Rosetta Stone offers a comprehensive curriculum for 25 languages in one powerful platform, opening up a world of possibilities for students to learn a new language. Educators wondering how to get started with students of varying world language experience can follow several paths to identify the appropriate starting unit for any student.
Rosetta Stone units and lessons
The curriculum in Rosetta Stone for Schools is organized by units and lessons. Understanding the structure of each is helpful in determining placement for students at different stages of language learning.
Each unit consists of four lessons and each of those lessons has a review activity. The review activities focus on the listening, speaking, pronunciation, reading, grammar, vocabulary, and writing skills presented in each lesson.
Each unit also has a summative Milestone activity, an interactive capstone activity that applies the skills from that unit in real-life situations.
Identify the appropriate starting unit
Students who have no previous experience in their target language or are in their first year of study should begin at Unit 1 Lesson 1. With Rosetta Stone’s structured immersion method, lessons build upon one another. This helps students start learning with a single word then building up to phrases and finally full sentences and conversations.
Students with previous experience in the target language can identify their most appropriate starting unit in one of two ways. Students only need to follow one of these paths to determine placement.
Placement with review activities
Direct students to complete all of the review activities in Unit 1. If the student receives a passing score of 85% in all four, they should proceed to the review activities Unit 2. They can continue this process until they do not receive a passing score on a review activity. Assign students to begin learning with that lesson.
Placement with Milestone activities
Another option to determine student placement is to direct students to complete Milestone activities for each unit. Assign the Milestone activity starting with Unit 1. If the student receives a passing score of 75%, they should proceed to Unit 2. They can continue this process until they reach a unit where they do not receive a passing score. Assign the student to being learning in the unit they did not pass.
With either of these methods, educators can identify the existing skills students have in their target language to determine the most appropriate starting point. With Rosetta Stone’s scaffolded lessons, students starting at any point will be presented with lessons that build on one another to help them progress their language learning.
Rosetta Stone Scope and Sequence Guide
The Scope and Sequence Guide, which can be found on our Teacher resources page under General Resources, is another tool educators can use to target learning for world language students. Educators can review the contents of each Rosetta Stone unit and lesson. If you’d like students to focus on specific language skills and vocabulary, this guide can be used to identify content throughout various points of the Rosetta Stone curriculum.
More Rosetta Stone for Schools placement resources
While English language learners can also use the lesson and unit paths for placement, Rosetta Stone has also created ELL placement guides. These placement guides provide recommendations based on students’ scores on the most common English assessments in every state, the ones they’re already taking in their classrooms.
Interested in learning more about providing a comprehensive curriculum for language learning in your school? Contact us!
