Terre Haute North Foreign Language Department

Welcome to the Terre Haute North Foreign Language Department page. Here you can find information on the course selection, faculty, and current news pertaining to the department. A page featuring useful links related to Foreign Language topics is also included as a helpful resource to parents and students. If you need to contact a specific faculty member, you can use the faculty list to contact the teacher via e-mail. The page will also contain a link to that faculty member's individual page if one is available.

Mission Statement:
The main purpose of learning a foreign language is communication. As our world becomes a smaller place, with newer and more far-reaching communications, interaction with other countries and/or with peoples of different cultures here at home becomes more probable and immediate. Foreign language is an essential part of our students' education and all students should learn at least one language in addition to English to prepare them for life in the 21st century.

The goal of the Foreign Language program at Terre Haute North Vigo High School is communicative proficiency for all of our students. Within the last decade, traditional approaches to teaching language have yielded to new, performance-based approaches that have a common focus on the student's ability to use the language beyond the classroom in real-life situations. Proficient students emerge from foreign language programs, able, to a measurable degree, to communicate in the language as it is written and spoken by native speakers. Students will have a functional ability to understand, read, write, and speak the language. Emphasis is placed on what the student can do with the language, independent of how the language was learned, what methods were involved or what materials were used.

Because language and culture are so inextricably bound together, students who are exposed to foreign languages develop a respect for and a tolerance of cultural differences, and, in doing so, develop a better understanding of their own culture. Everyone can learn a second language, but it is a life-long process, and, study should begin as early as possible and continue throughout post- secondary education and beyond.

(taken from the Shrewsbury, MA public school site (http://www.shrewsbury-ma.gov/schools/central/)

Course Listing: