Bethel Park High School World Language students were recently given the opportunity to showcase their abilitites at a language competition held at Slippery Rock university.  BPHS competed in an earlier version of the competition in 1998, and when the contest reemerged, the language department was enthusiastic to return.

This competition has opened up many opportunities for BPHS to make a name for themselves by edging out other schools in educational competition.

The competition is comprised of various foreign language levels and areas of study.  It consists of languages such as French, Spanish, Latin and German ranging in levels from two to five; two being the least challenging and five being the most challenging.

The competition is suited for students who have noticeably excelled in their respective foreign language and who have exhibited excellence in the classroom.  In fact,  the deciding factor for the teachers of most foreign language classes is primarily grade percentage.  The handful of students, depending on the size of the classroom, with the highest grades in the class are typically the ones chosen.

Head of the Language Department, Mr Tobias, said,”The competition rewards those students who have worked hard to become proficient in a second language by giving them a chance to showcase their talent–and miss a day of school in the process.”

Basically, students are given an hour and a half exam pertaining to their specific language.  The test is comprised of two parts, written and oral, however some levels of languages are exempt from the oral portion.

Following the completion of the exam, the results are carefully reviewed by a committee of Slippery Rock professors.

Although each students test is reviewed, the judges do no rank by person.   They rank by school.  Therefore each school is given a ranking for each level of each language.

Bethel Park Spanish 5 Placed first in their respective division.