Language education and cultural studies — two tracks, one mission
A six-level curriculum that takes children from reading their own name to reading short stories, holding conversations and translating in both directions.
Proficiency is measured by what a child can do in the language, not by a list of grammar points. Topics come back at every level, each time with more depth and precision. Take family:
Names the members of the family.
Describes family members and what they like to do.
Talks about family in detail, recounts shared events and future plans.
Discusses ideas about family life and its place in the culture.
In the classroom, teachers use Total Physical Response: children answer spoken words with movement, the way a toddler learns a first language, before speaking and writing come.
क का कि की कु कू
Culture runs through all four: holidays compared with those in the United States, the states of India, and the customs of the families who speak each language.
Assessment includes authentic tasks, interim checks and students' own self-assessment, so children and parents can see progress through the year.
The curriculum follows the proficiency levels of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and New Jersey's Core Curriculum Content Standards for World Languages: students use a language besides English to converse, to understand and interpret what they hear and read, and to present ideas, while coming to understand another culture.
Classes in Hindi, Gujarati and Telugu, placed by level so every child starts where they are and keeps moving up.
Read the full curriculum (PDF)Summarized from the Vidyalaya language curriculum for Hindi, Gujarati and Telugu (developed 2010, revised October 2014).