Middlebury Interactive Languages (Grades 3-8)
The Middlebury Interactive Language is intended to be a world language exploration opportunity for OHVA students. These courses are self-supporting and the curriculum is delivered without OHVA teacher support. World language is ungraded and should be looked at as supplemental to the core curriculum. There is not a requirement for progress and attendance for World Language courses. However, if progress and attendance isn’t demonstrated within the school year consideration should be given to course registration for the following year. Academic progress and attendance should always be given to the academic core- math, science, social studies, language arts, and reading.
Middlebury Interactive Languages Reference for OHVA families
No OHVA Teacher Support
The Middlebury Interactive Languages courses made available to OHVA students are the “no teacher support” versions. OHVA teachers do not monitor student progress in the courses, they do not grade any work, and they are not equipped to answer questions related to content. If you need technical assistance, please call or email Middlebury Interactive Languages at:
1.800.596.0910 or support@middleburyinteractive.com
Placement Based on Grade Level
Middlebury Interactive Language courses are not specific to a school grade level, but reflect the student’s depth of experience with the language being studied. Students can begin a World Language course in grades 3-8. World Language in grades 3-5 will replace the music course. If a student is working below grade level we highly recommend he/she focus on the core courses rather than selecting a World Language.
Placement Based on Previous Language Experience
If your student has had no encounter with the language before, or if your student has been exposed, but has never been asked to speak in the language before, we recommend that you place the student in Elementary Year 1. Don't worry if it seems too easy at first, it will ramp up! Students who have been exposed to the new language and had some experience in speaking rudimentary sentences aloud should be placed in Elementary Year 2.
Placement in High School with Teachers After Taking Without-Teacher Versions in Elementary and Middle School
Because of the course design, students can move easily from the without-teacher versions of the courses at lower grades to the with-teacher versions at the high school grades. This will always be easiest for students who have worked most diligently in the without-teacher versions, of course. Students who, working on their own, have been least persistent in practicing speaking out loud will have to work especially hard in oral production when they encounter the with-teacher versions in upper grades. But this is a self-discipline and human nature question, not one of course design. The design itself allows for an easy transition.
Recommended Browser
We recommend that you use Middlebury Interactive Language with the Google Chrome browser. It also works well with Mozilla Firefox, but we view Google Chrome as the default browser.
Materials
No materials are shipped for the elementary and middle school courses. All audio and textual samples are embedded in the course online.
Accessing Middlebury Interactive Language
To access Middlebury Interactive Language, families must first login to the OLS/OMHS with a student account user name and password. To create a student account, parents must:
Login to the OLS/OMHS with the learning coach user name and password.
Select My Account in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.
On the My Account page, parents are able to create a student account by selecting the blue Edit button in the Student Accounts box.
Once the student user name and password has been created, parents will want to navigate back to the OLS/OMHS Home page and select New Log-In for a new login screen to appear. Once the new screen appears, the family will be able to enter the student user name and password that will take them to the student view of the OLS/OMHS were they will be able to access the world language course.
Once logged into the OLS/OMHS via the student account, students/families will then want to select Middlebury Interactive Language on the side of the screen to access their world language if enrolled in a world language course.
Basic Features of Middlebury Interactive Language
Calendar Page – Where students access lessons and see assignments.
The K12 “default” time for students to spend per day per lesson in other subject areas is 60 minutes, but often in Middlebury Interactive Language 20-40 minutes a day doing their world language lesson.
You can see that there is a great variation in the amount of text per day on each calendar square. Fear not! These lines just convey the step by step process as students move through the sequence of instructions and activities. More text on a given day in the calendar is not necessarily proportional to a heavier workload on that day.
Info – students/parents can watch a tutorial about what the site has to offer.
This little animation on the first day will help familiarize anyone with the structure of the Middlebury Interactive Language courses. It’s useful both for those students and families using the courses with a teacher, and those using the courses without a teacher. Because it must serve all audiences, you’ll hear references to the presence of a “teacher” in it from time to time. Students, families, and schools who are using the without-teacher versions of the courses should simply disregard these references.
All grading is done by the computer, or teacher-graded activities are converted to practice and reinforcement activities with no teacher input needed.