Havergal College Course Calendar, 2016-17 Academic Year

Havergal College teaches languages to young women so they will excel beyond mere linguistic competence and expression and begin to think about, imagine, participate in and understand the complex and diverse world beyond their own linguistic community. The learning of languages is not just central to establishing a more civil, just and equitable world; it is the essential golden key that will help prepare young women to make a difference, to become leaders who strive to fulfill all of the school’s IDEALS. Enduring understandings for language learners: 1. Learn a Language. Learning a new language links us to the larger world, opens our minds and helps us to know ourselves and express ourselves in a richer way. The department’s aim is for students to acquire new language skills for them to function in a community of native speakers of the language. 2. Encompass the World. Students will be able to make connections between the language they are learning and other disciplines of study, whether in the Arts or the Sciences. They will begin to understand that in the smaller world where we are more closely connected and more deeply divided, language is the only way we have of speaking across the divide. The lack of language skills limits our ability to understand, respond, participate, work and play in today’s world. A person who learns a new language becomes engaged in new parts of a cultural mosaic from which she was previously excluded. 3. Expand your Mind! Language is a source of personal enrichment, both cultural and mental. Students will experience for themselves—inasmuch as human beings are the only animals endowed with logos or language—how the study of a new language fulfills, satisfies and completes their humanity. Students develop a wide range of higher-order thinking skills: processes of alertness, attention to detail, memory, logic and critical reasoning. As a result, they become more aware of English grammar, strengthen their English vocabulary and are more able to learn other languages—all key skills in the development of self-knowledge and self-expression. The values of self-knowledge and self-expression are the cornerstones upon which human beings may grow, develop and flourish.

92  HAVERGAL COLLEGE | Course Calendar 2016–2017