Parker Boyles ‘24
Learning a language is a valuable opportunity that is too often taken for granted. Just the act of learning a language can provide you with skills far beyond communication with non-English speakers and experiences outside of the classroom. These skills include motivation, organization, and the ability to work independently to meet set goals, all of which are important to any class and useful in any situation.
To gain more insight on language at St. Andrew’s, I interviewed Ms. Clyburn, the Head of the Language Department, about the benefits of learning a language as well as the teaching philosophy of the language department as a whole.
According to Ms. Clyburn, the main goal of language classes is to focus on communication in the main three modes: interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational. “I think that allows us to teach in a more holistic way,” Ms. Clyburn said. She specifically emphasized the need for constant interaction with the language, more than class time, to be able to learn it effectively.
In my own life, I was originally surprised that after taking Spanish from elementary school to tenth grade that I was not at a higher level of understanding and communication. However, after learning more about language acquisition, I realized that language classes are a good start; nevertheless, if you want to retain your skills in the long-term, getting practice outside of the classroom is essential.
This practice doesn’t have to be something that feels like a chore though. If anything, having fun and letting go of expectations is the number one most important thing to do while learning a language, as it allows you to go at a pace that’s comfortable and keeps you motivated. This can lessen the stress of feeling like you need to get to a certain level by a certain time. The language department helps students with this by focusing on language acquisition as opposed to just memorization of terms, and making sure to emphasize lots of practice.
Reading in your target language can be especially helpful, and if you choose an interesting topic, fun too!
In my experience, learning a foreign language can be a struggle at times, but Ms. Clyburn encourages students to talk with teachers if they are stuck or unmotivated. “I think students should feel empowered to initiate those conversations with their teachers,” she said.
To combat feeling stuck or unmotivated, students should try to keep perspective on the overall purpose of their language journey and remember that each small amount of progress counts. However, Ms. Clyburn also said this responsibility goes both ways, as teachers should also be clear with their students about the purpose of each lesson. This can help students feel less “stuck” and also allow them to communicate to a teacher about unclear instructions or teaching. Ms. Clyburn also said that, ideally, teachers should be able to teach students executive functioning and metacognition skills and weave them into the course content.
The idea of curriculum coherence is also important to the language department. Skills should be apparent from level to level, and students should not feel that teachers in different class levels have different expectations. This is so that the transition from one level to another is smoother and allows them to incorporate what they learned previously into new areas. Curriculum coherence can also serve to add a greater feeling of progress for students, who are able to see the progression of their abilities.
I also discussed with Ms. Clyburn the “Seal of Biliteracy”, which is a seal that goes on a student’s diploma to verify that they have reached an intermediate or advanced level in the three modes of communication. This is something that the language department had started talking about in 2019, but COVID put it on the back burner. If implemented, the seal of biliteracy could increase student motivation as it represents a tangible goal to work towards that goes beyond the class. It also officially recognizes the time and effort students put in to gain valuable skills which will be useful to them throughout their lives.