Middle School World Language
	The primary goal of world language study at IDS is to provide students with the opportunity attain a higher level of understanding of the structures of language through focus on Spanish and Latin.  We encourage students to make linguistic connections among Latin, English and Spanish. The World Language program in the Middle School at IDS develops a student’s ability to communicate by every means—speaking, writing, reading and listening. We enhance more than language skills here. We enrich, too, students’ appreciation and perspective of people and cultures throughout the world. The sequence of study of World Language in the Middle School at IDS is as follows:       Grade 6: Latin       Grade 7: Spanish       Grade 8: Spanish Latin: In the sixth grade, students establish and strengthen daily language learning behaviors. They learn to identify the core elements of Latin: its parts of speech, roots and endings.  The end goal is to communicate with limited fluency in both spoken and written Latin, and to have a stronger grasp of its cognate relationships with Spanish and English.  Students learn more of Roman and medieval culture and history, and gain valuable experience at recognizing the Latin roots of their own language and heritage, as well as its connections to Spanish. Spanish: We offer sections of Spanish to accommodate a range of proficiencies and provide intimate classroom settings for students to practice their Spanish communication skills. Spanish textbooks support the class curriculum and guide the trajectory of our learning. We go beyond these to make each student a confident and capable speaker, listener, reader and writer of the language. Through creative projects and research presentations, we not only acquire essential Spanish skills but also apply them in effective communication. As elsewhere at IDS, our approach to the subject is an interdisciplinary one. Drop in on any Middle School World Language class and you might find students putting their foreign language skills to unusual uses.  In Latin they might record radio ads, translate a passage from Virgil or Tacitus, create a villa rustica or guide a virtual tour of the forum Romanum. In Spanish, they may write episodes of a telenovela, produce fashion shows, eat tortilla española, watch flamenco dance, or contemplate the art of Pablo Picasso. Our students absorb language through all the senses, to make it a living, breathing part of their own lives.