Students were inducted into the World Languages Honor Society for their achievements in studying Chinese, French, Latin and Spanish May 19 in Rugby Auditorium.
Following the reception, students and parents were invited to an outdoor reception.
In addition to the induction, teachers in each language named the recipient of the outstanding senior award.
Xenia Viragh ’15 was honored for excellence and dedication in Chinese, Covi Brannan ’15 for French, Alex Liao ’15 for Latin and Enya Huang ’15 for Spanish.
“Honestly I was pretty surprised to get the award,” Huang said. “But it was the best kind of surprise. It’s very flattering that I was considered, especially since I absolutely adore my language teachers.”
Her Spanish literature class in particular is going to “stick with me for years to come,” Huang said.
“I was really excited that I won the Latin award,” Liao said. “I feel like Latin has always been kind of an overlooked program, and I’m happy to know that I’ve done good by it, I guess. [World language teacher Derek] Wilairat is an absolutely fantastic teacher and all-around great guy, so to know that he’s realized my work during my time here has made it completely worth it.”
During the ceremony, students performed songs, dances and skits to depict the different cultures studied at Harvard-Westlake.
Brannan performed a flamenco solo to represent Spanish culture and Kathryn Tian ’17 performed a martial arts demonstration with weapons.
Jessica Brandon ’16 and Shelby Weiss ’16 sang a French song, and Teddy Leinbach ’15, Elizabeth Rao ’16, Dylan Schifrin’16 and Chloe Shi ’16 performed a skit about the assassination of Julius Caesar.
Lucas Gelfen ’15 and Viragh, editors-in-chiefs of Babel, announced the release of the redesigned foreign language and literary arts magazine. Gelfen and Viragh were honored by the World Languages Department for the time they spent designing the magazine.
The ceremony concluded with a message to graduating students from students who are enrolled in world language classes at the Middle School.