Foreign Language Standards - Beginning Level

STANDARD I
Students comprehend the foreign language through listening to a variety of sources.
Benchmark A: Students obtain meaning from diverse listening sources.
Recognize memorized common expressions.
Demonstrate an understanding of vocabulary in context in simple survival situations.
Recognize cultural cues.
Recognize different intonation and stress.
Benchmark B: Students demonstrate comprehension of diverse auditory prompts.
Write appropriate responses.
Recall suitable rejoinders.
Respond kinesthetically.

STANDARD 2
Students speak in the foreign language for a variety of purposes and audiences.
Benchmark A: Students communicate in the foreign language in a variety of situations.
Express personal responses to oral, written, or visual prompts in predictable, familiar structures.
Report personal narrative accounts.
Report factual information gathered from a variety of sources in familiar, predictable situations.
Describe, using level-appropriate vocabulary.
List and recall.
Express personal opinions, likes, and dislikes on familiar topics with learned phrases.
Imitate and incorporate culturally appropriate non-verbal behaviors in familiar speaking situations.
Imitate appropriate social register.
Benchmark B: Students speak using a level-appropriate vocabulary, grammar, usage, and sentence structure.
Use basic pronunciation and intonation patterns.
Demonstrate some accuracy in oral situations when reproducing memorized words, phrases, and sentences.

STANDARD 3
Students read and derive meaning from a variety of materials written in a foreign language.
Benchmark A: Students use comprehension skills to understand text.
Employ word recognition skills, reading strategies, and resources to decode.
Increase vocabulary to ensure understanding.
Infer meaning of unfamiliar words in familiar situations.
Benchmark B: Students use information gained from reading.
Create a product.
Anticipate the outcome of highly predictable text.
Make interdisciplinary connections from the ideas presented in the text.

STANDARD 4
Students write in the foreign language for a variety of purposes and audiences.
Benchmark A: Students use a variety of modes.
Write personal responses to oral, written, or visual prompts, using familiar, memorized vocabulary.
Write to provide and/or obtain information in familiar, predictable situations.
Report factual information gathered from familiar sources to predictable settings.
Benchmark B: Students use a process approach to written communications.
Identify purpose and audience.
Use a variety of planning strategies.
Revise content through multiple drafts.
Self- and peer-edit.
Create a final product.
Benchmark C. Students write using level-appropriate vocabulary, grammar, usage, sentence structure, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.
Use correct grammar.
Reproduce correct register-level usage.
Reproduce a variety of sentence types and structures.
Reproduce correct punctuation and capitalization.

STANDARD 5
Students acquire and use knowledge of culture while developing foreign language skills.
Benchmark A: Students use the foreign language and culturally appropriate behavior patterns to convey meaning.
Identify everyday cultural characteristics.
Identify culturally appropriate gestures and expressions in personal interaction.
Recognize components of the foreign cultures’ social patterns.
Benchmark B: Students access cultural information available only in the target language.
Use foreign information via technology.
Use library materials in foreign language (e.g. periodicals, literature, reference, tapes, videos, etc.)
Identify signs and symbols in foreign cultures.
Benchmark C. Students analyze social, political, economic, and/or historical aspects of the foreign cultures.
Identify similarities and differences among cultures.
Identify geographical locations relevant to the language.