Foreign Language

Academic Expectations

The Foreign Language Department offers courses in French, German, and Spanish. The curriculum is performance and proficiency based and is designed to develop students’ communication skills and intercultural competencies to engage in local and global environments. 


Graduation Requirement:  All students at DYRHS are required to successfully complete two consecutive years of the same foreign language.  Mastering a language is a difficult task: the longer one works at it, the more competent one will become. It is also important that students follow the recommendations of their teachers when selecting courses and levels. Once a year has begun, it is often very difficult to move students from one level of instruction to another without a major schedule disruption. 


Grading:

Students will be assessed in traditional methods such as vocabulary recognition and grammar usage. Additionally students will be given opportunities to demonstrate proficiency levels through checklists and rubrics. These proficiency based activities and assessments align with the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and the new MassachusettsWorld Languages Curriculum Framework.


To compete and collaborate in a 21st-century global economy, students need to be proficient in a foreign language. To become proficient, language students must not only master the building blocks of language, such as vocabulary and grammatical concepts, they must also practice using the language in realistic contexts. They need to be able to understand and respond to what they read and to what people say. Proficiency assessments are designed to help students set personal proficiency goals and to help teachers evaluate students' communicative skills in a targeted and efficient manner.  Proficiency-based assessments reveal more about student achievement than traditional assessments, and keep students focused and motivated. They provide a spectrum with clear benchmarks that allow students to say: "I can _____." 

Proficiency is a measurement of spontaneous, sustained communication in a real world situation. Students will not only develop proficiency at varying rates, but may also show more improvement in some communicative modes than in others. 


Proficiency is a measurement of spontaneous, sustained communication in a real world situation. It is determined by how well a student masters skills such as; functions, contexts and content, text type, language control, vocabulary, communication strategies, and cultural awareness. The proficiency modes of communication include; interpretive, interpersonal and presentational. These modes cover the four skills that language teachers traditionally teach: listening, reading, writing and speaking. But rather than isolate the skills, the communicative modes require that students combine them to navigate conversations in real-world contexts. This shifts the focus of the assessment to what was understood and communicated, and how well. Expect that students will not only develop proficiency at varying rates, but may also show more improvement in some communicative modes than in others.  Students will be supported through an environment that fosters creativity and values risk-taking over perfection, emphasizing what they can do, rather than their shortcomings.

Ms. Ross

Spanish
Department Chair

Ms. Angell

French

Mr. Corrigan

Spanish

Ms. Esperson- Golden

Spanish

Ms. Horn

German

Ms. Ladd

Spanish

Ms. Marat

French

Proficiency levels are defined as follows: