Middle School
Buenos Amigos
Daily Spanish class in fifth grade readies students for high-school level Spanish as early as next year. The fifth-grade Spanish curriculum deliberately parallels the Science curriculum, so your child will acquire vocabulary, read, and speak in Spanish about topics such as the environment, food chains and webs, and forces and motion. As always, our teachers make learning joyful, with games and projects that engage, delight, and challenge even the most hesitant language learner.
A student favorite is the transportation unit, during which your child will design and build a vehicle and describe it to her classmates. By learning through meaningful contexts and real-life situations, students begin to understand how learning a foreign language can enhance their lives.
As students continue through our Middle School, the Spanish curriculum follows a progression of year-long courses—Spanish 1A, Spanish 1B, and Spanish 2—regardless of the grade level at which a child begins. Most ROBS students complete Spanish 1A and 1B, and many complete Spanish 2. In spring of their eighth grade year, students usually take a Spanish placement exam at the high school they plan to attend. The majority place out of Spanish 1; many also score well enough to place out of Spanish 2. Some high schools accept incoming freshmen into Spanish 3; others do not allow freshmen in junior-level classes and thus create classes such as Honors Spanish 2 or Native Spanish 1 for freshmen with advanced Spanish skills.
