Lissette Laboy, ESL and Language School District Coordinator Grades K-12

516-345-7010

Communication skills and cultural understandings for all students is the goal for the Language Department in the Roosevelt UFSD. At this point, the RSD offers Spanish and French as part of the language program.  Sequences in any of these languages offered will satisfy the requirements for a Regents diploma.

The RSD Language program follows the NYS Language Standards 

The accomplishment of these standards serves several purposes:

• to develop the ability to communicate with native speakers
• to provide an entree into many aspects of another culture
• to develop skills that will be needed in the world of work
• to cultivate the development of a firm foundation for lifelong learning.

Together with the NYS Language Standards he RSD follows the National Association of District Supervisors of Foreign Language identified Characteristics of Effective Foreign Language Instruction.  They can serve as a good summary to the school district proficiency-oriented philosophy of second language instruction. These guidelines are shared in the belief that they provide a basis for common understanding and communication among evaluators, observers, and practitioners in foreign language classrooms.

• The teacher uses the target language extensively, encouraging the students to do so.
• The teacher provides opportunities to communicate in the target language in meaningful,

purposeful activities that simulate real-life situations.

• Skill-getting activities enable students to participate successfully in skill-using activities.
• Skill-using activities predominate.
• Time devoted to listening, speaking, reading, and writing is appropriate to course objectives and to the language skills of the students.
• Culture is systematically incorporated into instruction.
• The teacher uses a variety of student groupings.
• Most activities are student-centered.
• The teacher uses explicit error correction in activities which focus on accuracy, and

      implicit or no error correction in activities which focus on communication.

• Assessment, both formal and informal, reflects the way students are taught.
• Student tasks and teacher questions reflect a range of thinking skills.
• Instruction addresses student-learning styles.
• Students are explicitly taught foreign language learning strategies and are encouraged

      to assess their own progress.

• The teacher enables all students to be successful.
• The teacher establishes an affective climate in which students feel comfortable taking risks.
• Students are enabled to develop positive attitudes toward cultural diversity.
• The physical environment reflects the target language and culture.
• The teacher uses the textbook as a tool, not as curriculum.
• The teacher uses a variety of print and non-print materials including authentic materials.
• Technology, as available, is used to facilitate teaching and learning.

Adapted from: Sandrock, Paul and Yoshiki, Hisako. A Teacher’s Guide: Japanese for Communication. Wisconsin
Department of Public Instruction, Madison, Wisconsin, 1995.

“The study of another language enables students to understand a different culture on its own terms. The exquisite connection between the culture that is lived and the language that is spoken can only be realized by those who possess the knowledge of both. American students need to develop an awareness of other people’s world views, of their unique way of life, and of the patterns of behavior which order their world, as well as learn about contributions of other cultures to the world at large, and the solutions they offer to the common problems of humankind. Such awareness will help combat the ethnocentrism that often dominates the thinking of our young people”.

Standards for Foreign Language Learning: