About our Program and Why Learning a Foreign Language is Important!
About Our Program:
The world language program in SCS focuses on using languages in real-world situations. Students learn language that prepares them to communicate with others through oral language, print, and media. Although students will need to know vocabulary, grammar, and cultural information, they learn them in order to use them purposefully for communication with others. This emphasis on communication aligns the SCS curriculum with state and national standards.
At each level of world language instruction, students expand the topics on which they are able to communicate, the ways in which they are able to express themselves and understand others, and the sophistication with which they can express ideas. Student understanding of other cultures, ability to behave in culturally acceptable ways, and to recognize the relationships between language and culture grow with each unit, year, and level of world language study.
Why Learn a Foreign Language in Elementary School?
Studying a foreign language beginning in Kindergarten (or younger) has a tremendous impact on a child's brain development. Research suggests that foreign language study in pre-adolescent children actually creates neuropaths in the brain, allowing for more connections between synapses and neurons, which in turn enhances critical thinking, logic skills and creativity. The Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) likens the brain to a sophisticated computer system, saying we are born with our brain hardwired for complex functioning but that it doesn't have the software that really utilizes the brain to its full capacity. The software in this case would be educational input and life experiences (Genesee 2000). You can read the article on the CAL website by clicking HERE.
Studying a foreign language as a young child also positively impacts literacy and academic skills across the curriculum. Students learn about their native language through comparisons with their second language. Experts believe that learning another language can enhance knowledge of English structure and vocabulary (Curtain & Dahlberg 2004). Additionally, a study of 13,200 third and fifth graders in Louisiana public schools revealed that, regardless of race, gender or academic level, children taking foreign language classes did better on the English section of the Louisiana Basic Skills Test than those who did not (Dumas 1999). Children of color, children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and English Language Learners make the greatest proportionate achievement gains from foreign language study. Early foreign language study is less dependent on previous verbal learning than most other elements of the elementary school curriculum and this allows some students to succeed who have otherwise experienced repeated failure in school (Curtain & Dahlberg 2004).
For more information on the benefits of foreign language study, please click HERE for an excellent article outlining the many benefits of early language learning!
Read a short brochure that may answer more questions about the importance of language study for children by clicking HERE.
Sources:
The world language program in SCS focuses on using languages in real-world situations. Students learn language that prepares them to communicate with others through oral language, print, and media. Although students will need to know vocabulary, grammar, and cultural information, they learn them in order to use them purposefully for communication with others. This emphasis on communication aligns the SCS curriculum with state and national standards.
At each level of world language instruction, students expand the topics on which they are able to communicate, the ways in which they are able to express themselves and understand others, and the sophistication with which they can express ideas. Student understanding of other cultures, ability to behave in culturally acceptable ways, and to recognize the relationships between language and culture grow with each unit, year, and level of world language study.
Why Learn a Foreign Language in Elementary School?
Studying a foreign language beginning in Kindergarten (or younger) has a tremendous impact on a child's brain development. Research suggests that foreign language study in pre-adolescent children actually creates neuropaths in the brain, allowing for more connections between synapses and neurons, which in turn enhances critical thinking, logic skills and creativity. The Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) likens the brain to a sophisticated computer system, saying we are born with our brain hardwired for complex functioning but that it doesn't have the software that really utilizes the brain to its full capacity. The software in this case would be educational input and life experiences (Genesee 2000). You can read the article on the CAL website by clicking HERE.
Studying a foreign language as a young child also positively impacts literacy and academic skills across the curriculum. Students learn about their native language through comparisons with their second language. Experts believe that learning another language can enhance knowledge of English structure and vocabulary (Curtain & Dahlberg 2004). Additionally, a study of 13,200 third and fifth graders in Louisiana public schools revealed that, regardless of race, gender or academic level, children taking foreign language classes did better on the English section of the Louisiana Basic Skills Test than those who did not (Dumas 1999). Children of color, children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and English Language Learners make the greatest proportionate achievement gains from foreign language study. Early foreign language study is less dependent on previous verbal learning than most other elements of the elementary school curriculum and this allows some students to succeed who have otherwise experienced repeated failure in school (Curtain & Dahlberg 2004).
For more information on the benefits of foreign language study, please click HERE for an excellent article outlining the many benefits of early language learning!
Read a short brochure that may answer more questions about the importance of language study for children by clicking HERE.
Sources:
- Curtain, Helena & Carol Ann Dahlberg. (2004). Languages and Children: Making the Match: New Languages for Young Learners, Grades K-8. Third Edition. New York: Longman.
- Dumas, L.S. (1999). "Learning a Second Language: Exposing Your Child to a new World of Words Boosts Her Brainpower, Vocabulary and Self-Esteem." Child, February 72, 74: 76-77.
- Genesee, F. (2000). "Brain Research: Implications for Second Language Learning." Center for Applied Linguistics, December 2000.