The American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages describes proficiency as "what individuals can do with language in terms of speaking, writing, listening, and reading in real-world situations in a spontaneous and non-rehearsed context."

Brain science and best teaching practices have shown that communicative ways of learning a foreign language is the most effective way to learn another language.

Because foreign language is a class where students can SHOW what they know, grading is standards based using the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) as a guide.

Please see the webpage "Frau Dee's Grading" for specific information about how students will be graded and what numbers in the gradebook really mean about a students foreign language learning.

A sample of our German Learner Tracker is provided below. Each student will be making a copy of this for themselves and will track their work and progress throughout the course in the tracker.

Because our language classes are proficiency based and using communicative language, students are expected to USE and PRACTICE actively with the target language. So YES, student will be expected to SPEAK using the target language, READ using the target language, LISTEN using the target language, and WRITE using the target language. However practices are NOT PUNISHED! This means that 99.9% of the practice and daily work we do will be a completion grade. So if the student participates and tries, they get a 100. These fall under the Classwork/Homework in the Powerschool gradebook. This is the majority of our grades.

Students are expected to actively work and complete practices while in class, where there are peers and a teacher to work with.

ANY WORK NOT COMPLETED during the class time is considered homework for the student to complete BEFORE coming to the next class session.