6th Grade World Languages

For most students at Overlake, choosing a language in 6th grade represents a 6- or 7-year journey that leads toward ultimately achieving a high level of proficiency which can allow one to live, work, and attend universities abroad. This is one of the first opportunities to make a major decision about the future of your own learning.

The Overlake School’s world language program offers four areas of study – French, Latin, Mandarin, and Spanish. All of our languages are taught via immersion, and classes are conducted almost entirely in the target language. Culture receives a strong emphasis across the board, and even the ancient language of Latin is taught using rich cultural celebrations as a vehicle of learning. 

There are many things to keep in mind when choosing a language. Below is a sampling of some of the ways that we explore language at Overlake. For more information, please refer to the online Curriculum Guide, or contact one of our language department faculty.

Course offerings are subject to a minimum enrollment. If not enough students register for a language, that course may not run. This is why we ask students to list their top three choices.

 

Language Options

To help you make an informed choice, please consider these details about your Overlake studies:

In French, you can:

• Explore the rich tradition of Francophone arts. Experience French theater, global music in French, and other performing arts. Publish your own poems in the yearly magazine “Le Hibou”
• Engage with people from all over the world. French is truly a global language, spoken on every continent, and our classes exchange letters with students in Senegal
• Experience the deep and influential literary history of France, including reading Victor Hugo’s masterpiece Les Misérables in upper school
• Visit Paris during Project Week, see the Eiffel Tower, explore the Louvre, eat croissants on the Champs Élysées and spend a week in a homestay with a Parisian family

In Latin, you can:

• Wander the paths of Roman history with the Romans as your guide by reading their own words
• Wear your toga and experience the lives of the Romans by participating in authentic re-enactments of ancient festivals and rituals
• Impress your friends with your vocabulary expanded by exploring the Latin roots of English
• Immerse yourself in the mythology, art, and literature that laid the foundation for Western Civilization by joining us on the Ancient Field Studies Project Week trip to Rome
• Dive into the unusual, unique (and sometimes weird!) world of the ancient Romans

In Mandarin, you can:

• Engage in weekly activities to celebrate the Chinese New Year, including creating New Year wishes written with traditional Chinese calligraphy (brush pen writing) and making festive handcrafts like Chinese knots, paper cutting arts, and decorative holiday lanterns
• Prepare traditional Chinese cuisine, including dumplings, sticky rice cakes, longevity noodles, and partake in traditional tea ceremonies
• Travel to your teacher’s hometown in China and experience a firsthand view of Chinese culture in a homestay exchange
• Spend Project Week at a martial arts studio and study under a Kung Fu master

In Spanish, you can:

• Explore the rich diversity of the Spanish speaking world and the 21 countries where it is an official language
• Take advantage of the easy accessibility of Spanish in our own culture as a bridge to study other Romance languages like Italian, Romanian, Portuguese, and French
• Experience a variety of real world immersion opportunities during Project Week – trekking the Incan trail and Machu Picchu in Perú; Service learning in Uruguay; Latin American journalism in Nicaragua and Cuba
• Learn about the influence of Islamic culture on the West by visiting the Alhambra in Granada and the Great Mosque of Córdoba during the month-long Intercambio exchange trip