World Languages Week 2017

March 6-12, 2017 National Foreign Language Week

Find the Missing Piece. Learn a Language

http://www.amgnational.org/national-foreign-language-week.html

Ideas: http://mafla.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/World_Lang_Week.pdf

Day 1: March 6, 2017 TOP TEN REASONS TO LEARN LANGUAGES

Can you or your students add to this list? How about making an impromptu poster in class, then send me a picture of it? (Include school, class, and language on it.) We’ll post pictures at our World Language Info Session on March 13.

Day 2: March 7, 2017 HOW WILL YOU LEAD WITH LANGUAGES?

Share this video with your students, then check out the language corner for your language:

Lead with Spanish http://www.leadwithlanguages.org/lwl-language/spanish/.

Lead with French http://www.leadwithlanguages.org/lwl-language/french/.

Lead with Japanese http://www.leadwithlanguages.org/lwl-language/japanese/.

Lead with Mandarin http://www.leadwithlanguages.org/lwl-language/mandarin/.

Lead with Latin http://www.leadwithlanguages.org/lwl-language/latin/.

Lead with ASL http://www.leadwithlanguages.org/lwl-language/american-sign-language/.

Lead with Native American Languages http://www.leadwithlanguages.org/lwl-language/native-american-languages/.

And many many more…

All languages are wonderful but what is really special about learning the language you teach in our schools?

(Send me your responses!)

Day 3: March 8, 2017 A CALL TO ACTION

Take a moment to read this page: http://www.leadwithlanguages.org/about-us/a-call-to-action/. (excerpt below)

Today, fewer than 10% of Americans overall speak a second language. This is not enough. The ability to communicate in languages other than English and understand cultures other than our own has never been more vital in an increasingly interconnected world where:

* 95% of the world’s consumers live outside the United States, meaning American jobs and exports are more dependent than ever on foreign markets;

* English is not the dominant language in the world’s fastest-growing economies;

* Growth in the U.S. market is increasingly driven by minority consumers with the Asian-American and Hispanic markets alone representing over $2 trillion a year;

* Americans are engaged diplomatically and militarily around the world as never before, and

* Issues such as the environment, health, poverty, development and peace are increasingly defined as global problems that require international understanding and cooperation.

* Barely one fifth of K-12 students study a second language, and on average starting at age 15 and for only two years. In higher education, a mere 8% of students enroll in language programs, with less than 1% studying languages designated as critical to U.S. economic and national security interests. Making matters worse, just 16 states require world language study for high school graduation, while 44 states and the District of Columbia report they cannot find enough qualified world language teachers to meet current needs.

Think about… Washington State requires 2 credits of world language for high school graduation for the class of 2019. Seattle Public Schools got a waiver, but it will be a requirement for next year’s high school freshmen (class of 2021). How can schools justify adding a new requirement while cutting language offerings in our middle and high schools?

Talk with… your colleagues and school leaders. Yes, we are in a funding crisis right this minute, but we need to think long-term. What is the right thing for our students today and our students tomorrow?

Email me… your thoughts and I will collect them to share with school leaders at the central office. maaoki@seattleschools.org

Day 4: March 9, 2017 THINGS BILINGUAL PEOPLE DO

For a chuckle today… take a look at this YouTube video. (It’s 5 minutes.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReHdQsB5rI8

Even if you and your students are like me (monolingual until you had the great fortune of learning a language in school), I bet this will ring true. Do you remember the first time you learned a word or phrase in a new language and you just loved it because it gave you the power to express something that you couldn’t convey in a word in your first language?

Tell your students that they are on the journey to becoming bilingual people. The longer the journey, the greater the reward.

Day 5: March 10 Is shortage of foreign-language teachers harming the US?

That was the title on a link in an ACTFL Smartbrief to a blog post in EdWeek, entitled “Americans are falling behind in Foreign-Language Learning”:

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/learning-the-language/2017/03/us_lacks_capacity_to_boost_for.html

A critical shortage of qualified foreign language teachers in the United States could leave the nation at a competitive disadvantage in an increasingly global, multilingual society, according to a new American Academy of Sciences report.

In what is billed as the first national study of foreign-language learning in nearly three decades, the Commission on Language Learning—a group of education, research, business, and government leaders—recommends a five-step approach to providing access to languages other than English for people of all ages, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

With the budget discussions in your schools, it may not feel like there’s a shortage of World Language teachers in our district, but it’s really the calm before the storm. WE KNOW that more students will need to learn languages. This EdWeek blog provides a little national context.

On a fun note… Here’s a little video vignette from Diana Einmo at McDonald International School Learning Languages is Important: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7dUezCXEMo

COMING UP…

You're invited to a World Languages in Seattle Public Schools Information Night!

Find the Missing Piece: Learn a Language*

Monday, March 13, 2017 6:30-7:30 pm

JSCEE 3rd Ave. S, Seattle, WA 98134 | Room 2700

Information session for families, students, community members, and educators about World Language offerings in Seattle, World Language Credit Testing, Seal of Biliteracy, Dual Language Immersion, and more. Download the Flyer in English, Amharic, Arabic , Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional , Japanese, Oromo, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Tigrigna , Vietnamese.

*theme of National Foreign Language Week March 6-12, 2017