All French, Spanish and Chinese classes on both campuses attended Keys to Planning for Learning, the third world languages professional development day on Wednesday to keep their teaching “up-to-date”.

French, Spanish, and Chinese classes were canceled in order for the faculty members to attend the daylong conference at the Upper School.

Laura Terrill, a speaker from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, was invited to speak by World Languages Department Heads Melissa Strong and Margot Riemer after several faculty members in the department attended the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Language and heard the “brilliant speaker”.

“She’s just very inspiring and very knowledgeable about the trends in modern foreign language teaching,” Riemer said. “She has been instrumental in helping Spanish teachers to approach our new book series in a way that aligns better with the national foreign language teaching standards.”

“We’re more in line with what other teachers are doing around the country,” Riemer said. “We kept hearing the same things over and over again about vertical planning and about assessing kids. So we thought that she was really inspiring and we wanted to bring her so that everybody could hear her speak since only a few of us went to the conference.”