Our congratulations to the 2016 FLENJ Scholarship winners! The high school seniors in this year’s FLENJ Scholarship competition submitted essays in Spanish, French, Italian, German, Chinese, and Japanese. The students have studied a second language for an average of five years, an indication of the benefit of longer sequences of study. It was interesting to note that most of the students who achieved semi-finalist status reported using the language they have been studying outside the classroom in a variety of circumstances involving work, travel and social activities.

The finalists from the essay part of the competition were administered an oral interview following the format of ACTFL’s Modified Oral Proficiency Interview (MOPI). It was evident from their essays and their oral interviews that these students have achieved a high level of linguistic competence in the language they have been studying. These results provide additional evidence of the high levels of proficiency and the degree of communicative competence that can be attained after extended periods of the study of a language. The world languages teachers who have taught these students and the districts and schools that have designed such quality programs should be commended.

The 2016 FLENJ Scholarships winners are:

Click here to see some prompts used during the last few contest years.

Lila Abreu Princeton HS Teacher: Gyselle North Language: French	Israel F. Acosta Plainfield Academy for the Arts Teacher: Johanna Amaro Language: Spanish	Rhea Braun Princeton HS Teacher: Natsuko Buurstra Language: Japanese
Becky Cardinali Bridgewater-Raritan HS Teacher: Sonia Avellan Language: Spanish	Alana Chmiel Princeton HS Teacher: Martha Hayden Language: Spanish	Charles Jenkin Princeton HS Teacher: Joseph Mazzarella Language: Italian
Patrick Sockler Princeton HS Teacher: Joseph Mazzarella Language: Italian	Architha Sudhakar Princeton HS Teacher: Shwu-Fen Lin Language: Mandarin	Anne Wang Bridgewater-Raritan HS Teacher: Maria Kostis Language: French