London gold medal for Mirna

Mirna Carolina Cedeno Martinez of Venezuela was awarded the City and Guild Gold Medal, the first of it’s kind to be awarded, for her outstanding achievement in spoken English for speakers of other languages.

In their communication to the directors of the St Mary’s Commercial School in Trinidad where Mirna Cedeno studied, City and Guild said: “The medal proved that your candidate is exceptional and has achieved an extremely high standard of performance to an international standard in their qualification. She was awarded the medal because her overall performance was amongst the very best for their subject an achievement to be proud of. Our congratulations to your candidate.”

Mirna’s teacher Earlin Mark expressed how proud she is of her student and described her as a student who was always very interested in her work and one who came to her classes with a positive attitude.

She added: “Mirna is unique. She is naturally an adventurous extrovert who is not afraid to get involved. As a student here in Trinidad she became involved in all kinds of activities and attended many events. She was therefore able to experience the language in both forms - the standard and the vernacular. She his developed the ability to understand what is being said and she converses quite fluently. She has really a very special young lady.”

Mirna has made several visits to Trinidad and Tobago since she completed her studies in 2004. She describes TT as her home away from home and makes it her duty to keep abreast of all the local parlance. She recently visited the islands of St Eustatius, St Maarten and Anguilla where she was often asked if she is “ah Trini.” Her command of the English language and not to mention her grasp of Trini dialect really raise quite a few eyebrows as her native Venezuelan accent is still very evident in her speech.

Mirna describes the people of TT as being very warm and all embracing. She said, “Learning the English language was not very easy but I was determined.” As for learning all the local jargon, she quipped, “dat was no scene man, I made some cool Trini friends who show meh d real vibes. Tibby and Maria, bless up!”