Mission: To empower students with 21st century skills as they develop linguistic proficiency and cultural literacy in multiple languages.
Vision: To prepare students to actively and effectively participate and succeed in a global society.
Goals:
• Offer a sequence of courses from level 1 to level 5+ in order to qualify students for highly tiered universities and make them more marketable for college admissions, military careers and the workforce
• Strengthen the proficiency and communicative model to develop student's proficiency in the target language via meaningful interaction and authentic contexts
• Refine and redesign the curriculum and instruction for languages other than English and Spanish (LOTES)
• Create curriculum for languages for a specific course for health and law careers
• Increase AP Spanish course participation by 20% and performance by 5%
The World Languages Program prepares students for an increasingly open and globally interconnected world. We seek to strengthen the World Languages Program for all, beginning with exploratory levels in elementary, and continuing through middle and high school advanced courses for college credit as well as career readiness.
Objectives of the Program
Instruction
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Support teachers and multicultural commitment of AP and IB programs
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Establish and/or grow the World Languages Program in our middle schools
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Focus on collaborative planning at district and campus levels
Curriculum
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Oversee the refinement of curriculum for the World Languages Program
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Create and adopt common syllabi, pacing guides, and formative assessments
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Shift the culture from teaching about the language to teaching the target language for proficiency
Professional Development
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Identify and train new teachers to implement best-practice strategies and teach rigorous courses.
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Build teacher capacity for increase student proficiency
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Provide technology training and resources to move to a student-centered instructional model
Community and Culture
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Recognize and celebrate student’s academic accomplishments and successes
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Increase the number of student who complete a coherent sequence of World Languages courses
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Create opportunities for students and teachers to have access to extended learning experiences outside the classroom
Course Options:
• Languages Offered: American Sign Language, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Latin, and Spanish
• World Languages are offered at 16 High schools, 8 Middle Schools, 13 Academies, and 3 Elementary Schools
• 81 WL teachers and 11 WL facilitators support 9,812 WL students over 551 WL Sections in SAISD
Research:
“Strong evidence shows that time spent on foreign language study strongly reinforces the core subject areas of reading, English language literacy, social studies, and math.”
“Foreign language learners consistently outperform control groups in core subject areas on standardized tests, often significantly.” (Armstrong & Rogers 1997; Saunders 1998; Masciantonio 1977; Rafferty 1986; Andrade 1989; Kretschmer & Kretschmer 1989)
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