2024-2025
Southside Middle School
IB World School
MYP Language Policy
Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.
~Oliver Wendell Holmes
Philosophy
Southside Middle School (SMS) believes that communication is at the center of bringing people together. The fundamental concepts of the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program of both international mindedness and communication strengthen our commitment to the development of the abilities of our students to communicate effectively with others. Key to effective communication is the ability to read, write, and speak clearly. We believe that the job of teaching these skills falls upon every teacher at SMS. Although the language of instruction is English, all languages are respected and students are encouraged to develop their mother tongue.
Language Policy Review
The language policy will be reviewed bi-annually at the end of each semester and will strive to accommodate the ever-changing population of the school, including a focus on the following areas: support for mother tongues and support for students who are not yet proficient in English.
The development of the language policy is a collaborative process involving stakeholders from across all departments at SMS including teachers, counselors, coordinators, and administration. The faculty selects a steering committee from volunteers with a variety of expertise. The steering committee is responsible for evaluating the current policy and determining what needs to be revised to better suit the needs of our students.
Language Profile
Southside Middle School has a diverse population with diverse language needs. With 59% of our students as native English speakers, SMS enjoys the participation of students from around the world in our Middle Years Program, the majority of whom are new to this country and are learning the English language for the first time. A percentage of our students are bilingual, having acquired both English and another language since birth.
Current School Home Language Summary
As of the 2024/2025 school year, there are 20+ languages spoken by the faculty, staff, and students at Southside Middle School. On our faculty and staff we have members who speak Spanish, French, Arabic, and Darija, a Moroccan dialect. The chart below represents our student population.
Language of Instruction
The language of instruction is English. Through schoolwide instruction, students develop the fluency and literacy skills necessary to ensure their ability to communicate effectively. Explicit instruction in English is offered during Language and Literature in order to strengthen literacy skills; however, all teachers are responsible for providing language instruction in their classes.
Language Acquisition
It is the expectation that all students not enrolled in remedial courses or in the ELL (English Language Learners) program take Spanish as their second language. In addition, for students who do not speak English as their first language, English as a foreign language is offered.
Mother Tongue Support
Southside Middle School and Duval County Public Schools respect the importance of a student’s mother tongue. Mother tongue development is supported for students whose native language is not English. For students whose first language is one of the more than twenty-seven languages spoken on our campus other than English, we would like to offer these languages in an enrichment class in order to allow students the opportunity to develop their mother tongue, but for many of these languages this is not possible due to the small number of students to be served or the lack of instructional staff qualified to address this need. However, the majority of our ELL students speak Spanish as their native language and we offer Spanish for Spanish Speakers to develop reading and writing skills in their mother tongue.
In addition, we offer many school documents in Spanish and offer translation services when requested. When possible, we communicate with parents and students in their mother tongue for meeting announcements, testing information, and parent conferences.
English Language Learners
In order to accommodate the needs of students whose mother tongue is not English, SMS offers a separate program for English instruction for these students. For students within their first two years in the country, we provide all core content with a modified curriculum, incorporating ESOL strategies with teachers who have received additional training to address their needs. In addition, we have a team of paraprofessionals dedicated to instructing and aiding our ELL students throughout the school day whether they are in sheltered ELL classes or main stream classes. All teachers receive a minimum of 60 hours of ESOL (English Speakers of Other Languages) training; while teachers of language and literature and intensive reading receive 300 hours of ESOL training. This training adequately prepares teachers to support our ESOL students in the least restrictive learning environment.
In accordance with district policies and state guidelines, ELL students are staffed into the ELL department upon enrollment in Duval County Public Schools. Students are assessed on their level of language proficiency using the WIDA Screener at that time. Students are then reassessed at intervals while in the program in accordance with state legislation.
Depending on their level of need, students are either enrolled in Intensive Reading or Developmental Language Arts, a course that allows students to learn the English language and literacy skills needed to be successful. These students will may also take Spanish for Spanish speakers to strengthen their reading and writing skills in their mother tongue or enroll in English as a foreign language depending on their home language survey and their level of readiness.
Our English Language Learner Levels are defined as follows:
Level 1 – new comers with little to no English background
Level 2 – mostly second year developing English students
Level 3 – mainstream inclusion students with staff support
Language and Learning
Language learning occurs in every classroom in every subject group because it is recognized that language stands at the center of all academic learning and social factors. Because of this, teachers address the various language needs of their students.
SMS serves students with all levels of academic readiness. This means we must have safety nets in place for those students who come to us with below standard proficiency in language and mathematics skills. These students, identified by the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) must take an intensive reading course every other day. The program adopted by our district is Language Live. The program offers an intensive direct instruction based reading intervention for students who are significantly behind in reading with a focus on decoding and vocabulary skills depending on the student’s level of readiness. The aims of the course are to accelerate the growth in reading beyond one or two years in a school year.
In order to support language learning across the content areas, SMS employs a strategy of the month that focuses on a reading skill and can be incorporated into every class regardless of the content. Each month, the students are taught a new comprehension or writing strategy during their language and literature course. The following month, the strategy is implemented schoolwide. The repeated exposure to consistent strategies allows students to internalize the process and make the strategy more natural.
Once a month, a teacher volunteers sponsors a book club where students meet to discuss the school-wide novel of the month. Students meet in the media center to discuss the novel using various strategies provided by the reading coach and other volunteers.