Felicidades! Two Spanish students from South Effingham High School attained national recognition for excellent performance on the 2010 National Spanish Examinations. The National Spanish Examinations are administered each year in grades six through 12, and are sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese.

Sophomore Emilia Truluck, the daughter of Richard and Becky Truluck of Rincon, and sophomore Hunter Owens, the daughter of Craig and Diane Owens of Rincon, both students in Daphne Sherman’s Spanish classes, earned national and state recognition for their performance on this year’s Examination.  

“This achievement is very prestigious,” said Kevin Cessna-Buscemi, National Director of the Exams, “because the exams are the largest of their kind in the United States with 125,915 students participating in 2010.”

Truluck scored in the 96 percentile nationally and was ranked 5th in the state while Owens scored in the 90 percentile nationally.

“These students demonstrated the hard work and dedication that is necessary to successfully compete at the national level,” said SEHS Principal Dr. Mark Winters. “We are proud of their accomplishments and of the instruction and support Mrs. Sherman has provided them.”

To prepare themselves, Owens and Truluck logged on to nationalspanishexam.org to complete tutorials and take practice tests.

The exam exists of two segments. The first part assesses the student’s reading comprehension of authentic written texts in Spanish such as essays, magazines, newspapers, short stories, poems, legends, and fables.

The second part measures the student’s listening comprehension of authentic audio clips of either a conversation or a narrative in Spanish such as a news bulletin or a radio broadcast.  

The exams are administered online on the school campus in April and the national results are released to the schools by May 1. Sherman’s students have a history of high achievement on these exams during the nine years that she has taught at SEHS.