The Seal of Biliteracy is an award given by a school district or by the state, to recognize students that have maintained and shown their proficiency in two or more languages. If the student recieves the award after testing in different categories such as reading, writing, listening, and speaking, they will get a gold seal on their high school diploma as well as a notation on their transcript.  At ADM, students enrolled in a third or fourth year Spanish or French course can take the exam. Third year students in a foreign language class are given the option to test, whereas fourth year students are advised to test. While Arabic is not a foreign language course offered at ADM, Junior Mohammad Amro received the seal of biliteracy in Arabic this April.

“I was already speaking Arabic before taking [the seal of biliteracy] When I came here [ADM] it took me, from about fifth grade to tenth grade, to fully get the whole certification for English.  But then when I tried to do the Arabic one, since the two languages just mix, what happens is you may just forget one. And they have to keep balancing each other and you keep forgetting one or the other.

But besides that, it’s good to know both of [the languages] because I can talk to many people and other adversities, and I can talk to the people I know. That is what makes it nice. But it did take a very long time.

English was very hard to learn. [I am] thankful to the teachers, the teachers helped a lot, especially my fifth grade teacher. Even until tenth grade with Mrs. Novelli. It was hard, but also like eh. I got help through it.

You have to study for [the seal], no matter what. Especially with typing on a chromebook or anything like that, it’s weird. Especially with different languages, it’s very weird. If I didn’t study for it, I would have definitely done worse,  I would’ve been cooked I’m not going to lie. I didn’t know I had forgotten that much, but no it was good. 

Now, I am fully certified in the English Language.”