The World Languages Department’s curriculum consists of three languages: French, Spanish, and Italian. All three languages are taught by native speakers.  Courses range from beginner to advanced levels.  An intermediate honors course is offered for students who have demonstrated a strong aptitude for language learning in their first year of language study. 

Ellington’s World Languages Department seeks not only to help students fulfill DCPS’s new graduation requirement of three (3) Carnegie units of a world language, but also to help them integrate the study of their art discipline with the world language that will be most useful to them in their chosen field.  For example, students in the Dance department study French to help them assimilate the terminology and general vocabulary of the movements associated with classical ballet, which are derived from the French language.  Likewise, students in the Vocal Music department study Italian, which is useful to them not only in understanding the lyrics of the songs and arias they study, but also in developing correct pronunciation.  Students of the Visual Arts, Literary Media, Museum Studies, Theater, Technical Theater, and Instrumental Music departments have a little more flexibility to choose among French, Spanish, and Italian, depending on their interests, which often center on the masters who influence them and whose artistic form they want to emulate.

Objectives

The World Languages Department provides students the necessary instruction, which is progressively moving toward using exclusively the target language in the classroom, materials and tools to help them achieve proficiency in French, Spanish, and Italian.  The department’s vision is guided by two important considerations, one ideal and the other practical. 

On the ideal side, the department hopes to use the study of the target language and its culture(s) to help students develop an increased sensitivity of “the other,” i.e., those who differ from them ethnically, linguistically, and culturally.  This awareness, we hope, will be a first but significant step toward bridging the imaginary barriers that separate humankind and promote discord in the world by nurturing in the young artists at Ellington the universal human desire and need for acceptance of our differences. 

On the practical side, the department seeks to make the Ellington student competitive in a global economy that requires more and more the knowledge of an additional language to negotiate one’s way in careers as wide-ranging as those with a strictly artistic or intellectual focus to those with an orientation to provide a service, be it military, rescue work, police work, sales, nursing care, etc.

Goals For Students

The goal of the World Languages department is to prepare students to:

1. Integrate their World Languages skills with their art discipline; and
2. Prepare them to compete in the global economy.

Departmental Goals

1. provide opportunities for all World Language students to master the basic elements of grammar and vocabulary of the target language.
2. To help students at the end of three years of study to achieve proficiency in writing and speaking.
3. To sensitize students to accept the validity of all cultures with which they come into contact.

To help students achieve proficiency or fluency by providing them opportunities to obtain scholarships to study on site and live short-term among people who speak the target language.

WORLD LANGUAGES SEQUENCE OF COURSES