By Tracey Taylor - St. Brendan HS
Photographer: COURTESY PHOTO
These Sabres know their Mandarin: Standing left to right are Florianne Jaques, Elena Bermudez, David Perez, Alexandra Romero, Lourdes Saravia, Lianne Fernandez-Fraga, Amberly Mesa, Francisco Santana and Stephanie Cantor, who competed at the ninth annual FIU Chinese Speech and Skit Competition.
MIAMI | For the third consecutive year, St. Brendan High School students were among the top winners at the FIU Chinese Speech and Skit Competition hosted by the School of International and Public Affairs.
A total of nine St. Brendan High School students competed April 10 at the ninth annual contest, which hosts over 150 competitors. After months of dedicated preparation the winners were:
- Lianne Fernandez-Fraga: first place for her speech in Level Five.
- Elena Bermudez, Florianne Jaques, and Amberly Mesa: first place for their skit in Level Three. These students are in the after-school Mandarin program.
- Elena Bermudez also took third place individually for her Level Two speech.
- Francisco Santana: third place for his speech in Level 4. He is a student in the early bird (before school) Mandarin class.
Alexandra Romero, David Perez, Lourdes Saravia, and Stephanie Cantor were also recognized for their participation.
“The judges, teachers and university professors were very impressed with the students' outstanding fluency and pronunciation of the language,” said Zhang Xia, the Mandarin teacher at St. Brendan.
