Celebrating victory, seventh grade Chinese students prove hard work and a passion for a foreign language pay off.

Middle school students recently received their results in Chinese National Essay Contest; a competition Greenhill has participated in for the past four years.  

The contest has a different theme every year with this year’s topic being “AI and Me.” All contestants were required to hand write an essay, a few pages long, purely in Chinese.  

There were two categories for students to participate in: non-heritage and heritage.  

“Chinese is a pretty hard language for non-heritage to learn, so that’s the only major difference,” seventh grade winner Rebecca Yao said. 

Seventh grader Fiona Ou said that although optional, the contest is a great learning experience. 

“I would definitely recommend people who are in Chinese classes that are passionate to attend these competitions,” Ou said. “They help expand your knowledge on the language and also influence you to become better writer and thinker.” 

Middle School Chinese teacher Xiaoling Zhang says almost 1,000 students participated in the competition. 

Seventh grader Fiona Ou won first place in the heritage section, along with Rebecca Yao who followed her in second place. 

Seventh grader Livia Perel won second in the non-heritage category.  

While Zhang was proud that her students won awards, she mentioned that she found it important for them to have fun and learn new things, no matter the outcome. 

“I told my students to see this as a great experience, whether they win a prize or not. Taking the opportunity to participate is what matters most, that’s why we learn a foreign language,” Zhang said.