In November, 2007, Dr. Eric W. Anderson and his team presented an introductory training session on the Natural Language Method which emphasizes speaking and listening skills in the early stages of language acquisition and reading and writing in the later stages. Participants included the World Languages Dept faculty and academy and high school foreign language instructors. Participants were given the opportunity to teach a group of volunteer students using the new performance-based system of language acquisition. Using the target language as well as English, students are asked to deduct the new language structure from visual and auditory sources.

Students move very quickly to a useable oral/aural level of the target language so that the reading and writing skills come more easily. Our department is seeking outside funding to train our instructors and implement this methodology in most or all our language classes.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008