World Languages at MCCPS:
Here at MCCPS, after exploring World Cultures in 4th grade, students get to select one of our two World Languages, Spanish or French as early as 5th grade. Our curriculum is both summative and formative and students get 4 years of World Education, twice a week in 5th, 6th and 7th grade and four times a week in 8th grade.
Our pedagogy is mostly communicative, but in a non-immersion setting we do believe a strong grammatical base is key to mastering the language and being able to effectively communicate, both in writing and orally. Our goal is to provide students with a curriculum that combines fun, engaging, interactive activities, as well as strong academic foundations in order to prepare students for High School. We also strongly believe in incorporating culture in our classes, opening students to a world of diversity and broadening their global perspective.
In class, we believe in speaking primarily in the target language: instruction is reinforced by visual and body language cues, which is why attention and focus are particularly important. The student is an active observer and participant. Our main focus and priority is to develop our students’ love, curiosity and interest for other languages and cultures.
Curriculum overview:
5th – Through fifth grade, students will learn to build basic sentences, play around with words, understand their role and function in the sentence, and discover the “music” of the language. They will learn to greet and hold simple conversations with their classmates and describe their close environment (house & family) and people (physical description & clothes).
6th – In sixth grade, students will learn how to ask basic questions, how to express likes, dislikes and wants, talk about themselves and others (school, friends, teachers) in more detail. Additionally they will explore the concept of conjugation in order to be able to use more verbs and talk about a variety of actions. They will continue to explore the diversity of the cultures found in different Francophone and Spanish-speaking countries.
7th – During seventh grade, students will learn how to talk about their hobbies and favorite activities, express how they feel, express likes and dislikes, describe their favorite foods, give advice and instructions, ask for directions, and transport themselves to cities in Francophone and Spanish-speaking countries to find their way through!
8th – One of the focuses of eighth grade is to prepare you for the High School World Language classes. In order to do so, we strive to develop their communication and comprehension skills further. With a more accelerated pace and 4 classes a week, they will review units covered during previous years at MCCPS as well as exploring new, more advanced grammar and vocabulary topics.