Students excel in language program

Brookfield Central High School Latin and Spanish language students scored well in this spring's national exams.

It's an indication, said Gifted and Talented Coordinator Elyce Moschella, that the language curriculum is strong.

She expects it to get stronger.

"It's fairly normal that our language students do well, but we are seeing some growth in our language programs," Moschella said. "I think it's in part attributable to the block schedule because it allows students to take more courses."

She also noted a trend of more students taking more than one language at a time.

"I think that also speaks to the level of instruction," she said, adding that a key draw is the opportunity for students to earn college credit by taking advanced levels of language instruction. In addition to Latin and Spanish, the district offers French and German.

And beginning next year, students will be able to study Mandarin.

"The district has a tradition of offering a strong language program," Moschella said. "The interest is high, so the curriculum will only grow."

Latin honorees

More than 25 percent of the school's Latin students who took the 2012 National Latin Exam were awarded medals or certificates. The students were among 148,000 from 14 countries who took the test.

Gold medals for summa cum laude performance in Latin II went to John McCloskey and to Samuel Soik in Latin IV/Poetry.

Silver medals for maxima cum laude performance went to Emily Cape in Latin I; Nicholas Peters, Tyler Van Haren, Dominic Porubsky, Eric Harrigan and Samuel Liu in Latin II; and Deepti Ajjampore in Latin IV/Poetry.

Magma cum laude certificates went to Hannah Uczen and Jonathan Sadowski in Latin I, Luke Fatla in Latin II, Michael Nattinger and James Wartman in Latin II, Natalie Schmitz in Latin IV/Poetry and Brian Shudy in Latin V.

Cum laude certificates went to Allison Earl and Madeleine Severance in Latin IV/Poetry.

Spanish exam, results

The purpose of the National Spanish Examination is to recognize achievement, provide proficiency in interpretive communication, assess national standards and to stimulate further interest in teaching and learning Spanish.

The first year that Central students participated in the online exam resulted in 13 of 21 receiving a certificate of honorable mention.

Certificates went to Courtney Severance for Spanish 2, Margaret Gaggioli., Leah Lee, Deborah Liu, Alec Nitka and Nikita Sood for Spanish 3; Nikil Prasad for Spanish 4 and Beatris DeLeon, Elizabeth DeLeon, Molly Doyle, Neha Paranjpe, Kriya Patel and Jack Peterson for Spanish 5.