Modern Languages

The Chinese IV course builds on Chinese III and will give students the opportunity to continue to grow their oral and written knowledge of Chinese at an accelerated pace so that they are able to handle a variety of more complicated communicative tasks with ease and confidence. The class will read short stories and write about a variety of situational topics in more detail and complexity.

Students will continue to build their conversational grammatical forms with the introduction of new patterns and grammatical expressions, including Chinese adages, as well as approximately 200 more Chinese simplified characters.

Chinese history and culture, as in the previous levels, will continue to be introduced to help students better understand the language and culture of China.

This course conforms to the standards and expectations as described in the College Board curriculum for AP Chinese Language and Culture, and it moves at a fast pace. Students prepare authentic testing materials as prescribed for the AP examination in Chinese Language and Culture, and they use media to record original responses and presentations. All students must take the AP Chinese exam in May.

At the end of the first year, students will have acquired a broad vocabulary of around 2,000 words and expressions. They will be able to communicate original ideas, in both oral and written form, about a variety of themes, including themselves, their home, preferred activities and academic life. Through readings and listening exercises, students will develop their pronunciation, fluency and confidence.

Culturally and pedagogically relevant texts, videos and resources are used to reinforce grammar, vocabulary and all four linguistic skills.

This course is open to students who have completed French I either in one year in the Upper School or in three years in the Middle School program. The course is highly interactive and affords students endless opportunities to develop all four key communication skills. Reading and writing are practiced regularly, reinforcing grammatical constructs and basal vocabulary relevant to a variety of themes.

At the end of French II, students will increase their personal proficiency and be empowered to navigate many everyday situations in the language.

As in previous years, reading, conversation and composition continue to be stressed. Students build their themed vocabulary through a variety of authentic and pedagogical realia while broadening their cultural knowledge of the French-speaking world. A great deal of new vocabulary and key idiomatic expressions are encountered. In addition, grammar is reviewed, and many new grammatical structures are introduced during the second and third trimesters.

5 meetings per eight-day cycle/3 credits 

 

In addition to the coursework of French III, the Accelerated French III course will include more advanced cultural and historical readings, as well as a greater emphasis on speaking and writing.

This class, designed for students who wish to continue their study of French without necessarily matriculating toward the AP examination, is topic-based. Topics covered include health and fitness, education, relationships, holidays and travel, and environment.

The approach is multi-skill, with an emphasis on the oral use of the language and comprehension skills, both aural and reading. Written work tends to be discursive and/or imaginative by nature, giving students the chance to formulate and express their own opinions and reactions and to practice different writing styles.

There is also a film component, which begins with a review of the development of French cinema and continues throughout with a number of French films, chosen for their quality and/or their relevance to topics being studied. Some time is also spent each week on grammar review.

Students will continue their studies of French at an advanced level, focusing on the further development of interpretive and flexible oral communication skills. Students will develop their oral proficiency in the language through facilitated discussions, cooking in the target language and a self-guided exploration of recipes.

The complexity of Franco-African, Franco-Caribbean and Franco-European cuisines will be examined through authentic and pedagogical resources. Topics will range from 17th century colonization to 21st century culinary influences, with the goal of exploring how these complex and dynamic relationships between communities and nations affect social perspectives, current events and culinary practices in both reciprocal and conflicting ways.

This course will also embrace the varied products and practices of all communities explored, inspiring a sensitive and deeper understanding of the French-speaking and culinary world. Primarily designed to develop students’ verbal communication and oral comprehension in French, this is a conversation-based course where in-class engagement and active participation are heavily weighted.

On the literary side, the course will provide a survey of French and Francophone literature from the 19th century to the 21st century, covering prose, poetry and theater. Topics covered will include representations of beauty and ugliness, the 19th century transformation of Paris, and questions of national and linguistic identity in French-speaking places.

At the end of the first year, students will have mastered a vocabulary of about 2,000 words. They will be able to communicate ideas, in both oral and written form, about such topics as weather, school, family, dining, sports, hobbies and travel.

Through readings and listening exercises, students will develop their passive communication skills. The cultural diversity of the Spanish-speaking world is thoroughly explored in the course. Video and interactive computer programs are used to reinforce grammar, vocabulary and all four linguistic skills.

This course is open to students who have completed a Spanish I course. It covers a fairly extensive amount of grammatical concepts. As in Spanish I, students will be able to communicate their ideas in both oral and written forms, with significant emphasis on the narrative tenses, the imperative mood, and the future and conditional tenses.

Students are exposed on a regular basis to the history and cultural components of various Spanish-speaking countries through readings and use of video and audio material. The course is highly interactive and promotes endless opportunities for students to develop their speaking and listening comprehension skills.

At the end of Spanish II, students will speak with greater fluency and will demonstrate an overall strong command of several key topics of grammar. Students who maintain a high level of performance throughout the year and show a propensity to master the concepts with relative ease are eligible for Accelerated Spanish III, with the recommendation of the current teacher.

As in previous years, reading, conversation and composition continue to be stressed. Students build their themed vocabulary through three types of readings — historical, literary and journalistic — while broadening their cultural knowledge of the Spanish-speaking world.

A great deal of new vocabulary is encountered. In addition, grammar is reviewed and several new structures (perfect tenses, continued study of the subjunctive mood) are introduced during the second and third trimesters. The texts are supplemented by video and audio material and outside readings.

This class is for students who have completed their third year of Spanish and intend to put their background in the language to practical use. Students are challenged to develop their own ideas and skills as global citizens as they master linguistic principles. Daily conversations, pair activities, readings, journal entries and research projects focus on current themes pertaining to the Spanish-speaking world, such as sustainability in nature, culture and economics. The goal is for students to develop fluency and ease in aural and written Spanish.

Additionally, students build awareness of common pitfalls for English speakers and master the structure of the Spanish sentence so that they are ready to progress into advanced high school or college coursework.

Students continue their studies of Spanish at an advanced level with special attention given to developing active communication skills. This course is appropriate for students who have completed Spanish IV. The primary objective of this course is the development of students' communicative skills by focusing on the practical applications and functions of advanced grammatical structures. This is a conversation-based course where in-class engagement and active participation are heavily weighted. Further cultural and linguistic competency is fostered by a series of projects and thematic units.

In this course, students will speak more fluently and with greater confidence about varied themes via extensive vocabulary expansion and fluency practice; they will acquire linguistic independence through better understanding of tense-sequencing and functional language; and they will understand and communicate effectively with native speakers despite rapid speech patterns or strong accents.

Students continue their studies of Spanish at a superior level with special attention given to developing active communication skills. Students at the superior level are able to communicate with accuracy and fluency in order to participate fully and effectively in conversations on a variety of topics in formal and informal settings from both concrete and abstract perspectives.

This course is appropriate for students who have completed Post-AP Spanish Language and Culture and/or Post-AP Spanish Literature and Film. The primary objective of this course is to help the learner develop increased accuracy and sophistication in writing and speaking in Spanish. Students will further develop their ability to express their interests, explain complex matters in detail, and provide lengthy and coherent narrations with ease, fluency and accuracy.

To this end, there will be ample writing and revising practice, with a focus on specific grammatical and lexical areas, customized to the needs of the students enrolled in the course. All writing will be based on a particular theme relating to the Spanish-speaking world, with a focus on film, literary texts, newspaper readings and conducting an interview.

Authentic texts from across different genres of film, newspapers, fiction, songs and essays will be used to develop all skills with emphasis on oral production, as well as intercultural and pragmatic competence.

Languages reflect the diverse and rich human experience and shape the way we see and understand the world. This course will explore the ways in which language shapes and is shaped by cultural identities in different geographic regions of the world through a set of carefully selected case studies based on music, film, literature, articles, interviews, blogs and other media. Topics will include endangerment and revitalization, multilingualism and language contact (including code-switching, language borrowing and the creation of new languages), the relationship between language and power, language policy and language activism.

Students will recognize and articulate how sets of linguistic interactions, encounters, exchanges and — sometimes — conflicts are integral dimensions to the making of complex identities. While reflecting on the formation of linguistic and cultural identities, students will develop empathy for a variety of groups and actors across the globe and will think of their own role as global citizens, while relating the material to their own experiences of belonging.

At the same time, students will also have mini-lessons in many of the world languages they will be discussing, such as Arabic, Swahili, Haitian Creole, Indonesian, Quechua and Romansh. These lessons will allow them to gain a better appreciation of the wonderfully varied ways in which different languages structure thoughts and make meaning of the world. At the end of the class, students will be asked to prepare a plan to start learning a language they have never learned before.