Learning Languages

In Learning Languages, students learn to communicate in an additional language, develop their capacity to learn further languages, and explore different world views in relation to their own.

Beliefs

We believe that learning a new language provides a means of communicating with people from another culture and exploring student’s own personal world.

Learning Goals

Through our teaching and learning programmes our students should:

• Understand how languages link people locally and globally.
• Understand how oral, written, and visual forms of language link us to the past and give us access to new and different streams of thought and to beliefs and cultural practices.
• Know that TeReo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) are official languages of New Zealand
• Appreciate that languages and cultures are systems that are organised and used in particular ways to achieve meaning.
• Interact in a new language
• Acquire knowledge, skills, and attitudes that equip them for living in a world of diverse peoples, languages, and cultures.
• Develop their understanding of the power of language

Teaching and Learning Guidelines

Our teaching and learning programmes will:

• Level 1 of the curriculum is the entry level for students with no prior knowledge of the language being learned, regardless of their school year.
• A new language will be taught in Years 7 and 8 following the Curriculum Overview 2 Year Plan
• All year levels will experience Te Reo Maori
• Provide meaningful contexts
• Be integrated across the curriculum, with Inquiry  Learning Units, and taught as Stand-Alone Language lessons as appropriate
• Model and teach languages especially Te Reo 
• Link to key competencies, principles and values
• Consider the learning environment – intellectual, emotional, physical, and cultural engagement
• Use a variety of teaching strategies
• Incorporate ICT and Thinking Skills when appropriate
• Make use of staff strengths and community expertise

Planning

• The New Zealand Curriculum will provide the basis for the teaching and learning programmes.
• Refer to MOE resources when planning e.g. French (Oui), German (Ja), Spanish (Si), Japanese (Hai) etc modules, TKI
• Planning will follow a coherent pathway from curriculum plans to long term plans to unit or weekly planning to teaching and learning
• Assessment data and information about students will be used to determine the teaching and learning programme.

Assessment

Information on student achievement will be gathered and analysed through a range of assessment practices e.g. rubrics, self/peer assessment, observation, etc.