French

Due to scheduling difficulties, foreign language is taught as a nine-week enrichment unit in both fifth and sixth grades. During these two years, the French foreign language program uses a proficiency-oriented, approach to teaching the four basic skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing along with culture of French speaking countries. The program focuses on conversational skills used in basic situations with less emphasis placed on the formal presentation of grammar. The fifth grade course builds on the linguistic base needed for developing communicative skills by employing question-answer structures in various situations. In the sixth grade, somewhat more complex structures are introduced in a situational context in order to expand oral and writing skills.

The curriculum used is the “Accelerated Integrative Method of Language Learning” found in the Histoires en Action curriculum. This method is also known as the “Gesture Approach.” The basic classroom vocabulary and the plays are taught initially through gestures. Students are then given the play and practice reading the play as a class. Students are then divided into groups and given a role which they read from the text and eventually memorize. The students will perform the play, usually with an accompanying song and dance. They will also have written activities to do, such as questions to answer, sentences to illustrate with drawings, matching exercises, etc.

After the first few weeks during which basic classroom vocabulary is taught, students are expected to speak exclusively in French. In addition to the plays, seventh grade students are introduced to the grammatical concepts listed below through the daily oral and written interaction with the instructor and each other. Students are expected to be able to write short compositions in both the present and past tenses by the end of the year and converse comfortably on a rudimentary level in French.

The curriculum used is the “Accelerated Integrative Method of Language Learning” found in the Histoires en Action curriculum. This method is also known as the “Gesture Approach.” Eighth grade student are expected to converse exclusively in French, and become less and less reliant on gestures to maintain fluency as the year progresses. Eighth graders generally do one play and read one short book in French. They do one large project, such as a children’s book in French or a report on a famous French person or a French-speaking country. They also keep a daily journal for about three quarters of the year. Students also compete at the South Arkansas Foreign Language Association Festival against French I high school students

Spanish

The main objective of the Spanish curriculum at Southfield is oral comprehension and expression. This begins in the seventh grade. By the end of eighth grade, oral comprehension, expression, reading and writing skills are expanded to such a level that the students are prepared for high school Spanish.