In order to effectively learn a language, fun activities in situation and peer-to-peer interactions are paramount. Differentiation is also extremely important.
This year, since a substantial number of students do speak Spanish fluently, a new approach and curriculum is being implemented in Spanish class across the middle school grades in order to build their skills toward high school Spanish. Advanced speakers also routinely interact with regular learners. These interactions effectively empower them to lead activities, and this is beneficial for everyone: reinforcement of regular learners’ language skills, meaningful interpersonal dialogs and activities, advanced speakers’ self confidence reinforcement and leadership skills’ development.
Enjoy a sample of pictures from the Spanish class that show how visible learning can be!
Congratulations to all students and their teacher, Ms. Patino!
6th grade
7th grade
8th grade
The SDFAS Volley Ball team played against Rhoades on campus last week, and they played at the Cambridge School yesterday. Go Stringrays!
The Cross Country team competed at San Dieguito Park yesterday. SDFAS students did incredibly. Team results were:
And individually, SDFAS won 7 medals!
Congratulations to all students and their Athletic Coach, Ms. Seidel!
Spearheaded by the School Humanitarian Committee made of faculty, students and parents, the SDFAS community joined efforts to collect supplies in a 24-hour relief drive for the Mexico earthquakes disaster on Monday September 25 and Tuesday September 26.
The Humanitarian Committee also promoted help to victims of Harvey, reaching out to the Awty International School which is par of the AEFE school network. The Humanitarian Committee’s mission is to set up an emergency response task force as well as selecting actions to be conducted throughout the year.
Thank you to all of you for the donations, and thank you, young and older students, for your help and diligence to help out sorting and packing the supplies for Mexico. Thank you to our parent volunteer for taking care of delivering the donations to a charity across the border. Finally, thank you to Ms. Seidel for accepting to lead the Humanitarian Committee this year, and thank you to the members of the Committee.
Yesterday, SDFAS 5th to 8th graders participated in their first Cross Country meet for this season.
Thank you to our parent photographers for sharing their beautiful pictures! Enjoy!
Every week for the first trimester, the 6th grade students will enjoy their ceramic workshop as part of their “Artist in Residence” program. Artist and Ceramist Jacob Johnston (also a parent of an elementary student) teaches various techniques to make art pieces with clay.
MS clubs have now started! Students enrolled in the French Theater Club (La Troupe) and the Spanish Theater Club have now embarked on a journey which will climax with their performances on Thursday May 10, 2018 at SDFAS. For now, they are learning to know and trust each other as acting partners.
As part of this year project, SDFAS would organize a Multilingual Theater Event “Drama in progress” in the Spring, where SDFAS students would have the opportunity to meet with drama troupes from several San Diego Language Schools (German, Italian, Greek speakers and more).
Contacts: Ms. Addo (La Troupe) – Ms. Patino (Spanish Theater Club)
The Kick Off session of the EUSTORY/ WWI project took place on Saturday September 16, 2017 at SDFAS with students from the German Pacific School!
EUSTORY is a contest for students in French and German middle and high schools, organized by French and German institutions such as the Institut Français and the Goethe Institute. The purpose is to keep memories of events alive, promote cross cultural understanding, promote peace between nations, and give a fun and interesting opportunity for French and German students to work together.
Our 4 SDFAS students and 4 German Pacific School students and their parents got the opportunity to meet each other, and made a first exploration of the theme “Peace in War”. We also watched an excerpt of the movie “Joyeux Noël”.
Contest entries must be submitted by March 25, 2018.
For more information, please visit www.eustory.fr
Learning a language is all about using the language in context: hands-on activities such as cooking are a very active, effective and fun way of learning vocabulary and developing language skills. And the rewards are delicious tortillas to snack with!
(Ms. Patino)
6th grade students worked hard this week in Science class in French: they had to draw a timeline featuring the history of space conquest and major scientific discoveries . Another major objective of the class was collaborative work.
(Ms. Denis)
