sex and education

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Language Education toIEveryone

Bringing World

2011, the Weybridge Elementary School

went global.

 

Nestled in a bucolic village of 800residents in Vermont’s  Champlain Valley, the tiny

school, which has 50 students in K-6, becamethe first in Vermont to offer high quality, online world language instruction to its students.

Certainly, school leaders, including Weybridge Principal Christina Johnston, recognized the benefits of second language acquisition for younger learners. It seems like every week a new study is released that shows how learning a language can boost critical thinking skills, creativity, cultural awareness, empathy and memory. Learning languages also better prepares students for academic and career success. Despite the proven benefits of early language learning, many elementary schools don’t offer world language programs. Traditional language programs areexpensive and trained language teachers, especially in languages like Chinese, are difficult to find.

In 2009, Weybridge began a limited brick and mortar Spanish language program. In 2011, Weybridge seized the opportunity to incorporate a more comprehensive, digital learning program in order to increase the scope and frequency of instruction and practice, and extend language learning into students’ homes.

The school worked closely with Middlebury Interactive Languages, the leading provider of online and blended language instruction, to integrate the blended courses into their curriculum. Middlebury Interactive is a joint venture between Middlebury College and K12, Inc. that has taken the pedagogy of Middlebury College’s famed Language Schools and adapted it to

the online and blended learning environments. The partnership allowed Weybridge to deliver its

students access to the nation’s best world language curriculum developed by top language professors and authentic language and cultural material in a dynamic blended learning environment. The program uses original online content (videos, animation and task-based activities) to help students understand

language and culture.

Weybridge’s Spanish Program was designed to Prepare students who begin the Spanish program

in kindergarten, by the end of the 8th grade, to achieve the intermediate level in all skill areas:

listening, speaking, reading and writing, as out lined in the American Council on the Teaching of

Foreign Languages (ACTFL) guidelines.

Learn how one small Vermont school’s “transformative” decision to create a

blended learning program has galvanized its students, faculty and community.