by Madi Denton |
On October 13th, while most students will be stuck in the rut of normal scheduling, a lucky few students will be out representing Liberty High School’s foreign language program.
UMKC is putting on a competition for potential or current dual credit high school students who are currently taking at least French II, Spanish II, or German II. LHS is taking 36 students, as of right now and there will be more than 1,000 students there from all around the state.
There are lots of different activities to participate in during this all-day competition. They have the option to either recite a German poem, preform a song by singing or playing an instrument, or by presenting art. For the older students, in levels four and up, they can present a skit that is based off the theme for this year, which the team’s favorite German word. The higher-level students can also play jeopardy.
“I love the German language, and it would be so much fun to preform something. And I would be able to go all out and be crazy and have fun,” sophomore Murron Paeth said.
Besides being a fun and different activity, it is educational as well. “It gives them the chance to use their German outside of the classroom,” teacher Frau Bierman said. The students are not only able to view the campus, but they can meet with the professors, and spend some time talking with kids with similar interests.
“I mean it’s always been a lot of fun. We get to miss a day of school and kind of hang out and eat some food with our friends. And we get to sing German songs, and do a skit in German, and just get to compete [with] other schools,” junior Ryan Anders said.
Liberty’s involvement would not have been possible without German teacher Stephan Frank, who now teaches at Liberty North. He got the German dual credit program started at LHS, and began taking students to the convention. Because this will be Liberty North’s first year participating, the two high schools will be competing for the first time.
Liberty has placed very well the past few years at this trip, getting first place in the skits, and second in jeopardy. They plan to do the same again this year.
