Important Change for the 2009-10 Academic Year The College Board views the support of AP world language and culture programs as one of our highest priorities. As a not-for-profit organization, we are committed to keeping student exam fees reasonable, so we will continue to bear a considerable financial loss annually to provide schools with AP world language offerings.
During the next several years, we will significantly increase our investment in support of AP world language and culture programs in the following ways:
Providing AP teachers with downloadable embedded assessments for measuring students' knowledge, skills and abilities throughout the AP course, giving teachers much more information about students' strengths and weaknesses before exam day.
Providing AP teachers with downloadable curriculum modules so that they have college-level materials for delivering key concepts.
Providing AP teachers with access to student AP Exam score reports online.
Convening college professors to raise awareness of the quality of AP world language and culture teachers and students and to enhance existing credit/placement policies.
In addition, at the request of valuable partners like ACTFL, we have created new AP Curriculum Design and Assessment Committees, whose charge is to maintain alignment of the AP world language programs with current advances and scholarship in the teaching and learning of languages.
However, as we significantly scale up our support for AP world languages and cultures, we cannot continue to offer two separate AP French courses and exams. Therefore, the College Board has decided that the May 2009 exam administration will be the last offering of AP French Literature. Instead, the College Board will focus its commitment to French studies by investing to a much higher degree in AP French Language, as described above.
Our intensified commitment to AP French Language is twofold. First, it will ensure through a Course and Exam Review process that AP French Language aligns with the Standards for Foreign Language Learning, more effectively integrating cultural competence, connections to other school disciplines, comparisons between French language and culture and those of the students, and use of the language in broader communities beyond the traditional school environment. Second, the Curriculum Design and Assessment Committees will develop numerous college-level instructional resources and professional development opportunities for AP teachers.
While we are disappointed to be announcing that next year is the final year of the AP French Literature program, we are eager to focus our resources on efforts that will provide a much greater degree of support for AP French teachers than ever before.
Note: The College Board also decided that AP Latin Literature and AP Computer Science AB will be discontinued after the May 2009 exam administration. AP Italian may also be discontinued, but because it is a new AP offering and has no companion exam within AP such as French, Latin, and Computer Science each has, external funding finalized by May 2009 could result in a decision to sustain AP Italian.
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