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MCS World Languages Standards
Standard #1:
Students should be able to engage in conversations and make presentations to express emotions, opinions, and facts to a variety of audiences in a non-native language.
This standard provides opportunities for students to communicate effectively with diverse audiences to achieve different purposes. Students learn to tell stories, express feelings and opinions, and initiate communication, first with teachers and classmates, and eventually with native speakers who are strangers to them. This standard also provides for practicing the very important skills necessary to deliver presentations.
More and more Memphis businesses are engaging in international trade. Foreign language students of the 21st Century will have opportunities, both in Memphis and in traveling, that will only be possible because they speak another language. Foreign language study will help students work with team members from diverse backgrounds to accomplish group goals. Beginning students exchange simple greetings, play games, and respond to the teacher and each other with learned responses. At the intermediate level, students interact simply but appropriately with peers and adults. The older student with many years of foreign language study is ready to interact appropriately with speakers of the language in spontaneous situations.
By learning to interact verbally, in a meaningful way, in a second language, students acquire abilities and skills which will enhance their life-long productivity and success.
Specific Expectations
1. Ask and answer relevant questions when engaging in social and business transactions.
2. Exchange opinions and points of view on a variety of issues with both peers and adults.
3. Narrate and describe real and imaginary events.
4. Express thanks, admiration, regret, frustration, and apology when necessary and appropriate.
Standard # 2:
Students should be able to propose solutions to real-world problems and situations that require understanding written, oral, and audio information presented in a nonnative language.
This standard provides opportunities for foreign language students to locate and organize different kinds of information to accomplish meaningful tasks. It prepares students to understand the languages of other members of this global society, both in Memphis and abroad. This can include reading an e-mail message from a keypal abroad, interpreting assembly directions on a product manufactured in another country, and interpreting messages from spoken, audio, and video sources.
When foreign language students use the Internet, for example, they can read texts presented in the foreign language. They learn to use this technology to solve problems and produce quality products. In a routine research task, students may be able to access information only available in the foreign language and thus enhance their own, their classmates', and even their teacher's or parent's knowledge of the topic studied.
This standard provides the opportunity for students to access and enjoy the vast array of creative products available from other cultures. The youngest foreign language students can understand and interpret songs and games enjoyed by children of other cultures. Older students can enjoy poetry, music, theater, and films in another language. They thus learn to perceive issues and circumstances from different points of view.
The ability to listen attentively is constantly reinforced for foreign language students. In the beginning of their study, they may listen to audio broadcasts in another language, hoping to pick out just one item of information. As their skills improve, so does the complexity of the listening tasks they perform.
Because acquiring the ability to comprehend another language requires serious discipline and long-term commitment, foreign language students learn to persevere when tasks are not easily accomplished. Skills developed and practiced in foreign language learning thus apply to all area of the students' lives and contribute toward their lifelong productivity and success.
Specific Expectations
1. Research topics of interest using a variety of computer, audio, video or written sources.
2. Read and interpret information from a variety of written sources.
3. Interpret information from a variety of audio/ oral sources.
4. Analyze and evaluate, according to given criteria, works from literature, music, and film.
Standard #3:
Students should be able to write in a nonnative language for a variety of purposes, including personal, informational, and creative.
In foreign language study today, writing skills are not emphasized as they were in the past. It is, nevertheless, important, that students be able to express their thoughts in written form. Many mundane business and social transactions occur today via e-mail or fax.
There are opportunities for creativity when students work toward mastery of the writing system of a foreign language. Mother's Day cards are created by elementary students; intermediate students write letters to key pals and pen pals, and even "send away for information. Advanced foreign language students are capable of expressing their views, in writing, on a topic of current interest, such as in an expository essay on the environment.
The practice of writing in a foreign language affords students the opportunity to set goals and identify steps necessary to attain them. It is recommended that students practice their foreign language skills by organizing their daily lives, using the foreign language. The youngest students write a simple journal, choosing from phrases provided by their teacher; intermediate students write their daily schedules in the language studied and keep simple notes on a project from another subject; the most advanced students keep a record of reflections on personal and world events. Students develop, present, and follow logical reasoning in the development of their foreign language writing ability and thus acquire skills necessary for their lifelong productivity and success.
Specific Expectations
1. Exchange experiences, feelings, and opinions in letters, e-mail, or essays.
2. Obtain goods, services, or information through business correspondence.
3. Organize and reflect on daily life by writing lists, schedules, and journals.
4. Prepare reports on research from other content areas.
5. Create stories, poems, skits, and plays.
Standard #4:
Students should be able to recognize and interpret human diversity through knowledge of the products, attitudes, and social behaviors of the culture studied.
In the foreign language class, the student can never forget that this is indeed a global society. This standard provides students with the opportunity to become knowledgeable of cultural diversity in a global society. Since a language and its culture go hand in hand, language learners are culture learners. Knowledge of products, attitudes, and social behaviors of other cultures can help shape attitudes and prevent the development of negative stereotypes.
The study of foreign culture begins with the examination of similarities among all humankind and eventually leads to the discussion and consideration of human differences. Students distinguish between fact, opinion, and interpretation and perceive issues and circumstances from different points of view. The youngest students learn to appreciate the foods, songs, games, and holidays of peers from other cultures; intermediate students contrast daily life with that of peers from other cultures and can suggest reasons for differences. The advanced student discusses the effects of these differences on human behavior. By developing knowledge of perspectives unique to different cultures and by opening their minds to these perspectives, students develop thinking skills which enhance their lifelong productivity and success.
Specific Expectations
1. Identify social rules governing verbal and non-verbal language and apply these rules in conversations in the nonnative language.
2. Identify, analyze, and discuss, in the nonnative language, the significance of different products of the culture studied.
3. Analyze, compare, and discuss, in the nonnative language, social, economic, and political institutions in their own and other cultures.
4. Use specific criteria presented in the nonnative language to evaluate selections from art, literature, and music of other cultures.
Standard #5:
Students should be able to demonstrate understanding of the nature of language through comparing the language studied and English.
This standard provides opportunities for students to reason and hypothesize about the nature of language. Students compare the language studied with English and thus gain an awareness of how languages work.
The goal of this standard is for students to develop a subtle awareness of and thoughtfulness about language, leading to better communication skills in both the language studied and English. Young foreign language students may be asked, for example, to compare the vowel sounds of the language studied and English; the intermediate student might examine an imaginary language and tell something about the people who speak the language, based on characteristics of the language data given. Older students explore nuances of word meanings in both English and the languages studied. As students examine, compare, and contrast language similarities and differences, they are perceiving issues and circumstances from different points of view.
Students develop, present, and follow logical reasoning in analyzing language, which helps improve their overall thinking and communication skills and contributes significantly to their lifelong productivity and success.
Specific Expectations
1. Demonstrate similarities and differences between the vocabulary and sounds of the language studied and English.
2. Analyze and use similarities among the arts and other disciplines to create interrelated/ integrated activities.