the years 2013-2014, the Kangaroo Linguistic Contest in Romania was organized with the support of the following institutions: the Ministry of National Education, the Embassy of France, the Embassy of Germany, the Embassy of Canada, the Embassy of Switzerland, the Wallonie – Bruxelles Delegation in Bucharest, the International Organization of La Francophonie, the Institut Français and the British Council.