 Hello, everyone. We're going to go ahead and get started to our seventh annual World Languages Awards Night. We're excited to see you all here to support and celebrate these remarkable students and their achievements in language studies. My world language colleagues and I are truly fortunate to work in a district which has such dedicated students, generous coworkers, and a strong support for and trust in the importance of language study. We don't often get to take time to shine a spotlight on individual students for their achievements. And that, in particular, is why tonight's ceremony is so important. Tonight, we have gathered here to celebrate the hardworking and passionate world language seniors seated to your left and right for their commitment, dedication, and accomplishments in language studies. Tonight, we will induct and congratulate a new class of 2023 members of the Arlington High School National World Language Honor Society. And we will recognize and celebrate those who achieved the Seal of Biliteracy and other Biliteracy Awards. Before I introduce tonight's guest speaker, I want to take a moment to invite you to join us following this evening's ceremony for some tasty refreshments in the main lobby. To officially kick off tonight's festivities, I would like to introduce Madame Fabienne Pierre Maxwell. Madame Pierre Maxwell has been in education for 20 years. She joined Arlington Public Schools three years ago as the principal of Kipps School, our district sixth grade school. Madame Pierre Maxwell earned her Juris Doctor from Western New England University. She also holds a Bachelor's of Arts in Government and an Associate of Arts in English Literature. Madame Pierre Maxwell moved to United States from her birth country of Haiti during her middle school years and enjoys spending time traveling with her family, playing board games, reading, tending to her garden and cooking for family and friends. Please give a warm welcome to our guest speaker this evening, Kipps School Principal, Madame Fabienne Pierre Maxwell. Good evening, everyone. Thank you, Ms. Gaston-Gerard. I am honored to be here tonight to be the guest speaker for this very special event. And I am Fabienne Pierre Maxwell and I go by Madame Pierre Maxwell and I am the principal at the Kipps School. And so I'm here tonight to talk about language. So I'm going to talk from experience and to someone who speaks more than one languages, but also someone who has benefited from being able to understand other languages. I was born in IET, so it's, I know you say Haiti, but the H is silent in French, so the word is IET. And so I came to the United States as I was getting ready to finish middle school and entering high school. So in IET, the official language is French and the people from IET speak Creole. And the history of the country is that originally the indigenous people of IET are from the Yucatan Peninsula. IET was colonized by the Spaniards first and then the French and a few other nations in between. In 1804, they did get their independence, but French remain the official language of IET. So in school, all the official papers are written in French. So I know after I left in 1984, there's been some movement with the people asking that school not only teach in French, but also in Creole because many of the young people are losing the ability to read it and to write it. So in IET, when I was in school over there, so we had to take Latin, Spanish, French, and some people took German. So it wasn't that unfamiliar to me when I moved to the United States that I understood how to navigate in several languages. But I can tell you English was my worst subject because it's not one of the woman's languages, so it didn't come easy to me. My English teacher, I remember his name was Monsieur Vigable and every time I'd go to English class, I thought that was my time to go to nap. So he would send me out for the end of that little figure. So go wash your face. So I could be right and awake for English class. So certainly I saw the benefit of being able to at least read some English when I came to the United States because I was in Florence. I could not comprehend everything. And I can tell you, you are quite a few steps ahead of everyone, those of you have selected to have bi-literacy today in another world language because it is not pleasant to be in a different country where you don't know the native language and trying to go to school or worse as an adult to try to get a job, take care of your children, communicate with everyone. So I know that in the United States we don't emphasize enough the importance of children learning a second language at a very early age. There are so many benefits, but the beauty is that it doesn't matter if you didn't learn one when you were in elementary school or high school. You can start now, you can start today. It improves memory, it improves our brain function. I heard that if you speak a second or third language you are better at multitasking, which you know you should not be doing that but apparently you're better at multitasking if you speak more than one languages. You also, for those of you who are still in school actually when I did my career transfer from law to education I spent sometimes teaching languages. I found myself teaching more English grammar than I was actually teaching the world language to the students. So it's definitely one of the side benefits. If you're learning a world language you're also improving your mastery of your own native language, the English language. There's a lot of things I feel that the women's languages focus on that. We don't emphasize as much in English for you except the French are wicked when it comes to grammar. If you speak French, your grammar probably is pretty good up to par. So there are so many other benefits, right? The world is totally interconnected today. So speaking another world language with the internet after COVID if you didn't think we were connected you know the world is connected for good, bad or ugly we are connected. So why not learn a world language? And certainly as you look for your career it's really marketable to have another language under your buckle to be able to marketize that. So there's so many other reasons to speak a world language. So I invite everyone tonight if you ever dream of living in another country start learning now. Don't let frustration be your motivation when you get there. Learn it before you get there. And when you speak a different language and you meet someone who speak that language just being able to say hello and it opens. It's like the weather changing from rain to sunshine. It really opens the door for conversation. People are more open to meeting you halfway if they know you're trying to say something in their home language, in their native language. So don't be afraid. Practice may not make perfect but it will make permanent. So please select and learn a world language and practice with your children, make a friend from a different nation from a different place so we can practice. So I'm gonna say it for you to learn a world language today and then I want you to begin today. And I'm gonna say comienza hoy. Comece aujourd'hui. Comece jo dia. Hoy te beginnen. And iniciare oggi. I hope you did catch that. Thank you everyone. This may be perfect but it makes permanent. Love it. Thank you so much. At this time I would like to invite Don Karnan, the Arlington Public School World Language Director to the stage to introduce and announce the Bi-Literacy Award recipients. I put down my clipboard. I think I'm gonna advance the slides. So excuse me for a second. I'm gonna model some of what Madame Pierre Maxwell just said to us and I'm gonna greet you in all of the languages that are represented by our students who have earned the Bi-Literacy Awards and the languages that we speak here at Arlington High School that we teach here. I speak French. So all of this for me, I'm modeling taking a risk of trying something new but it is true there is a famous quote by Nelson Mandela that when you speak to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. But when you speak to him in his own language, that goes to his heart. And that's exactly the anecdote that Madame Pierre Maxwell just shared with us. When we make an effort, when we show that we understand that our language isn't the only one, we don't have to get it perfect. The French are a little unforgiving about that. However, the Parisian is really, the rest of the French are much better. But it is a gesture, it is demonstration of knowledge already of the value of language even if you don't speak the language. Sorry, good evening, Good evening, good good morning, Good evening, good evening, greetings, good night Good evening, good evening I'll do that in a minute. Good evening. Fabienne is a wonderful example of what multilingualism looks like in the real world, right? That language could have been your worst subject for some of the adults out here, because the students who are here, language is not their worst subject. But for some of us, it wasn't always our best subject, but we were able to use it in some context later on. There used to be a saying that the C students were the best students on the exchange trips, because they weren't afraid of making mistakes, and that the A students wanted to make sure that they got all of their grammar and vocabulary correct. Now, we're working against that in world languages these days, but our standards are not promoting accuracy from the beginning. We want students speaking from the very first day of sixth grade that they speak a little bit of language, and we keep increasing that amount over time. But we want that spirit of possibility, of confidence, and really it's making oneself quite vulnerable to try to express oneself in another language. And I think all of you here this evening can attest to that. There's many frustrations when you have sophisticated thoughts in your mind, and the language not to match them, and how you learn to get your thoughts across is what these students have actually accomplished in their years of language study in Arlington. So it's really an honor to be here with everybody this evening. We have 36 seniors who have demonstrated a high level of performance in 12 different languages, as well as in English. English was the other language, or second language, and third, or third. For some of you, the second language is the language that you studied in APS, many of you starting in grade six. And for still others, the second language or parallel first language that you learned is a language that you learned in your family, and some kids also going to weekend school to really become biliterate and not just bilingual. You really have already begun to understand the intricate connection between language and culture. You know that successful communication is about so much more than knowing a precise word or correctly conjugating a verb of the appropriate tense and mood. You understand that your ability to communicate in all its forms, because listening and interpreting is a part of communication. You know that that ability to communicate in a language other than English can open doors and minds. You know that language is how we make sense of our world. And you also know that our perspectives are formed by the language as we speak and understand. The Seal of Biliteracy movement started over a decade ago in California with the real intention to recognize the value of English language learners, what they brought to us and to professions. When their English wasn't entirely smooth and fluent and error free, but it still reached a specific level. As everyone here, I already referenced, we know what that feeling of vulnerability to not be able to express ourselves. In world language education, we have the term sympathetic listener. And that describes somebody who could understand a novice speaker. So only memorized and lots of, or lots of mistakes. So the sympathetic listeners are the teachers, right, at first. And then there were the parents in our native languages. All of you out here can remember our story, I'm sure, for when your child was saying something that you had no idea what it was. The host families, they are sympathetic listeners when our students study abroad. And now you students were counting on you to go forward as sympathetic listeners. You can, as we celebrate the achievements of all of the young people here this evening, I encourage us all to bring that spirit of sympathetic listener into the world with us. When we are encountering those for whom English is not their first language, and what we want to remember and honor is without them, the Seal of Biliteracy movement would not have been born. Language acquisition is complex and takes time. We're still learning about it in our fields. But what we do know is to reach the levels that the students here have demonstrated this evening. Intermediate high doesn't sound so fancy, but it's really quite an achievement. And we have some students here who just barely missed intermediate high. And we want to recognize that. So that those skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing, and for Latin, really using everything that they know about language to read at a high level of proficiency, that's something to be proud of. So tonight we're celebrating students with a, we have a local organization that is called the Language Opportunity Coalition, as well as the Massachusetts State Seal of Biliteracy. And we're proud that you were able to demonstrate your cultural understanding through your communicative skills as well. I will now announce our awardees. If you would please hold your applause until we do each tier of awards. We will. And you'll also have an opportunity to snap a photo, if you would like. Okay? Don't be shy. Come on out. We have a number of students who are not here this evening. So we're going to start with the Language Opportunity Coalition Awards. These students in the four areas that they were tested, they demonstrated intermediate high in three out of the four. And so they cannot officially receive the Massachusetts State Seal of Biliteracy, but we honor them with the Language Opportunity Coalition Award. And we have, I don't want to read through all the first ones. First we have Reagan McNally, who's receiving the award in French. Amanda Smith also receiving the award in French. You can stand together. And those are our Language Opportunity Coalition awardees this evening. Congratulations. We have the Massachusetts State Seal of Biliteracy, which is, again, demonstrating proficiency at the level of intermediate high. Emily Bell receiving the award in French. Ritesh Baroud is not here this evening. He's receiving the award in Hindi. Molly is not here. Molly Breen Aronson in Spanish. Alessia Brugini is receiving the award in Italian and Spanish. Eva Fortuno-Barten is receiving the award, the Seal in Spanish, but also receiving the Language Opportunity Coalition Award in French. Lily Fox-Jer... Excuse me, Lily. Lily Fox-Jerkelwitz in Spanish. Natalie Franken-German. Jenna Kenney in German. Eva McCurney in Spanish. Alice Morgenstern in French. Nina Poickert in Spanish and in German. Liza Rodriguez in Portuguese. Lily Sanders in Spanish. Sasha Siegel in Russian. Tina Tillman in German. I skipped over in Victor. Naomi Ibarra, thank you for the Language Opportunity Award in Spanish. Please give our awardees a round of applause. Thanks for your patience, everybody. Getting them all in, mostly? Thank you. We have students who have earned the Seal of Biliteracy with distinction, achieving demonstrating performance in their language at the advanced low level. Naomi Fairberg, better in Swedish and also earning the Spanish Award, Language Opportunity Coalition Award. Gia Eger in Spanish. Tanisha Kabir in Spanish. Liza Stegia Kovalenko in Russian. Also earning the Seal of Biliteracy in French. Sofia Ledo earning the Seal with distinction in Italian and the Language Opportunity Coalition Award in French. Lillian McGloin in German. Sofia Niel in Spanish. Marco Rosso in Croatian. Kate Roger in Spanish. And Isabel Schumacher in Latin. Please give them all a big round of applause. I'm going to turn the microphone back over to Ms. Mia. Please ignore that typo. Students who have had me will not be surprised, but please ignore the typo. Hello again. I love that. The final portion of our celebration tonight is to induct 52 new members to the Arlington High School National World Language Honor Society. Our society is an umbrella society for the individual French, Italian, Latin, Mandarin, and Spanish societies. This year's inductees were invited to join based on particular academic criteria, and then were further recommended by their teachers as students who demonstrated commitment to their language of study, both inside and outside the classroom. Before we jump in to the official introduction, I'd like us to take a moment to hear a little bit more about how important studying languages has been for some of our passionate and dedicated students. I would like to welcome two inductees to this year's class of 2023, Natalie Susan Frank and Isabel Schumacher to share their experiences. Good evening, everyone. Congratulations to all the honorees and a heartfelt thank you to all the teachers that have taught us and inspired us along the way. My name is Natalie, and I'm here as a recipient of the Massachusetts State Sealed by Literacy in German and as a member of the National World Language Honor Society for French. It's a mouthful. Oh, sorry. We have come to this place along many different pathways. Some of us are bilingual because of choices our parents made. Some of us chose to study foreign languages later in life, but all of us are here because we believe in the importance of connections, not just to people like us, but to people who are in a very basic way different. In a world where we have powerful AI translation tools in our pockets, why study foreign language? There are roughly two billion people in the world today who speak English and only 400 million of them, less than a quarter, are native speakers. Could we rely on them to translate for us? We study language for a variety of reasons and I wouldn't presume to list or even know them all. Each of us probably has a different reason or set of reasons. For me, learning a language is about more than conveying a message to someone that they can understand. A lot of the time, a translation app will do that. It's also about learning to think in a different way, learning to see the world in a different way. Because by expressing myself in a different way, I have to wrap my head around new ways to connect ideas to one another. British novelist L.P. Hartley once said, the past is a foreign country. They do things differently there. I'm less interested in the past than I am interested in the future, but I know that learning about how other people have organized their thoughts and how they express those thoughts through language is one way not only to learn, but also to practice radical empathy. That is, it's not only about sharing the ideas I already have, but about learning new and different ways to shape those ideas in the first place. Did you know, for example, that German has a word for the feeling that you're getting older and your opportunities are slipping away? It's ... and it literally means door-shutting panic. The French word for a person who meanders or strolls aimlessly, suggests an entire lifestyle in two syllables, leaving aside obvious jokes about relaxed hipsters through France and panicking control freaks from Germany. There are worlds of meaning, culture, values, and priorities in language. So congratulations again to all the honorees. I hope that for all of us, the work we've done to embrace language learning is only the beginning of a lifelong search for empathy, for connection, and for good jokes about weird words. Thank you. You can see the setup now. My name is Isabelle Schumacher, and I am an AP Latin student. It's such an honor to be here speaking before you, and I'm so pleased at how many of my classmates are here receiving such honors in the language. I'll be serving at Brandeis University in the fall, and my intended major is classical and early Mediterranean studies, which will not be thrilling for the Latin students in the room, who I'm sure could have inferred that. When I first learned in fifth grade that Latin was offered at the middle school, there was no question in my mind that I was going to take it. Luckily, my parents did not stay in my way, but I had read the re-prosthology in second grade and never looked back. A very common story for Latin students. The small number of students whose parents were fascists and perhaps encouraged them or were removed by McGeaster-Folch feel about how you can make hairy Potter spells if you know Latin, joined the ranks of the mythology fanatics. This is probably not a very relatable story to all of these students who took a language in order to be able to speak to others, either for personal or practical reasons. We Latin students do not take Latin in order to speak to others. Maybe a little bit like in a cafeteria for fun, but we do take it to be able to understand others. Unfortunately for Caesar and Virgil, they don't understand his back. For me, so much has come out of taking Latin. Friends, passion for tutoring, great teaching internship with McGeaster-Folch, and my love for the language itself. It's grammar, it's spelling, it's history. Because of the community that has accompanied our Latin class, I can't imagine what it would be like to go to college and not continue Latin. But it's hard not to be so close to your classmates when you're in like a small class with the same people for so many years. And for those of us who started in sixth grade together, that's 950 hours spent learning Latin, which I loved every minute, but I just want this photo of you. Morabile Dictu, it's wonderful to say. I've had seven years and four amazing teachers of Latin instruction. Each one of those years, each one of those teachers has been life-changing. My most caring, enthusiastic, and personally meaningful teachers have all been Latin teachers. And they inspire me to want to be a teacher. And they intimidate me because there's so much to live up to. We have all worked hard in our respective language studies to get here. For those of you who've struggled and for all of us taking the AP exam in two weeks, there are the comforting words of Virgil. For saan et haik olim e minisi yuhal bet. Perhaps one day we'll be pleasing to remember even these things. But I hope many of you found the time each of us has spent and continues to spend learning a language to be pleasing not just when you remember it fondly in five, ten years, but now. That for you, as it has definitely been for me, learning a language is pleasing not just in remembering it, but in the doing of it. I'm in for sharing your experiences. It is now my pleasure as the National Language Honor Society Advisor to induct this year's nominees. I will read the names alphabetically by language. As I read the names, the students will walk across and receive their certificates. Please hold your applause while the names are being read. Once all inductees have been recognized, the students will pose as they did before in front of the stage for a group picture and then you can all give them a big round of applause. We will begin with the National French Honor Society class of 2023. And before I start pronouncing names, I will just make a lovely little note. Thank you for your voice recordings and I apologize in advance if I completely forgot them. I had them all record their names because I want to try the next. Okay. So this year's inductees to the National French Honor Society are Kieran Crowley, Sonia Irby, Natalie Susan Frank, Teresa Hamlin, Aubrey Jensen, Anastasia Comlinko, Sophia Ledo, Elizabeth Madden, Alex Morgenstern, Nina Puecker, Sasha Siegel, Amanda Smith, and Justin Stern. This year's inductees to the National Honors, National Italian Honor Society for the Class of 2023 are Sophia Douglas, Joshua Stern. We also recognize Miles Donato in absentia. This is the part where it gets really embarrassing if I mispronounce it because he's a Latin student. This year's inductees to the National Latin Honor Society for the Class of 2023 are Greta Billingsley, Aiden Flannis, Roshan Hathley, Ruth Hiring Weintraub, April Levy, Henry Locher, and Isabel Schumacher. Siddhite Gratius. This year's inductees to the National Mandarin Honor Society for the Class of 2023 are Emily Bell. We also recognize Julian Frank and Julian Tilney in absentia. Next up and last is this year's inductees to the National Spanish Honor Society for the Class of 2023. Margo Awa, Sidney Otari, Alessia Regini, Faye Fierberg-Better, Eva Fortunio-Burton, Lily Fox-Jerquiz, Ruth Hiring Weintraub, Dya Lasina, Ava McBurney, William Merchant, Olivia Moyer, Lilia Naylor, Nina Hoiper, Tanisha Kabir, Mattron Roger, Owen Shee, Marin White. We also recognize Georgina Awad, Valar Lieberg, Matthew Newfer, Charlie Snell, and Katya Sturma in absentia. Congratulations to the Class of 2023 at Arlington High School inductees. Can we get one final round of applause for all of our graduates who are so much for attending tonight to celebrate the achievements of our students and show your continued support for World Language Studies at Arlington? We as teachers are continuously motivated year and year again by the enthusiasm and dedication of our students. We truly are grateful to be able to take the time to acknowledge and recognize and celebrate these talented students here tonight for their achievements. This concludes this year's World Language Awards night In closing, I'd like to remind you that there are delicious cookies and brownies and beverages in the main lobby for nibbling and mingling. So please enjoy and thank you again so much for coming.