6th Grade World Language

Mandarin: 6th graders continue to build their vocabulary and their skills with speaking, listening, reading, and writing, alongside the acquisition of cultural knowledge. Students learn and apply increasingly complex vocabulary and sentence structures, and content includes review of colors, body parts, outfits, and personal appearance. They learn new vocabulary related to imaginary creatures, countries, languages, school subjects, and a wide variety of aspects of daily life, including clothing selection, shopping, learning habits, social activities, and favorite interests. They continue to engage in many creative projects that highlight interaction and the confident use of speaking and listening skills. Students produce a fashion show related to elements of personal appearance and outfits, watch the film “Totoro” in Mandarin and then design, make, and share about their own original, imaginary creatures, produce their first original films entirely in Mandarin, share food in class celebrations, conduct interviews, and go on simulated shopping trips to choose items and bargain about prices. Students continue to practice study skills including flashcard practice, note-taking, and using study guides to prepare for oral and written assessments. Students periodically share their creative projects with the wider community at school assemblies. 

Spanish: 6th grade Spanish is filled with engaging projects and increasing interaction in the target language as students continue to build their skills with speaking, reading, writing, listening, and cultural awareness. Students learn and apply vocabulary and grammar in several areas, including more complex greetings and sharing of personal experiences, telling the time and date, calendars and longer units of time, weather, seasons, the body, personal preferences and activities, dialogues with friends about common activities, personality traits and relationships, school schedules and subjects, describing actions, ordering events, creating comparisons, and learning to indicate locations and possession. Students learn more complex adjectives, prepositions, irregular verbs and grammar structures and learn to compose affirmative, negative, and interrogative sentences. Projects and interactive experiences help students comprehend spoken language, use correct pronunciation, and gain skill and confidence with initiating and sustaining conversations, discussions, and interviews. Students are taught in Spanish and are encouraged and expected to speak in Spanish daily in class. Highlights include introducing themselves to their class with original video productions, writing emails, studying Hispanic Heritage month, bicycle racing, advanced counting and numeracy, creating infographics about recycling and sustainability, learning songs and dances, and studying holidays and traditions across multiple Spanish-speaking cultures. 

In 6th grade, we also offer an introductory/accelerated Spanish class for students who have little or no experience learning a second language. 6th grade is an entry point, and we regularly have several students joining the grade for whom language learning is a new experience. Students placed in this section experience an accelerated arc of learning designed to help them arrive at the same level of proficiency as their classmates as they approach graduation from Mark Day.