May 9, 2022

During its last meeting of the 2021-22 school year, the Teaching and Learning Board Advisory Committee reviewed updates from the World Languages Task Force, which began meeting in January. 

The World Languages Task Force includes principals at all levels, the Teaching and Learning administrative team, students, parents and four world languages teachers representing all of the languages currently taught in the district: Spanish, French and German.

Priorities defined by the task force include beginning exposure to world languages in elementary school, designing a scope and sequence of world language study that is sustainable and ensures ongoing access, ensuring a workable middle school structure, and expanding language options for students.

Lindbergh currently supports a very rigorous, challenging program in these three traditional languages, and care was taken throughout the process to preserve these high quality programs that are proven to be good, high quality learning experiences for kids. Task force members reviewed other programs in the region and the ages at which students best learn new languages, and surveyed students to determine interest in expanding their World Language opportunities.

Proposed recommendations that were discussed by the Teaching and Learning Board Advisory Committee include:

• Beginning world cultures and language exploration in third grade with three current languages
• Provide middle school students an opportunity to select a language of choice for one quarter in sixth grade, followed by the same or different language selection in seventh grade
• Supporting competency-based entry to Level 3 of all languages in high school
• Consideration of American Sign Language offering as high school general elective
• Investigation of non-Western language option for high school level

Committee members broke into small groups to discuss content alignment, staffing and logistics at each level of instruction. This is an ongoing investigation by the district and a timeline for next steps has not been determined at this time.