Last weekend, 21 Starr’s Mill foreign language students traveled to McEachern High School to compete in the Foreign Language Association of Georgia Spoken Language contest.

A total of 21 students attended from Starr’s Mill. The Mill’s students returned with 14 superior rankings, five excellent, and two distinguished.

“We had a pretty good representation of all three languages that participated,” World Language department chair and Spanish teacher Laura Alldredge said. “They did very well.”

Every year the Foreign Language Association of Georgia hosts this event. Students of each level of the foreign languages have an interview with a judge regarding their target language. The interviews typically last from eight to twelve minutes, depending on the student’s language level. The judge then scores the student, who can receive superior, excellent, or distinguished ratings.

The competing students are trained by their language teachers at their school. They meet a few times a week, several weeks in advance of the competition. Each school can send up to five students per level, per language.

This year’s award recipients include:

Spanish IV • junior Jacob Just-Buddy • superior

Spanish IV • junior Sophia Bender • excellent

Spanish III • junior Saijleen Chawla • superior

Spanish III • sophomore Gigi Christensen • superior

Spanish III • sophomore Virginia Jackson • superior

Spanish III • sophomore Caleb Warnock • superior

Spanish II • freshman Caroline Owusu • superior

Spanish I • freshman Jaimie Forsberg • distinguished

Spanish I • freshman Ella Lantz • distinguished

Spanish I • sophomore Thomas Allen • excellent

German II • sophomore Jaeyoung Choi • superior

German II • freshman Emily Hawkins • superior

German II • freshman Cetera Plagmann • superior

German I • junior Carlos Carmona Juarez • superior

German I • sophomore Alexis Allen • excellent

German I • freshman Julia Ash • excellent

French II • sophomore Rommy Sierra • superior

French II • sophomore Nicole Sierra • superior

French II • sophomore Catherine Lozano • excellent

French I • junior Luis Tellerias Rijo • superior

French I • freshman Haley Williams • superior

“Two thirds of the students that went got superior rankings,” Alldredge said. “I think that speaks really highly of those students, their abilities, and our teachers and department and how hard they worked to get those students ready.”