Gaudet Middle School students Tais De Souza and Julya Pereira take home top honors in The National French Contest recently out of #MiddletownRI.
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TWO GAUDET STUDENTS WIN PRESTIGIOUS RECOGNITION
MIDDLETOWN, R.I. (JUNE 15, 2023) – Two Gaudet Middle School eighth graders recently were recognized for their outstanding skills with the French language.
Tais De Souza and Julya Pereira learned they scored among the best in the region on The National French Contest, an annual exam taken by students across the country to test their knowledge.
Also known as “Le Grand Concours,” Tais and Julya both received awards during a ceremony in Providence for earning gold level status during the testing, an honor they spoke proudly about during a break from lunch at the Aquidneck Avenue school.
“French is definitely one of my favorite classes,” Tais said. “The way (our teacher) Mr. K (Daniel Kerloch) teaches, it’s something different every day. One day, it’s group work, the next it’s doing an art project, but we’re using French all the time. It’s always interesting.”
“I still can’t believe we did so well on the exam,” Julya said. “We took it and I thought I did well, but it’s pretty exciting to be recognized for doing so well on such a big test.”
Kerloch said Gaudet usually has one student who places in the annual French contest, but to have two achieve gold status was noteworthy.
“I am very proud of their hard work,” Kerloch said. “They’re both really good students and it shows how much they put into this. They’re competing against the best of the best and students who go to private schools and have had much more instruction than they have. It’s wonderful to see.”
Tais and Julya said they first started taking French in fourth and fifth grade and enjoyed the experience. As they continued on through higher grades, they both said they built their knowledge of the language, how it’s spoken and works.
Moving forward, they both said they would be taking French in high school and hoped to expand their ability to use it in “real world” situations.
“I was in WalMart not too long ago and I heard two girls speaking French and I loved that I knew what they were saying to each other, even though it wasn’t in English,” Tais said. “I’d like to be able to do that more myself.”
As for those who say students should be focusing more on the “fundamentals” like math, reading and writing, Tais and Julya disagreed.
“For some students, the only reason they might be in school is for that French class,” Julya said. “School shouldn’t just be about the basics because you’d leave behind a lot of people.”
As a longtime teacher, Kerloch agreed.
“School has to have something for everybody,” Kerloch said. “Some students excel in every classroom, but most don’t. French and other languages are a way to expose them to the world and open doors in ways many don’t think are possible.”
Asked specifically about their results, Julya said she got every question right on the 75 question exam other than one. The same was true for Tais, minus three questions. The exam has separate reading and listening sections.
“Mr. K makes French a lot of fun,” Tais said. “I definitely look forward to his class.”
“He’s also very supportive of us,” Julya said. “He’s that way with all his students. I’m glad he’s our teacher.”
Document Link: https://www.middletownri.com/DocumentCenter/View/8869/NYCU-French