Celina took the silver medal in Level-1 for high school-age students, despite being in eighth grade; only missing one question, she finished second in the nation. Her classmates Troy Nguyen and Cambria Arvizo took bronze in the Level-1 test.
“They’re all excellent students,” their teacher Colette Waldron said. “They’re focused; they do their work; they participate in class. They’re not afraid to take risks, like standing up in front of others to speak.”
Troy took fourth in the nation and third in Southern California; Cambria was ninth in the nation and eighth in Southern California.
In addition, eighth-graders Jennifer Nguyen and Harry Smith, who took the Level-1 test, and seventh-graders Kelly Furuya and Nicole Cortese, who took the Level-01 test, scored in the top 20% in the country. Twenty other students from the school finished in the top 50%.
Dustin and Celina attended a French school in the past, and grew up in a household that speaks French, but Cambria and Troy had no background in the language before learning it in school, they said.
“That makes it all the more amazing for them,” Waldron said.
During the hour-long exam, students were tested on grammar, vocabulary and listening comprehension.
Although instructors across the nation use different teaching methods and textbooks, the test is the same for everyone, Waldron said; she was modest about her students’ accomplishments.
“I don’t do anything different than anyone else,” she said. “At this school, you’re expected to learn languages early. ... Our eighth-graders are competing against older, high-school-age students.”
