Thursday 30 October 2008

Modern Foreign Languages


You will have to choose one of the following Modern Foreign Languages next year: (French, Portuguese, Mandarin). Remember the following:

As you progress through your education at school, a modern language will be of benefit to your personal and educational development in a variety of ways. It will allow you to establish contact with people of your own age who speak other languages and to access information from other cultures. It will help you to understand that experience of the world through another language can be just as 'real' and 'valid' as experience of the world through Spanish or English. It will offer you the positive experience of developing an entirely new mode of understanding and expression and an opportunity to acquire an explicit understanding of what the components of language are and how these may be manipulated for different purposes.

Keep in mind that you will have to show commitment at all times throughout the learning process. Good luck in your choice!

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Miss Ale
I am so excited to be going to middle school. I think that it will be an experience that i will never forget in my whole life. I have talked a lot of this with my parents and they have told me many things of the good uses of knowing another language. I think i am going to do french. I would choose french because my dad speaks a little french and i really like it. I would like to have a ocnversation in french and i really like how it sounds. So when i go to France i would be able to communicate better and be able to see all the wonders that France has. My second choice is mandarin. I chose mandarin as my second choice becuase when i was little i lived in Singapore where most of the people spoke chinese. i took a few classes of mandarin but i dont remember anything, because since i got hear i couldnt speak a little mandarin with anybody so i forgot all the words. One of my best friends was of Indonesia she spoke in a different language but luckily we could communicate through english. I really like the idea of going to visit Paris or Beijing. We are going to be able to see many extroardinary things. Going with are class mates is going to be even better because we are going to make lots of new friends and discover things together. I was really impressed be Mr. Andrew Haughton beacuase he can speak five or six different languages. If you know how to speak five different languages is because you have been most part of your life doing something you really really like and with alot of dedication to it. Maybe it is the only thing you have to do to get to know five different languages, study allllllll day. I think that if we all study the language we like we are going to get to see those places that we love it, but we also have to put a great time of dedication to learn that new language. I think that not everyone does French or Mandarin just because they want to learn how to have a conversation but ithink that they choose the best place that they like so they do that language and then go to that place that they really like. I really do it because i would love to speak another different language and help in anything. I think that middle school is going to be great. To learn all of those languages that we love is going to be even better. I really congratulate Mr. Andrew of all the talent that he has. Thank you for posting this. See you tomorrow.

Lucia V

Miss Ale said...

Hi Lucia:I think French is a good choice! Wow! I didn't know you lived in Singapore!

Anonymous said...

Miss Ale,
I am so anxious to go to middle school I think that in a way it is more challeging but It will be fun to be in the class with the punta chica girls and boys because they are all very nice. I have thought a lot about the language I am going to choose, but I still haven´t decided. Well in 1st place I have French, because in a near future I will maybe go to live to Europe, and in there they talk a lot of french and I will love to get there and at least understand what they tell me or teach me. And I LOVE France it is extremely beutiful! As the teacher today said in the presentation it is a marvellous place I REALLY LOVE IT! And I would like to comunicate with some French friends in her language because we talk by English. I really liked the presentation that Andrew showed us today inthe morning because he started talking in like 10 languages and it is great to start knowing how languages are realated to each other. Well I going back to the subject I had put Mandarin, Chinese, in the second choise but now I am not sure, my mothers believes (as Mr. Andrew) that it is the language of the future, but Im not sure :s, because I think it might be a little complicated, although I had this wonderful idea of going to china jajaja but after the three years I was going to do Music, because I really want it, but Im not sure enough now. I just hope that is French is my first choice they would choose it. I am very amazed of Mr. Andrew, because he can talk so many languages so easily and fluently it seems impossible, when he firsts started the talk it seemed impossible that he had said 10 languages !! waw, I am really amazed !! Thanks for putting this post so it help us think and reflect about the language. All the reasons he gave about the importance of languages are very true! He has a lot of talent teaching and learning, he might have learn very fast. I hope that if they choose me to be in French he would be my teacher, I think he make his talks very interesting and funny, because like today in his presentation everybody was quiet and paying attention. Thanks Mr Andrew for coming and teaching us! We learned about the importance of languages and spetially about the languages that we might learn the following years, and it is important to know very much about them before choosing.

See you and Thanks !!

Shany M

Anonymous said...

Miss Ale

I think that the languages we learn when we are kids stays with us all our lifes and as Mr. Andrew sayed if you know more languages you can compare them to your mother tung and also when you are learning other languages you not only learn the language they speak in that country you learn also the cultures of those countryes.

good bye

jack

Anonymous said...

Dear Miss Ale I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!
I had never thought that I will have the posibility of having so many languages to lear at school. I think it was a very good idea to include this extremly incredible language. I think that when you lear a new language you can open another door very very big, in your life, it helps you get so much confident and so much happy of your improvement, I do think that when I lear no matter how little bit I will now up to that point, I will remember for sure the moment I got my first English lesson in my lif, it was really exciting, but to get to lear mandarin, portuguese or even much more surprising, to lear mandarin wich is so so different from the languages we are used to. I think that French is very very good, and that's why I will most probably wrote it as my first choice. One of the reasons I will love to lear French is because my parents have gone on trips to Europe, France, and when they called I asked my father(my mother doesn't know that much) to talk to me a little bit of that special language and I have found it so so romantic and so so wonderfuly lovely that special way of pronaounceing it so fluent, I have really grew font of french. I also think that french will be a very interesting language to lear not only for those reasons, but it sound so wonderfully perfect that it may be so interesting to( if I ever get to go to Europe( have a fluence conversation with anybody, to order my food, to read some articles, just what Mr. Andrew has told us today at the meeting. I aslo thik that it will be great to choose French because of the time it takes you the obligatory course and another reason is that in the future I will love to do arts, but till now I don't know the language I will be finally assigned, but if I get to that specific year I will maybe have the opportunity to choose languages or arts,and who knows, maybe I get so so fully inspired by a certain language that I keep on with it. wich are the options I will have in mind when my parents come back from their trip for them to fill the page.I think that those are one of the most important facts that will be the reason of chooding French. Maybe Mandarin will be my second or third choice becasue thir way of speaking is so much complicated than what it is with spanish or english and their pronunciation of each word and the way thy write is completly different and it looked complitly messy to me, but maybe to other it will be much more easy than what it looked and sound to me. I think that I will write down Portuguese as my third option becasue this special language is kind of difficult and it sounds very very similar to spanish, so it will maybe be much more easy to learn it another year or maybe take extra curricular classes of my own learning thsi language, though I will conffesse that it's writing is not as similar as it's speaking, so it will maybe be fun and interesting to read and write and even talk in Portuguese, and that is one of the things I most like of languages, they make you an open-mind person and it will help you understant much more things than what you understand now. AND MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, IT WILL OPEN SEVERAL DOORS OF FRIEDSHIP WITH PEOPLE OF ANOTHER CULTURE, WICH I LOVE GETTING TO KNOW OTHER CULTURES!!!!!!
MISS ALE I'M SO SO ANCIOUSE TO GET TO MIDDLE SCHOOL TO LEAR NEW LANGUAGES AND CULTURES!!!!!!
MISS ALE THANK YOU FOR KEEPING US IN CONTACT WITH THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPEND EACH DAY!!!!!!!
BYE BYE
SEE YOU SOON...
CAMI W

Anonymous said...

miss ale:
Im so exited o learn a new language because as Andrew said you can do many things with laguages im going to choose mandarin
see you oli.b

Anonymous said...

Dear Miss Ale
I am very very anxious and nervous on going to middle school. This about the languages of the following next years is really a big thing. I mean, its a great decition you are making. First when they gave us the paper, I though: french, of course. I totally want french. But when Mr. Andrew came and talk about all the trips and the spelling and all that, I really started to doubt on my decition. I dont know If I should choose Mandarin, because i can play piano (last year I took piano lessons) So I am thinking of going in in the band. But if I take Mandarin, I cant play in the band, so I dont reaally know what to do !!! If Mandarin takes choir away from me, then I wont choose it. I love choir and I enjoy singing very much, so That I will not permit. But portugese is also a big challenge !!! But I really want to go to paris, to the trip, but also to the trip of Beijing !! MIss Ale, I am very confused !!! I have to talk to my parents and I will ask them to help me on my choice.
I think its grate that the school offers this languages, because as Mr. Andrew said to us, It will help us alot through out life, and so I am really looking forward to study a language. The problem is : I dont know wich one of them !! I wish we could do all of them, all the trips, but with band and art and choir. But I think I will choose french because my cousins live there, and know they have been there for almost 7 years, so I dont think they remember so much spanish ! Thats why I want to communicate in french. I think that its good that we get to know more and more other places like France and CHina and their cultures because that will give us a big future, if we are creative and not just think I dont want to learn I hate this. We must think about positive things, like TRIPS ! I LOOOOOVE french because It sounds so nice when they speak it ! I love to hear french allthough I dont understand A THING !!! (jaja) OHH IM SO ANXIOUS I CANT WAIT IM SO HOPIING ITS FEBRAURY OF NEXT YEAR AND I WONDER HOW THINGS ARE THERE !!!! I REALLY WANT TO GO !!!
SEE YOU BYE MISS ALE !
ANXIOUS OLI G

Anonymous said...

Miss ALe, I think that the next year we would have an enormous opportunity to learn different languages. I really don´t know what to choose because: the mandarin is very fun but also very difficult and it´s a very good challenge, but the good thing is that the journy to chine yould be exelent. My father want´s me to choose mandarin because he said that in the next 10 years the chineese yould grow a lot, in the population, in buissnes and in culture so it is very inportant to know it. The french is a good choose but it doesn´t have so many influence in our lifes like the portugais. But I think that the jouney to Paris yould be the best one because France has a lot of culture and we may also enter to The Stad Of France. The portugais is a very easy language and we are going to learn it vary fast and alsow is tne most similar to spanish. The that thing of choosing the portugaise is that Brazil is more near to Argentina and we can travel easyer compared to China that is much more expencibe the journy. I am really not desided. I hope I will find a option.
see you toomorow,


SAntos

Anonymous said...

Miss ale,
I think this is a great idea to choose 1 out of three languages between France, Mandarin and Portugies. I will choose Portugies because I want to make new friends that talk the same language that I like. last year you coudn t choose you had to do french yes or yes. So isay that Andrew has an enourmouse brain inside his head.

valetin. M

Anonymous said...

Hello mis ALe: I talked a little with my family and I first wanted portugues but then they told me that mandarin in the future would be very important and all the people would talk that becauseHALF OF THE WORlD COMES FROM CHINA wow isn´t it that great?????? the only bad thing that mandarin has is that you have to learn all the chracters and when this person came he told us ther were like 4200 CHARACTERS!!!! isn´t it a lot??? but I am thinking on mandarin a lot and I also want to go on a trip to beying jajaja it would be very funny and lovely. If I choose portuges I would communicate easily with many people but not many talk it and that it is not so used as the english. I am very confused between mandarin and portuges. The bad thing also about mandarin is that you don´t have music but you have band because it is after school and you are not learning at that time. At least you have a detention .
I am confused
bye
vicente.

Anonymous said...

Hi Miss Ale.
I am a little woried about of what i'm going to choose. I have talk with my parents and my brothers and all of them recomend Mandarin or French. But in school I have the big isue that lot of people will choose Portuguese because is the nearest country (really, is almost next to us) and is very easy. Before knowing that we will be alowed to choose 3 different languages, I was very exited learn French. But when this 3 options came my mind went crazy. I can really not know what to choose with all this presion and so this little time. I would love French, but some things are like bothering me with the theme that China would be a country that is growing so fast and that it has a very potential economy, it will expand and Chinese will be the idiom that would be talked in all the world (like now, inglish is talked by everyone). But that doesen't bother me so much. When I visited France, it was a super place but it was so imposible to understand tje people. So my mother told me (all the 2 weekends that I stead there) every time somedoy talked to me I would say "Yene parle pa france" wich it means "I don't talk french" Well that's another story.
The point is that I would love to study french, but Im really not so sure. I hope that my chose would be the correct one.
Good Luck! :¬)

Manuel B

Anonymous said...

Miss Ale:
I think this is a great opportunity that we are having so we have to take advantage of. By the way I am going to choose Portuguese!!! Because Mndarin is veruy difficult and french I already know it so its very easy. We are relly lucky that this idea has just happened this year so I am very excited. I would know 4 languages that I would take advantage off!!
Ines G.

Anonymous said...

Miss Ale...
I really like the idea that now we can learn 3 different languages this year for the first time. I cannot wait for me to know what language I am going to study next year. I really hope that I can learn my first choice (french) because at my school in Panamá I was studying french but I could not finish it, and when I finish french maybe I can study another language. So if I go to another country that speaks one of the languages I know it would be much easier for me and my family. If this year I pass the report card with an 8.5% I could go to Paris, France next year. So if I finish learning french it would be easier for me and my family... if they all go. The best part if you learn a language at school, we can go to one of the countries were they speak that language! That would be AWESOME!!!
See you on Monday,
Valerie P.

Anonymous said...

Miss ale!! I'm very excited on entering in the secondary, a new world, with a different level, with different exams, with different teachers and with different friends! They are asking us a lot of question for next year, like: what sport will I choose, which friends am I going to vote or what language will I choose. Some questions for me were easier and some questions were more difficult. The question of the sport I am going to choose was very easy because I knew that hockey is the sport I like the most so it wasn't a difficult question. The question of the friends I'm going to choose next year wasn't difficult but I couldn't think so much at home, I would have liked to tink it a little bit more because I wasn't at all convinsed. And the question of the 3 languages is the more difficult because I would love to learn Mandarin but it is very difficult.. portuguess is a good idea because I go frequently to Brasil and I have friends of Brasil that come here a lot of times, and when they come I don't know how to comunicate with them!!
I hope I can decide it quickly because in 2 weeks I have to decide it!! I loved this idea of posting a comment that has to do with this project because I get to know others ideas about the different languages!!
See you on Monday...
Love
Caro

Anonymous said...

Miss Ale
I am still thinking on what language to choose!! I already talked with my parents and we can't decide which language to chose. I really want to take advantege of the fact that we are going to be the first ones who get the choice of choosing a language and I don't want to give it away. We talked a lot with my parents and we said that Mandarin is a great language which is going to really help us in the future becuase China is doing very well, but also Brazil is doing very well, and as Brazil is nearer maybe it help more. And well, French we still didn't find some advantage but I really like French but now that we can choose other two languages I don't know which one to choose. With my parents we decided that know it is Portuguese, although every body tells that Portuguese is very easy to learn and that you learn it by going to Brazil, I think it is not that kind of easy, YOU CAN'T LEARN A LANGUAGE BY GOING ON HOLIDAYS 2 WEEKS! It is impossible, and what I want to really know Potuguese not just understand it. I want to have a very good conversation and I want to write easily in Portuguese, etc...
Well, but we are going to complete the page after the meeting on the 11th. Maybe we change ideas!
well, Miss Ale thank you for your tips
see you soon...
Kiki

Anonymous said...

Hi there!
I have a mixture of excitment and confusement because I´m really excited to learn a new language and also because we are passing to middle school. On the other hand I´m really confused because I don´t know which language I will choose. I´m between portuguese and french. I don´t want to do Mandarin because I think it is very difficult and because maybe in 3 years I would like to do music or art. The ones who choose mandarin are very brave because it is a very big challenge. I only speak english and spanish and I would love to learn a new language. It will help us have self confidence and we are going to learn about new cultures. It is a very difficult choice and I´m going to take a little bit of time to decide on it. I have live all my life in Argentina so I don´t know a lot of other cultures. I would love to visit Beiging, but the trip doesn´t have to be the reason why you choose a language. You have to really like the language to choose it. I really like portuguese and french so I don´t know which one to choose. I would love to hold a conversation with a person that speaks another language. I´m looking forward to this new method and I hope we can all enjoy it.
See you,
Barbie M

Anonymous said...

Miss Ale,
I am very exited and nervous because they ask you lots of things for next years so you realise there will be changes some things are more easy to decide like wich sport are you going to choose but then wich friends and what language. Really I am very undecided because I am between french and mandarin but there are also some bad things in the two well really not bad things. Because I find mandarin a amaizing languge because its very fun and I would like to learn a really new culture and all new things because it is very differnt to spanish or english but the "bad thing" is that it is for 4 years and I at that time I want to choose band or art I can't and another good thing is the trip. And in french it is a nice langue and also romantic but it is eassyer to learn and to find a place to learn but I liked it alot and I would also like the trip if I would go,it would also be more eassyer to learn it for me because nearly all my family knows but me no :(, and finally it would las 3 years like minimun so I could choose band or art it in those days I would like to choose it. My brothers and dads oppinion is that it much better for me to choose mandarin well my dad preffers for me to choose mandarin really he wants, and with my mum we agreed to wait till the 11th because is the day when they have all the explination but well I don't but I do know that I want french or mandarin.
See You,
Sofi F

Anonymous said...

Miss ale:
I think the idea of choosing another language and being able to have a conversation with it is really great!!! All oif them are very interesting and great languages to learn!!! I think I am going to choose mandarin because it serves a good future for me and for my family. The idea of learning mandarin I think that has its good and bad sides. The good one is that I am going to be able to learn such a nice language as mandarin, and that I will be able to visit beyging!!! Visiting beyging, such a lovely country, with all my friends!! That would be great and an experience I would never forget in my whole life!!! The bad side is that if I choose mandarin I will have to be very responsable of my work and I will really have to work very hard to learn it well. I am really excited of the idea of choosing one of this not so common languages in our country but very common in others. We will be able not only learning this languages but also learning the cultures of their country!! My second choice will be potugise. I think it is also a great language to learn and its not as difficult as mandarin. If I choose potugese I will be going to Brazil!!! welll to sum up, I think these modern foreign languages are a great idea that very few schools in Agrentina offer.
see you,
pili.m.

Anonymous said...

miss aale i think that we are very luky to choose 3 languages.We are braking an ice, we are the first school in argentina that give you 3 options for language.
maxi b

Anonymous said...

Hi Miss Ale.....
I am really excited to be passing or going to middle school (next door) because the new plan is so cool and I feel its going to be really fun and I am going to have lots of fun with me new classmates, the sad thing is that I am not going to be with all my friends again but the good side is thay I would have a chance to visit them at breaktime and spend it with me old friends and the other good part is that I am going to make new friends and that its is going to be really fun!!! I will choose french as a language because I love it because its a very interesting language and it is really romantic and a beautiful language and also because I had started studying like seven months ago (I think so...) Well I think that my second choice is portugese because it is interesting, fun and easy because it is like spanish but only that some words are changed....I think I would have a great time and achive a lot in middle school and secondary becasue I would learn in a fun way and that would make me like to learn and to study in a greater and easy and funniest way such as playing games and doing easy and fun activities such as crosswords, puzzels and wordsearchs... I would be very proud of me when I get to the end of school because I have done what I wanted becasue I will do (if I can) three years of french and then two years of art because I really love art and I really enjoy painting and drawing and also doing plastic arts would be my goal of art and if my mom leaves me to do it I would be really happy and proud of myself and it would be my goal of my life... and as you see ale I talked it with my parents and they agree with me for me to study french because I adore that language and I am studing at it right now, but my mom tells me that I should do four or five years of french and not art but I think that I would prefer three years of french and two years of are because I want to do the two things so I can make my goal of the life because when I grow up I would like to be a clothes dessigner and I would like to have my own shop with the clothes that I will dessigne... I will always keep that in mind and never forget it... I think I dont have any more things to tell so...
bye bye!!!

valen g.

Anonymous said...

Miss Ale
I am very excited to go to the middle school, because it is like starting a new life, also because in secondary we asr going to meet with the punta chica students. On the other hand I am a bit scared of all this change. Before I didn t like all this of learning another language, I thought that with English and Spanish I was all right. The Language I am going to do is portuguise,because it is a language that I can learn easily and also because of the economy of Brasil doing so well( not so well after the crisis)My second Language is French, I choosed this language as my second choice because I really like France.
see you
Max.k

Anonymous said...

Hi miss ale. i WANTY to be in middle school. Because what i have heard is that it is all diferant. differant subjects, differant mates and differant languages and as a further benefit in no other school we can choose portuguese or mandarin so it is a greay opportiunity and we have to take advantage of it so I think it is a great idea.

bye bye
thomas d

Anonymous said...

Miss Ale,
I am very exited and nervous to go to middle school. There will be a lot of changes and we have to choose between many things. We are going to change our groups and we have to vote our friends. We have to choose a sport. We also have to choose a language. I am very anxious to learn a new language. I love languages because they are fun and if you go to a country where they speak that language you can understand the people. I would like to learn the three languages but unfortunately we can only choose one. Anyway, I already know wich one I prefear. My first option would be french. If I could choose any language to learn (not only the three options we have), apart from spanish and english, it would be french so I am really happy that it is one of the three options. I like very much french because I think that it sounds really nice and I would love to go to France and understand when the people are talking. It is also a very romantic language. Another advantage about french is the trip. I would love to go to Paris. It is beatiful and there are a lot of places to visit. It would also be great to go with your friends because you have much more fun and you can see things and make new friends together. My second choise would be mandarin. It is very difficult but when you know it, it is great and you don´t find it so difficult. One disadvantage about learning mandarin is that you have to stay for four years and you can´t do and or band. Anyway, although I get french or portugese, I think that I won´t go to art or band and I would choose to do the language in the forth year because I learn it better. But maybe when I am in 10th I change my mind and I want to do art or band, and if I get mandarin I won´t be able to do that. But I think that the language is great and I would have a lot of fun learning it. The trip would also be great. I never imagined that we would travel to the country were they speak the language that we are learning. I can´t believe that some people are going to China in 10th!!! My third choise is going to be portugese. It is also very nice but it is much easier and I can understand the brasilian people without knowing potugese. And if I don´t understand something I can ask my mother because she speaks portugese very well. I think that this that the school is doing about the "Modern Foreign Languages" is great because it will make us know another language and we can even choose the one we want. I hope I get french but if I get another language I would also like it. A great benefit of knowing another language is that you can make new friends because you can understand them when they speak. Apart from speaking to people you can understand songs and movies and read books in that language.
Thank you for including this great post!!!
I loved it!!!
Have a nice weekend.
See you,
Sofi S