World Language Team Wins 1st Place At French Competition
A group of thirty Benjamin middle and upper school students on the French World Language Team won first place in the state of Florida at the 2018 Congres de la Culture Française tournament held March 8-10 in Orlando, Florida.
The theme of the 66th annual tournament was “La Coupe du Monde,” or The World Cup. The team of Benjamin students took home dozens of first place “superieur” ribbons in the categories of impromptu speaking, poetry, reading comprehension and French trivia. Participants in the competition, held in the spring of each year, take part in various competitions including dictation, a spelling bee, and skit.
World Language teachers Marci York, Colleen Donnelly, Beverly Gustafson and Anita Spassoff accompanied the students to the competition.
Spassoff says it was great fun to work with students in the months before Congres.
“It was really exciting to see them receive awards for how well they did. Several even received exceptional awards from the judges,” said Spassoff.
York says most of the students in attendance have taken World Language since elementary school. She says she was proud of how all the French students performed under pressure, despite the nerve-wracking nature of both the individual and group competitions.
“Freshman Danai Makoni got a blue ribbon and a Prix Du Jury, which is very, very rare. It’s a special commendation from the judges and it’s very unusual. It means the judges were extremely impressed and thought she did an exceptional job. In my 16 years of attending Congres with Benjamin, I’ve only had two of my middle school students receive one. This is her first time participating and she just started French last year. She was in level A. That’s truly exceptional. It literally brought a tear to my eye - it was just fantastic,” said York.
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