According to sealofbiliteracy.org, the Seal of Biliteracy is an “award that is given by a school, district or state in recognition of students who have studied and attained proficiency in two or more languages by high school graduation.” Spanish students who have been studying the Spanish language for five years attempt to receive this honor. These students have been kept anonymous.

Why take it?

“For me, I wanted to pursue as much Spanish as I could. In my future, I want to minor in Spanish in college because I love to connect to anyone and everyone I can. I think that it is vital for every person to understand other cultures and how they work.”

“In the future, I plan on being a lawyer and getting the Seal would be a good additive when pursuing internships while attending college and law school.”

“I have been taking Spanish since eighth grade and just thought it would be a major achievement for the years I’ve spent studying the language. In the future, I may be getting a minor in Spanish.”

Preparation

“I listened to Spanish music, read in Spanish and wrote a lot in Spanish.”

“To prepare for the Seal, I read a book in Spanish and did some work on Duolingo. I also worked on expanding my vocabulary so I could have more of a wide variety.”

“We did lots of practice and research to prepare a lot for the seal.”

“In order to prepare for the Seal, I spent a decent amount of time reviewing basic skills to ensure they were strong. After that, I worked on the harder things. My spanish teacher [Señora Hanna] gave us lots of resources like conjugemos, Gimkit, packets, etc., which helped a lot when preparing for the seal.”

Pre-test feelings

“I was feeling very nervous. It’s hard not knowing what will be on it and preparing for something like this.”

“Before I took Seal, I was very nervous for my test, as I had built my Spanish for five years all for this major test.”

“Prior to the Seal, I felt a bit anxious because I did not know what to expect as far as layout, time and grading system. It was more of my own internal thoughts that made me nervous.”

Conquering the test

“During the Seal, a lot of my nerves calmed because it wasn’t as scary as I first believed it to be.”

“Nervous but good, especially with the writing. I hit a point where I hit ‘flow state’ and was able to just keep going.”

“I realized that the Seal is not nearly as bad or difficult as I thought it would be. I feel a lot more confident after taking the first few portions.”

“During the Seal, I was confident in myself and knew that I had to trust in myself and make sure my nerves did not take over me.”

Varying challenges

“For me, the most challenging section of the Seal was the reading, due to the wording of the questions. For the most part, many of the questions were very similar, which made it hard.”

“For me, the most challenging section of the Seal was the writing portion. Though listening and speaking is difficult, it is even more difficult when every individual thing counts, such as spelling, accents and proper conjugation. There is also no time limit, which can cause you to run out of vocab and struggle to continue on the topic.”

“The most challenging section of the Seal was the speaking section for me because I was very nervous about conjugating and making sense on the spot.”

“In my opinion, the most challenging section of the seal was the writing portion. This is because it was very time consuming, and writing in a different language can be difficult when using your memory to determine where accents go and how to spell things correctly. Both of those things can make a difference in your overall score for that section.”

Successes 

“The easiest part of the Seal was the reading. Being in Spanish 5, I have had a lot of exposure to reading and using context clues for unfamiliar words. All of the excerpts were also not very long, making reading a lot easier in comparison to if it was long articles.”

“The easiest section of the Seal for me was the reading portion. It had the question, the answer choices and the reading in front of you the whole time. It was easy to refer back to the reading if I didn’t feel confident with my answer the first time around.”

“The reading section was the easiest because it was very straightforward with only one correct answer, while the other sections are more subjective.”

Should you take the seal?

“I would highly recommend taking the Seal to other students. It’s such a valuable experience, not just to obtain the Seal itself, but to challenge yourself and accomplish something. The studying and build-up were definitely worth it.”

“I would recommend taking the Seal if you are a younger student taking Spanish. It is always a good skill to have to be able to speak another language. It can give you more opportunities within your future and to connect with other people.”

“Yes, I would recommend it. It’s a great opportunity to set you apart from other students and give you an amazing achievement for all your hard work.”

“I would recommend taking the Seal to younger students because it’s a great thing to have going out of high school and very attainable when the hard work is put in. Knowledge is power.”

If they could go back

“I would tell myself that practicing hard will pay off.”

“[I would tell myself] to not stress myself out, take a deep breath and know that at the end of the day it’s just a test.”

“I would tell myself that I can do this and I have the ability to get the Seal. It is also way easier than I thought.”