W.I.L.D. Weekend

The annual Weekend Immersed in Language Development (W.I.L.D.) student experience is offered for students of Spanish, French, Chinese and German who have completed at least one full course of the target language and who are at least in the 10th grade in the fall. This 2 1⁄2 day residential program. The activities planned include daily living experiences as well as cultural and academic learning experiences. The purpose of the project is to put the students in a setting where they will use the language they are acquiring in a non­threatening, relaxed atmosphere whose goal is communication. Therefore, activities will include physical activities, film discussion, games, music, art, history and grammar. Throughout the weekend, second language acquisition will take place either directly from lectures and reading/writing experiences or indirectly through daily living experiences and games.

The program begins on Friday evening and ends in the early afternoon of Sunday. It is open to 110 students of French, Spanish, Chinese and German. The students are chaperoned and instructed by 18 teachers/scholars. The students are selected based on their level of study, grades in their language courses, their teacher and personal letters of recommendation and an essay explaining what they hope to gain from the experience and how learning a second language can help them in their career choices. For more information contact your French Teacher. The date for the next retreat is November 9-11, 2018, at the 4H Club in Columbiana, AL.