Languages Faculty News

2025 Education Perfect Languages Challenge

The St Monica’s College 2025 Education Perfect Languages Challenge, which was held in June, attracted a high level of interest. Nearly 800 students from Years 7-12 took part in this event and after two weeks of intense competition, participating students had answered 402,525 questions, scored 158,547 points and were engaged in learning for a collective total of 776 hours.

The following students are to be congratulated for their outstanding performances in this competition:

Top scorers in each language:

French

First Place: April Keovong (Year 8)

Second Place: Hannah Varghese (Year 7)

Third Place: Hannah Matthew (Year 8)

Greek

First Place: Elaina Giannis (Year 8)

Second Place: Nikolet Velves (Year 8)

Third Place: April Keovong (Year 8)

Italian

First Place: Calista Salomone (Year 8)

Second Place: Joshua Madio (Year 8)

Third Place: Selina Liu (Year 11)

Japanese

First Place: de Shun Xue (Year 8)

Second Place: Gabe Bernardo (Year 7)

Third Place: Phoenix Ros (Year 7)

Spanish

First Place: Joshua Madio (Year 8)

Second Place: April Keovong (Year 8)

Third Place: Jake Jijo (Year 8)

Certificate Recipients:

Gold Certificate (More than 5000 points scored)

April Keovong (Year 8) – Highest scorer in the competition with 12,973 points

de Shun Xue (Year 8) – Second highest scorer in the competition with 8,293 points

Joshua Madio (Year 8) – Third highest scorer in the competition with 5,331 points

Gabe Bernardo (Year 7) – Fourth highest scorer in the competition with 5,111 points

Silver Certificate (More than 3000 points scored)

Phoenix Ros (Year 7)

Calista Salomone (Year 8)

Hannah Varghese (Year 7)

Selina Liu (Year 11)

Yuvraj Brar (Year 8)

Luca Trinchi (Year 8)

Bronze Certificate (More than 1500 points scored)

Rasik Rimal (Year 7)

Hannah Matthew (Year 8)

Elaina Giannis (Year 8)

Elijah Toomey (Year 9)

Tran Nguyen (Year 8)

Jake Jijo (Year 8)

Peter James (Year 9)

Constance Papahoronis (Year 11)

Japleen Kaur (Year 8)

Nikolet Velves (Year 8)

Aidan Sujith (Year 7)

Slavica Altandzieva (Year 12)

Nekitaa Mohanaraj (Year 7)

Manan Singh (Year 8)

Hasti Patel (Year 8)

Erik Szoke (Year 8)

Monica Ha (Year 9)

Yuri Armellino (Year 8)

Honourable Mention (More than 1000 points scored)

Orlando de Fazio (Year 8)

Isabel Manu (Year 8)

Tomislav Kolceg (Year 7)

Riley Nathan (Year 8)

Dante Alighieri Poetry Competition

The College has obtained some pleasing results in the recent Dante Alighieri Italian Poetry Competition. Thirteen students from Years 9 to 12 participated in this event, many of whom received honourable mentions for having recited their poems with a high level of fluency and accurate pronunciation. The College congratulates Alessio Scalpelli in Year 10, who qualified as a finalist in this competition, following an outstanding personal performance.

Well done to the following students who represented the College in this event:

Year 9: Antonio Apolito, Adrian La Rocca, Kalia Mendoza & Allegra Sajeva

Year 10: Chesna Fernando, Anayah Naffa, Maurya Patel & Alessio Scalpelli

Year 11: Anna-Maria Constantin, Daniel Gelsumini & Sehajta Kamboj

Year 12: Isabella Bonacci & Luca Novembre

I would like to thank the Italian teachers and members of the Languages Immersion Team who worked hard to assist our students to prepare thoroughly for this competition.

Languages & Cultures Week

The College is currently celebrating Languages & Cultures Week. During this exciting week, a number of activities will be taking place to celebrate both the rich variety of languages taught at the College and the vast array of cultures which make our school community so wonderfully diverse. There will be more news about Languages & Cultures Week to follow.

Mr C Zuccala

Faculty Leader of Languages