Our West Boca Raton Bulls are victorious yet again, but this time in language. 

Association of Florida Teachers of Japanese. This association is a Florida based association that includes dozens of Japanese teachers from the state of Florida who help spread and teach the Japanese language and culture.

The AFTL (Association of Florida Teachers of Japanese) regularly holds competitions including prolific Japanese students from across the state of Florida. Thankfully, as with many other things, our West Boca Raton Community High School not only provides Japanese as a language class to take, but also has many very skilled students. 

The AFTL recently held a large-scale competition including many students from across the state and had many different categories. Of course, several Bulls were participating in these competitions and quite a large number brought home medals. According to our very own Japanese teacher Ms. Nourishirazi, “8 students from Japanese 1, 2, 3 classes participated in the State Wide Japanese Online Contest held by the Association of Florida Teachers of Japanese and 5 of them received the winners’ award.” 

The five students who brought home these awards were: Jack Durand, Isaac Lynne, Damon Huss, Keira Molotzak, and Valentina Valencia. 

Jack Durand placed 2nd in a video speech contest. Jack is currently enrolled in his third year of Japanese. 

Isaac Lynne placed 1st in the Karaoke contest bringing home the sole “Gold Medal”.

Damon Huss placed 3rd in the video speech contest behind fellow school-mate Jack Durand. Damon is also enrolled in his third year of Japanese. 

Keira Molotzak placed 2nd in the manga contest. Manga is a style of Japanese comics that focus heavily on illustrations and drawing. Along with the art, there is usually a written story to guide the reader. This is most similar (in format) to comic books, although the art style and stories are completely different. 

Valentina Valencia placed 3rd in the manga contest behind Keira Molotzak as our Bulls took two of the 3 medals in the Manga competition. 

Overall, this event shows how prolific and advanced our Japanese (as well as other foreign language students) truly are.