While participating in IB, Highland swim, martial arts, and a variety of other sports, learning a language would seem impossible to some.
But for Highland senior Connlan McCracken, impossible seems easy.
McCracken is Highland’s 2026 World Language Sterling Scholar. To win this, students must demonstrate proficiency, ability, and experiences related to a world language of their choice. For McCracken, he chose Spanish but also showed skills in French.
The journey for learning Spanish started very young for McCracken. At just three years old, McCracken was enrolled in a Spanish-immersion preschool.
Following preschool, he attended a Spanish immersion elementary school and continued taking advanced Spanish classes in middle school and at Highland. Those classes built the language foundation for McCracken, but he believes that is not what polished his Spanish abilities.
“I firmly believe the best way to improve a language that you are trying to learn is to talk to people who are fluent in it, especially people who are native speakers,” McCracken said. “And then just immerse yourself in experiences that allow you to practice that.”
For McCracken, his immersive experience involved studying abroad in Spain for a semester. He got the opportunity to work in a vocal Catholic school, where everything was done in Spanish. He also got to speak with locals to improve his own skills.
“My fluency, my grammar, also the slang you learn, just improves a lot,” McCracken said. “Your ability to hold conversations without stuttering and without pausing ends up becoming a lot better because I was constantly exposed to rapid conversation.”
There was one specific experience in Spain where McCracken had to show his excellence in speaking Spanish, because there were no English sources around. This happened on a school trip to the city of Cantabria.
McCracken could not speak to his family in English or have access to his phone. It was 100 percent Spanish.
“I think that is when a lot of it really clicked on my accent,” McCracken said. “This general sense of being able to be a native speaker really started to shine because it was nonstop exposure.”
McCracken is not the only person within his family who studied abroad to enhance their language skills. His mother, Andrea, lived in Spain for a year and continues to use Spanish in her line of work every day. Both his parents wanted McCracken to have the same opportunities as Andrea did.
“We felt learning a second language early in life would be beneficial for him in his future endeavors and make it easier to learn more languages if he chooses to,” McCracken’s father Randall said.
After witnessing the relevancy of Spanish in his mother’s life, McCracken has had the motivation to prioritize learning Spanish alongside his education.
“I’m really proud of how hard he has worked in school, especially in the IB program,” Randall said. “I’m also impressed with how he has been able to manage his time between school, work, swim team, debate team and the other things he does and still manage to do well in school.”
The key for balancing all his school and Spanish did not rely on focusing on one thing at a time, it relied on joining Spanish and academics together.
McCracken made sure that he incorporated Spanish into his learning. This meant doing math in Spanish, writing in Spanish and even doing history in Spanish. This ability to multitask and learn will carry McCracken beyond high school learning.
McCracken has goals to learn Italian and possibly learning Arabic. Alongside furthering his linguistic capabilities, he is pursuing a career in engineering. New and different types of education excite McCracken, and he believes this drive will help him learn as much as possible.
“It is just this drive to learn that has allowed me to acquire the languages that I already know,” McCracken said. “And I think will allow me to acquire more in the future simply because I would like to, instead of just having an end goal.”
