Here at Transparent Language, we take pride in supporting language programs in schools, especially in our own community. That’s why we are extremely excited to congratulate our partners at East Kingston Elementary School (EKES), who received the 2013 Elementary School of Excellence. Presented as part of the New Hampshire Excellence in Education Awards (the “EDies”), the honor recognizes the school’s commitment to quality education and highly collaborative relationship with the local community.

We witnessed this commitment firsthand while working with EKES to provide a high-quality, efficient, and effective language education to its students. Beginning in the fall of 2012, the foreign language department at East Kingston partnered with Transparent Language to provide personalized foreign language learning experiences in the school’s language lab. By leveraging the Transparent Connect virtual classroom service and the self-guided Transparent Language Online resources, the school has been able to provide an exciting and engaging language-learning experience.

Students follow a modified “flipped classroom” approach, in which they complete the self-guided Transparent Language Online activities prior to meeting with their live instructor via Transparent Connect. This method familiarizes the student with the material before class, encouraging independent learning. Then, the material can be reinforced and applied in context in the virtual classroom, where the instructor can facilitate fun activities that build speaking and collaborative skills that are more difficult to acquire outside of the classroom. Lead Instructor, Karen Olson, organizes fun, interactive activities for class sessions, such as the beloved “Peer Interviews”, that allow students to interview one another and elicit responses in the target language. The third, fourth, and fifth graders currently enrolled in this program at EKES are enjoying this approach, which has kept them motivated as they learn French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Vietnamese, among other languages.

By implementing our powerful learning system and skilled instructors into their language curriculum, the East Kingston staff has overcome budgetary and bandwidth constraints while ensuring each student receives quality instruction tailored to his or her interests and needs. It was this commitment to providing an engaging, individualized education that impressed representatives from the “EDies” Committee during their school visit to East Kingston Elementary last month. Superintendent Michael Morgan highlighted the individual attention given to the students, noting that EKES provides “a private school setting in a public school.”

We would like to congratulate the faculty, staff, and students of East Kingston Elementary School for a very well-deserved Excellence in Education Award. All of this year’s recipients were honored at the “EDies” award gala on Saturday, June 8.

To learn more about the resources and services we provide to educators, visit http://www.transparent.com/education.

To learn more about the partnership between EKES and Transparent language, visit:

https://sites.google.com/a/sau16.org/ekes-foreign-language/

http://www.transparent.com/case-studies/cs-east-kingston-elementary.html