Graduation+Requirements

Current Language Describing the Language Department:
//**Students satisfy their graduation requirements in a foreign language through successful completion of two years in the same language. Christchurch offers Spanish and Chinese languages for its students. The Foreign Language Department has organized it’s courses in two distinct levels. The first level (Beginning and Intermediate) is meant to achieve linguistic competence, and can take up to two years. The second level courses are dedicated to applying that linguistic knowledge in specific areas, expanding the types and complexity of language production, and incorporating the language skills into the large context of the school and the world.**//

One of the discussions I have been having with the Administration is whether we should accept middle school credit for FL graduation requirements. I said no, and they agreed. So we'll need to insert a line about that in our paragraph above. Middle School classes will be accepted for placement but not for credit from now on.

In the process of looking at this paragraph, I though it says some things we might want to change. What do you think? How are we going to describe ourselves for the future?

Here's what I'm trying address: 1) What does two years mean? If a kid does an on-line course in a month that covers everything we do in SPA I, and gets to a level of proficiency we accept, does that count as course credit? 2) What implications does this have for expanding our language offerings and offering languages that are not taught on campus? 3) How are we going to write it so we get to do innovative and wild things with other departments, and have them count as FL credit? 4) Anything else?