[lg policy] Midvale Middle School: Middle Years Programme Language Policy

[Harold Schiffman]

Midvale Middle School
Middle Years Programme Language Policy

Philosophy

Language is the fundamental basis of all learning.  Therefore, all
educators are language teachers.  Each teacher has a responsibility to
help students learn how to communicate understanding and knowledge in
their subject areas.  We strive to help students become proficient in
both their mother tongue and a second language.

Diversity of Language Needs

English is the language of instruction for our school.   All students
take a Language A class in English.

Students also learn at least one language in addition to their mother
tongue.  To work towards this goal students take a Language B class.

Students select a language from the following options:
-	French
-	German
-	Mandarin Chinese
-	Spanish

The Language B class allows students to fulfill the requirement of a
minimum of 50-hours of instruction each year.  The one exception is
students who are below reading grade level must take a reading class
during their 7th and 8th grade years or first two years of the
program.  It is a local requirement for students to take a reading
course when they are below grade level.  Therefore, upon meeting our
local requirement students are enrolled in a Language B class.
Students are screened for reading ability three times every year.
Screening occurs in the fall, winter, and spring.  The SRI or
Scholastic Reading Inventory is the assessment tool we use to
determine proper placement for each of our students.  Seventh grade
students with an SRI score below 1050 are enrolled in a reading class.
 Eighth grade students with an SRI score below 900 are required to
take a reading class.  Once students meet the grade level SRI score,
they take a Language B class.

English is the primary language of communication for our school.
However, Spanish is the mother tongue for a fair percentage of our
school.  Thus, school to home communication is provided in both
English and Spanish whenever possible.  In addition to Spanish, we
also have a wide range of types of mother tongue within our school
community.  These include Bulgarian, Cantonese, Chinese, Farsi,
Filipino, Goshute, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Navajo,
Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Samoan, Somali,Tagalog, Tamil, Telugu,
and Zuni.  Our language diversity is one of our strengths.   We value
diversity and strive to give our students opportunity to share their
knowledge and experiences with others.

Reading is a language need of our school community.  As mentioned
above, local requirements require students take a reading course if
they are below grade level.  A portion of our school comes from low
socioeconomic backgrounds with significant deficiencies in reading
abilities before entering our school.  It is a priority of our school
to help these students become proficient in reading language skills.

A variety of teaching strategies are used to help facilitate language
acquisition skills.
Our goal is to help increase interaction, comprehensibility, and
thinking skills.  The following strategies are used to help students
succeed:

Increase interaction: cooperative learning groups, think pair share,
small groups, jigsaw, four corners, peer tutoring, hands-on and
higher-order thinking.

Increase Comprehensibility: explicit direct instruction, scaffolding
instruction by pre-teaching vocabulary, slowing rate of speech, visual
aids, modeling instruction, graphic organizers, pre during and post
reading strategies.

Increase Thinking Skills:  numbered heads, explicit questioning,
question story matrix and list group label.

More at: https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=bsp&ver=ohhl4rw8mbn4

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