The Har-Bur Middle School World Languages Team is part of the grades 4-12 continuum of foreign language study in Region # 10. The program addresses the needs of the entire student community. Har-Bur recognizes adolescence as a time of exploration and transition. Accordingly, the team offers students the opportunity to expand beyond their own cultural parameters. To this end, we will create a positive attitude toward the study of foreign language and emphasize foreign language as a communicative experience in listening, speaking, reading and writing. The students will gain knowledge of and a respect for other cultures, expand their knowledge of disciplines and gain insight into their own language through the Har-Bur team approach.
We believe that instruction must address students' different learning styles, kinds of intelligences and abilities if they are to be successful language learners. In addition, our knowledge of the characteristics of middle school children indicate that they learn most effectively when they are actively engaged, can manipulate language themselves, apply previous knowledge and draw their own conclusions. Finally, we feel that communicative competence demands more than a sequential learning of grammar and vocabulary. Students must use the language itself to communicate; that is, to speak and understand, to read and comprehend and to acquire complex concepts related to culture and communication.