Foreign Language
At Tesseract, we prepare students to excel in college and beyond, lead lives of purpose, and become ethical and compassionate citizens with a global perspective. As we continue to move towards a more global society, the importance of understanding other cultures and being able to communicate in multiple languages is increasingly important. Through our core curriculum and foreign language program, students are exposed to the rich diversity and culture of Spain, Latin America and China as they learn to read, write and speak these languages in authentic situations.
Tesseract's foreign language program is based on the National and State Standards for Foreign Language Learning and utilizes Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS) techniques for a fun, active and participatory way of learning language. The long-sequence, well-articulated foreign language program at Tesseract is exemplary and essential for the education of today's globally-aware students.
Spanish
Spanish at Tesseract is a unique and exciting program—exceptional in its frequency of instruction, depth of cultural components, and dedication and talent of its educators.
In ninth grade, Spanish students continue to meet as a core class as they did in middle school. Students move on to Spanish 2, and begin to learn both forms of the past tense as well as the use of irregular verbs through short novels and other literary genres. By tenth grade, students learn advance grammatical structures solely through classic Spanish and Latin American literature and other mediums offered through online resources.
Adding to the curriculum from the middle school, high school students interact with native speakers in a virtual environment to practice their speaking and writing skills. In their junior year, students participate in a language-related class trip to Spain or South America, immersing them in the values and cultures of each locale while providing authentic opportunities to interact with native speakers.
Spanish I centers on the development of oral and written fluency, and is offered to students with no previous experience in a high school Spanish-language class. Students have the opportunity to further enhance their language skills (reading, listening, writing and speaking) in a comprehensible environment. Throughout the year, students also explore the similarities and differences among Latin American countries, further developing their knowledge and appreciation for Hispanic world cultures.
Mandarin
Designed for students with no prior knowledge of Mandarin, Mandarin I teaches basic language skills and cultural awareness. Students learn Chinese characters, frequently used vocabulary and grammatical construction as well as the Chinese sound system (Pinyin and tones) and writing system (strokes and characters) through communicative contexts. Like our Spanish program, this course also provides students with opportunities to communicate with native speakers locally, as well as abroad, in person and through online communication tools. As students progress through this course, they are able to understand, speak, read and write Mandarin, providing a solid foundation for future studies of Chinese.
In Mandarin II, students with elementary skills and knowledge in Mandarin begin to build a solid foundation of Mandarin Chinese through development of the five language skills: speaking, listening, reading, writing and cultural skills. By the end of this semester, students are able to converse in Mandarin with accurate articulation and tones, read and comprehend passages containing learned vocabulary items and sentence structures and write utilizing the correct stroke order for more than 200 Chinese characters.
In their junior year, students participate in a language-related class trip to China, immersing them in the rich culture of this country while providing authentic opportunities to interact with native speakers.
|
|
 |
