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.
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