BY JOHN SNYDER
OF PASCACK PRESS
MONTVALE, N.J.—Congratulations to the dozens of seniors from Pascack Hills and Pascack Valley high schools who recently earned the New Jersey Department of Education Seal of Biliteracy.
Following voluntary testing in October 2018, 72 percent of the students who self-nominated proved at least “intermediate-mid” proficiency in listening, reading, writing, and speaking a second language—in this round, French, Italian, Spanish, and Russian—as well as dazzling in English.
Twenty Pascack Hills High School students and 24 Pascack Valley High School seniors crushed the test. The seal burnishes their transcripts just in time for college applications.
Approximately 60 juniors stepped up to request testing next week.
According to Noemi Rodriguez, Pascack Valley Regional High School District supervisor of World Languages, the district offers world language sequences in Spanish, French, Italian and Chinese, with honors societies in all four.
There are dual-enrollment options for seniors.
Rodriguez said that in the three years the district has offered this testing, local students—hailing from Hillsdale, Montvale, River Vale, and Woodcliff Lake—earned the seal in at least four additional “heritage languages,” or those the students have at home: Hindi, Mandarin, Polish, and Korean.
Against this backdrop, a vibrant exchange program, now in its 10th year, is poised to have seen local students hosted in Italy, Spain, France, and Taiwan.
“We believe that our students benefit in their thinking skills by learning how different language systems operate, how languages influence one another, and how different cultures express ideas,” she told Pascack Press on Jan. 16.
She added, “The acquisition of a second language is imperative in today’s global society.”
The Seal of Biliteracy was an initiative started by Californians Together in 2008 to acknowledge and award hardworking bilingual and multilingual students. It became legislation in California in 2011.
In January 2016, New Jersey became the 15th state to implement a legislated statewide Seal of Biliteracy.
The Garden State says the seal prepares students with 21st century skills, strengthens intergroup relationships, affirms the value of diversity, and honors the multiple cultures and language of a community.
“The Seal of Biliteracy opens up a sea of vast opportunities for those pursuing higher education or joining the workforce. As the world increasingly becomes more global, the need for employees with bilingual and multilingual skills has also been increasing,” the NJ DOE says.
The state requires students take at least one year of a second language. Pascack Valley Regional High School District requires two years. Rodriguez said she would prefer students take three or four years, and in fact most do.
Rodriguez said the seal could soon carry college credit and help in college language placement.
Local students abroad
According to the district website, Pascack Valley students enrolled in four honors and AP Italian classes hosted the first part of the 2017-2018 Italian-American Student Exchange with Liceo Leonardo DaVinci (Treviso) in Italy.
The exchange program, led by Barbara Borghi of Pascack Valley and Patrizia Casoni of DaVinci, engages students in academic, cultural, and technological endeavors across two continents.
Last year, students participating in the exchange had the opportunity to complete a science project in collaboration with the University of Bruxelles (Brussels), in the heart of Europe.
“Under the expert guidance of Pascack Valley science teacher William Koenig, students measured the local value of Earth’s magnetic field—or, rather, its horizontal component—with the objective of obtaining a sufficiently precise measurement to allow for a significant comparison with other groups worldwide,” the district said.
In May, the district reported that French students had a very successful exchange visit with partner school Lyee Amiral de Grasse.
“We were warmly welcomed…Host families were extremely hospitable and also traveled with the American students to various locations of the French Riviera. The French and American students shared their languages and cultures, while creating long-lasting friendships,”
A French newspaper serving Southern France reported at the time, “The English teacher, Virginie Monnier, in charge of the exchange, sees a significant educational interest.”
Monnier is quoted as saying, “The linguistic and cultural benefits are immense. All of the students, without exception, have very notably improved their level of English. For the teachers, it also [brings] the opportunity to have a very enriching immersion with a foreign school system.”
She added, “It is an intense happiness and an incredible enthusiasm that the American and French students share [with] the hosts and their families, as the other high school students join in the festivities. We receive messages every day from our students who thank us.”
Pascack Valley and Pascack Hills high schools also offer pre-K-12 English as a Second Language, with a focus on social and instructional language usage and the language of language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies.