French 3, 4 and AP students attended the Congrés de Langue Français (French Language Congress), a French competition, on March 7-9 at the Doubletree Hotel in Orlando.

“My group did a play called ‘No Exit’ by Jean-Paul Sartre,” freshman Kyra Miller said. “I was a man named Joseph Garcin, who was a soldier who cheated on his wife, abandoned the army and ended up in hell. Most of [the play is] discussion of how [the main characters] died and them realizing they are really in hell.”

For the theatrical pieces, students must memorize lines or improvise. If they speak any English, they are disqualified. 

“I forgot most of my lines that I was supposed to memorize because I got scared and stressed, so I was very surprised that I got the ‘bon’ award with my group,” Miller said. 

Students had the opportunity to win awards with “bon” (good) being the lowest, “excellent” being in the middle and “superior” being the highest. 

“I got ‘bon’ for the skit with Samiya Neely, Jaelynn Lettsome, Penelope Maynard and myself,” Miller said. 

Sophomore Willow King participated in the “lecture,” which is a reading comprehension test. 

“I got superior for the reading comprehension test, which was divided by French level,” she said. “The test was around 26 questions, and you had to stay in the room for about 45 minutes, even if you finished early. It wasn’t that hard of a test; I finished pretty early, but there were some parts I didn’t understand.” 

Miller said she enjoyed the restaurants near the hotel. 

“The gelato and Starbucks helped me get through the very stressful night of when we first got there and when we did our skit,” Miller said. 

Miller said she believes the stress of learning the lines was too much and would rather participate in the other options. 

“I would not do the theater piece; I would much rather do the singing or the reading comprehension test they had at the competition, just not the theater,” she said. 

On March 8, there was a banquet and dance for students, which featured French food and party music. 

“It was nice that I got to meet a bunch of new people, but I didn’t expect that the banquet was going to have as good of music as it did because it was a school event,” Miller said.

By Samiya Neely