Category Archives: Teaching Methodology and Research

Organic World Language (OWL) foreign language teaching methodology has been instrumental in reframing my approach to teaching.  It has helped me to understand not only the importance of teaching with proficiency objectives, but how to do it.

OWL is “a vibrant, passionate, and active community of educators and students dedicated to working together to establish classroom environments where learners are empowered and engaged. We believe in movement, 100% immersion and an emphasis on the importance of creating community in the classroom. The OWL techniques and strategies align with the National and World Readiness Standards, ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines, the Common Core Standards, IB and AP programs.”

You have likely heard of I focused on setting SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely. This a viable and effective way for students to set goals in the language classroom.  My experience with proficiency-based language teaching has shifted my prospective on slightly on what goal setting can be in language classroom.

The NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements help students and teachers benchmark progress on the proficiency scale from novice to superior. These statements are a useful way for students to set manageable, specific, concrete and achievable goals. The first step is to determine where a student is on the proficiency scale and then to make goals to reach the next level.  For a Novice High student with the goal of moving up to Intermediate Low, the goal can go from “I want to speak better” to:

• I can talk with someone about family or household tasks.
• I can talk with someone about hobbies and interests.
• I can talk with someone about school or work.
• I can ask and answer questions related to subjects such as geography, history, art, music, math, science, language, or literature.
• I can ask for help at school, work, or in the community.
• I can make a reservation.
• I can arrange for transportation, such as by train, bus, taxi, or a ride with friends.

I have put together a set of goal setting sheets based on setting SMART goals as well as proficiency goals.  You can get them it here.

Interpersonal communication can be one of the more challenging modes of communication for foreign language learners because it involved unprepared and  spontaneous communication.  I have broken down this type of communication into three levels of increasing difficulty to build confidence in students.

The first step involves initial preparation and a brief  performance or some sort of “public talk”  on a prepared topic.  This is followed by some unknown questions about the topic that requires the speaker to respond spontaneously, but on a topic that is very familiar.

Once students have done the performance level of spontaneous communication, I introduce them to transaction activities that involve giving and receiving information that is only possessed by or needed by the other person. These are the traditional information-gap activities.  Again, the questions and responses are somewhat anticipated at this point, but there is still an unknown element.

Once students have gained confidence with interpersonal communication by engaging in conversations on topics  that they are very prepared to discuss (performance) and on topics that are less familiar, but still someone anticipated (transaction), they have the confidence and skill to move on to true-to-form interpersonal communication.

Interaction activities are the most challenging because they involve topics that are brought up spontaneously and involve turn-taking with unanticipated responses and questions.  The teacher should make sure that students are aware that the identity of the speakers should be made clear, that there should be a decision about formal or informal language use, and that both speakers should contribute and respond to each other in a turn-taking format.  These details put the speaker at ease and raise confidence.

When engaging in interpersonal communication, many times we try to get students to go right to the interaction-type activities  without scaffolding the skill and confidence needed to communicate at this level.