The 22nd Annual Japanese Speech Contest organized by the consulate general of Japan in Portland was recently held at the World Trade Center. Our students have a history of doing well at this event. There are only two divisions in the contest, Middle School and High School. These were our winners:

• Allyza Conception: 1st place Middle School Division, 8th grade
• Collin Pierce: 2nd place Middle School Division, 8th grade
• Dain Kim: 2nd place High School, 12th grade

Sophomore Catherine Lo (not pictured) did not participate this year in order to focus on the Aurora Japanese Speech Contest in which she competed earlier this past April. She did incredibly well and will compete May 29 on a national level in Irvine, Calif.

Another feature in the Japanese class is the Kanji Kentei test. Only the second year in Oregon, this test quizzes the knowledge of Kanji characters that students know. The following students (and teacher) all passed their test.

• Leah Klaas (J2 – challenging level 10: 80 characters)
• Stephen Pierce (J2 – challenging level 10: 80 characters)
• Shawna Vrvilo (J2 – challenging level 10: 80 characters)
• Joe Chang (J3 – challenging level 10: 80 characters)
• Jami Cheng (J3 – challenging level 10: 80 characters)
• Cathy Lo (J3 – challenging level 10: 80 characters)
• Zack White (J3 – challenging level 10: 80 characters)
• Yoko Miwa-Cook (teacher – challenging level 2: 1,945 characters)

Please extend your congratulations to our students!

In other news, the publisher of the textbook “Adventures in Japanese” held  a national Karaoke contest for Japanese learners, and our own Japanese teacher Yoko Miwa-Cook volunteered as one of the three judges!