Ashely Kim ’23
Riya Mukherjee ’23
Erin Bilbao, current Upper School Spanish teacher, will take the position as the head of the World Language Department starting next year. The middle and upper school world lanuage departments will also combine under her leadership. “Currently, the world language department is broken into across the three divisions,” Bilbao explains. These three divisions are Upper, Middle and Lower school, and right now they each function independently. However, when Bilbao assumes the position, she will be responsible for overseeing grades six through twelve as a whole. This includes curriculum development, emphasizing a cohesive program from Pre-K to 12th grade.
Bilbao, over the course of 5 years, will be moving the department to a proficiency based grading scale and program: “Right now… [we have] a traditional linguistic approach where there is a lot of focus on grammar. There’s one way to get a right answer. When you get a grade back, it’s just a number and there isn’t really any descriptive feedback attached to it.” She describes the new proficiency based grading scale and program as having a “focus on application, communication, what you can actually do with the language, and in that type of format there is more than one way to get to the answer… because what you are really looking at is how well can this student communicate across presentational, interpretive, and interpersonal modes using the four skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening.” This holistic approach means the program will have a greater emphasis on content, culture and the bigger picture as opposed to grammar and smaller details.
Bilbao recognizes that this change will not occur overnight; it will be more of a gradual shift that will happen over a few years. Teachers will have a lot of training with this new approach, and students will begin to see small changes. The hope is students will be exposed to a broader understanding of the foreign language they are pursuing.
As for now, students may start to notice more content-based lessons in their classrooms. Bilbao is piloting some of the ideas that could be implemented in future curriculums in her own classes. For example, Spanish 2 is starting a health and well-being chapter with an emphasis on things actually relevant in EA students’ lives. Bilbao says, “You [should] know how to exercise, you [should] know how to eat right, [because] this is an athletic school…Instead of memorizing a bunch of vocab about random gym equipment, our homework this chapter [goes beyond] just doing grammar exercises. The students are going to have to do things like a 15 minute yoga video in Spanish, and then reflect upon how that affected them before they went to sleep, did it help them rest more? We are going to take a look at a lot of authentic resources- articles, videos that are for Spanish speakers by Spanish speakers.” This will focus on culture as well and differences from Spanish speaking countries to our own.
These changes will not only apply to Spanish programs, but to Mandarin and French classes as well. Bilbao will be working with her colleagues over the next few years to establish the gradual implementation of a proficiency-based model as well, and expects it to run similarly as Spanish.
Mike Letts, Head of Upper School, says, “We’re thrilled to have Senora Bilbao lead our new combined, 6-12 world language department…She is an enthusiastic, highly organized, and knowledgeable teacher who has a solid vision for where she would like the department to go and believes firmly in a student-centered approach. She is dedicated to our students at every level and has built strong relationships with her colleagues during her time at EA that will serve her well as she builds a team across both units.”