Greenhill seventh and eighth grade Spanish students won various awards and honors at Good Shepard Episcopal School’s annual Spanish competition.  

Greenhill has participated in the competition years prior, but took a break as new teachers came in. This being the year Greenhill returns, the Spanish teachers were excited to give their students a chance to take part in this kind of academic challenge. 

“It was really nice to see that many of our students signed up and that they really wanted to represent the school,” Middle School Spanish teacher Patty Morales said. 

The students were given the opportunity to have a bit of freedom and choose what events they would like to enter via a Microsoft form. 

“The Microsoft form essentially was for them to let us know if they were interested and what were their top three categories that they would like to participate in,” Morales said. 

Many students were entered into their top choice, which helped them place higher in the competition itself. 

“They gave us a survey, and it was first come, first choose for all the competitions…I got into Spelling Bee, which was my first choice,” eighth grader Karl Dib said.  

There were many categories to choose from, so everyone can show their creativity and skills. Categories consisted of spelling, cultural tests, to singing. 

“With the academic categories… we had an opportunity for them to stay behind and practice with them,” Morales said. 

After categories were assigned, the Spanish teachers held weekly lunch meetings for students to see their progress and receive tips for studying. 

“Every week we would have weekly meetings during lunch with the teachers just to check up on us and let us know how the rules of the conversation were going to be,” Dib said.  

Leading up to the competition, it became more of an independent process for students. They were held accountable to study by themselves with minimal help from the teachers while still preparing as efficiently as possible. 

“Depending on the category, there were some that were more cultural or artistic, and pretty much we just did check-ins with those students just to ask about their progress,” Morales said. 

On the day of the competition, students represented the school by sticking together, helping each other out when others were nervous, and not getting distracted by the other schools. “They were encouraging with one another versus other schools that were more segregated around the area.”  Morales said.  

Students participating in competions like the spelling bee, found out the results that day while others had to wait one to two weeks. 

Karl Dib placed first in the spelling bee competition, followed by eighth grader Chris Dib placing second and eighth grader Annika Singh placing fourth. 

“It felt very rewarding winning I felt a sense of pride instantly wash over me; it was wonderful to know that all my hard work paid off in the end.” Dib said. 

Eighth grader Ayden Ebrahimi participated in verbal fluency and received a perfect score which earned him the outstanding award. 

“When I found out my score, I felt ecstatic because I reached a big milestone I had been working for,” Ebrahimi said. 

Eighth grader Ariana Hernandez participated in the poster art competition with the theme being “past, present and future” and created a piece representing Hispanic heritage and culture. 

Students took a lot of pride in where they placed, and teachers were proud of the skills that students gained during the process. 

The Middle School Spanish program is continuing to push students and represent Greenhill in amazing ways. 

“We want to continue providing this experience for our students because it’s not only going to help them gain confidence in their language skills that they can use in the real world, but it also is a good experience,” Morales said.