Honor Rolls

Core Requirements

At Cathedral High School, the Foreign Language Department has integrated the Massachusetts Foreign Languages Curriculum Framework in our program and has adopted the National Standards, which include the 5-Cs: Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities. We believe that students should graduate from high school able to read, write, and converse in a second language in order to participate in the multilingual, multicultural interdependent communities of the twenty-first century.

Students acquiring a new language pass through different stages of language proficiency as they develop their ability to use language for purposeful communication using the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. The Foreign Language program recognizes the importance of accuracy. Grammar continually spirals throughout all stages of language learning. In addition, cultural awareness is integrated throughout the curriculum. Traditional tests and quizzes, compositions, and assignments as well as performance-based assessments are an integral part of the instruction process. Projects enable students with diverse learning styles to demonstrate and develop their language skills, to personalize their work, and to share information about themselves, their family and friends in situations that are functional, authentic, and practical.

The Latin Program
The study of Latin and the Roman world gives us the opportunity to examine a very important segment of our own past. It brings us to a time when modern science and architecture were still in their infancy. We get a glimpse of the formation of many of the precursors of our own political and legal structures. We examine the context in which the Christian religion was born. We learn to recognize classical themes that are constantly reflected in Western literature. We learn the origin of most of our words in our own language. We find as well words and concepts that have shaped many major Western thinkers.

At all levels of instruction, texts are carefully chosen to introduce or reinforce vocabulary in context, to accurately represent the authentic Latin usage at a level of difficulty appropriate to the students, and to faithfully communicate Roman culture, practices, attitudes, and institutions. The Latin language is learned in the context of Roman culture and Roman culture through the medium of Latin language. As a result, students learn about both the Latin language and the Roman culture from the first day of Latin classes and throughout their course of study.