German teacher Frau Ann Feinleib (far left) with some of her students at Haddonfield Memorial High School.
The borough high school’s German students have earned gold, silver and bronze medals – along with distinguished achievement awards – for their performance on the 2026 National German Exam.
Sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG), the exam is taken annually by high-school students in levels III and IV. Out of the 47 students who took the test, 15 won awards, including three gold medal winners, freshman Charlotte Stephen and juniors Owen Snyder and Chloe Kershner-Hammond; three silver medal winners, sophomore Eleanor Rubinson and juniors Jack Duckles and Ryon Maull; two bronze medal winners, sophomore Graham Dodson and junior Phoebe Rynkar.
There were also seven achievement award winners: sophomores Luke Heinz and Ruby Goodworth and juniors Austin King, Sasha Young, Henry Cantrell, Everett Maeyer and Enis Mujde.
Both Snyder and Kershner-Hammond have now won gold for two consecutive years, something teacher Anna Feinleib, advisor to the German club, said is uncommon.
“Honestly, that does not happen every day, or every year, or even every other year that two people win gold medals two years in a row,” Feinleib said. “And to be quite fair, there’s a huge leap between level III and IV. The level IV national German exam is a lot more difficult.”
Kershner-Hammond and Snyder are also seeking the seal of biliteracy, a state designation for students who’ve received proficiency in a language other than English that counts for college credits at numerous universities. Kershner-Hammond said the seal will demonstrate her proficiency in German.
“I feel like I’m interested in general in learning languages, so I feel like it would be good to just have that,” she noted. “I mean, yeah, for college, but if I want to further my German learning, it’s just good to show that I know German.”
This year, Kershner-Hammond is also eligible for – and has begun the process of – applying for a three-week study abroad program in Germany sponsored by the AATG, something Snyder did last year.
“It was great,” he said. “An amazing experience.”
Charlotte Stephen said getting the gold shows how well she’s doing in class.
“I was really worried about starting with German III right away,” she acknowledged, “but I feel like this reaffirmed that I’m doing fine in the class and that I should continue on.”
Kershner-Hammond, who started learning German to follow in the footsteps of her older brother, is happy about a second gold medal.
“I’m glad that I kept my German knowledge and kept growing,” she said.
Snyder explained that to him, winning gold demonstrates his hard work.
“It’s really nice to get it again,” he stated. “It really shows that I’ve been working pretty hard and my German knowledge has kept growing over the years, which is pretty nice.”
Feinleib, who has taught German at the high school for 10 years, said learning the language involves talking more, not necessarily studying more.
“Like whatever you want to call studying, it’s not sitting at the desk and doing Quizlet,” she pointed out. “It’s not like that at all. It’s just trying to learn more about the language and communicate more when you come to class, and talk and experience it and reach out, and whatever constitutes being bilingual and bicultural.’
Stephen said she’s learning German to converse with her mom.
“We speak German at home, and then sometimes my mom’s worried that I’ll lose certain grammar aspects and reading because we usually only do daily conversation,” she commented. “So she thought I should continue with German, because in middle school I did French, because I wanted to be a little different.”
Snyder said he started learning German because it seemed like the most interesting language.
“In elementary school in fifth grade, the three language teachers from the middle school came to the elementary school and they gave a short talk about each language,” he recalled. “I don’t remember much about it, I just remember thinking German was the most interesting by far. The other two didn’t come close.
“And so it stuck with me.”
