Le Grand Concours
By Christina Popowski, HS French teacher
D
uring the week prior to Spring Break, high school students in French 1–4 competed in the 74th annual Le Grand Concours or National French Contest. Le Grand Concours is a 60-minute exam designed, written, financed and disseminated by the members of the American Association of Teachers of French. Its purpose is to identify and reward achievement on the part of both students and teachers, as well as stimulate interest in the teaching and learning of French. The majority of the questions on the exam evaluate a student’s reading and listening comprehension and about one third of the questions evaluate a student’s knowledge of grammar mechanics. Just over 70,000 high school students of French in the United States and at international schools in Singapore, England, Tunisia and Israel competed in this year’s contest. French teachers at SAS were pleased to learn that the scores of 23 SAS students were among the top 10 scores at each level of the contest. Christina Popowski and Laurence Patrick were also pleased to learn that more than half of SAS students in French 1 and 2 scored at or above the average score on their exams; 95% of the French 3 students scored at or above the average score, and just over 80% of the French 4 students scored at or above the average score. All of the participating students and their teachers are to be congratulated for their achievement. Because the National French Contest is an external assessment tool used to see how students score among their peers, the students’ scores reflect well on SAS. The 23 students who scored among the “top 10” will be recognized with a certificate of achievement, a medal and a small but special prize (en français bien sûr!). In Level 1, out of 17,865 competing students, Gretchen Connick placed sixth and Kristin Skill and Marietta Tanudisastro tied for seventh place. In Level 2, out of 18,201 competing students, Serafin Kaldis placed fourth, Elizabeth Mckenna was seventh and Marcin Kedziera and Jane Petty tied for tenth place. In Level 3, out of 16,482 competing students, Katherina Feng was fifth, Kevin Lancon was sixth, Kyle Forgeron and Rebecca were both seventh and Alexis Asselin-Lauzon, Emily Lin and Saachi Subramani were eighth, Michaela Benjamin and Steffi Lee were ninth and Olivia Ding and Vincent Yang were tenth. In Level 4, out of 11,352 competing students, Sarah Mountjoy was seventh, Alexander Kua was eighth, Dennis Chu and Emily Lemaire were ninth and Natasha Anthony was tenth.
SAS NewsFlash – May 2009
17