Instruction in World Languages

World languages instruction today is quite different from how many of us learned!

• Teachers speak in the target language 90% of class time, using pictures, gestures, modeling, and familiar activities to help students understand and participate.

• Students are encouraged to work on getting their message across in the target language, even if they make a few mistakes.  That is language learning!

• Students view, read, and hear REAL texts from the target culture, such as newscasts, menus, advertisements, web pages, blogs, songs, and podcasts.

• Students demonstrate their language skills by role-playing REAL-WORLD situations such as ordering in a restaurant, following street directions, making plans for the weekend, exchanging text messages, and writing emails or a “fakebook” profile.

• Students strengthen and expand their understanding of social studies, geography, history, art, math, science and music in the target language.  Language learning supports literacy development through reinforcement of reading and vocabulary-learning strategies.

Here is a list of the Best Practices that we encourage new teachers to implement.