Tag Archives: proficiency

Supporting Proficiency Growth in the Language Classroom

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One of our priorities as language teachers is to support students in their efforts to communicate proficiently and with confidence. Though this can seem to be very lofty objective, there are practical procedures that we can implement to facilitate students’ progression to higher proficiency levels. These techniques and approaches offer guidance for teachers looking to empower their students on the path to proficiency.

Supporting Proficiency Growth in the Language Classroom (French, Spanish)

Language Proficiency

Before we jump into the strategies, let’s take a moment to consider language proficiency. How do you currently assess your students’ proficiency levels? Are you familiar with the ACTFL guidelines and their descriptions of Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced proficiency? It’s crucial to have a clear understanding of where your students are and where you want them to go. Take look at this blog post to see what language text types look like at the various proficiency levels.  You can also learn all about the proficiency levels in this podcast episode.

Let’s explore some strategies that will support students in leveling up their proficiency..

Novice Proficiency: Building a Strong Foundation

  • Comprehensible Input: Novice-level students thrive on comprehensible input. This means providing them with language that they can understand, even if it’s slightly beyond their current proficiency level. Engage them with simple stories, visuals, and gestures that make the language come alive.
  • Repetition and Recycling: Repetition is key for Novice learners. Encourage students to practice vocabulary and phrases repeatedly through games, dialogues, and interactive activities.

Intermediate Proficiency: Moving Toward Independence

  • Authentic Communication: As students progress to the Intermediate level, shift the focus to authentic communication. Encourage them to express opinions, share experiences, and engage in conversations.
  • Expanding Vocabulary: Intermediate learners benefit from expanding their vocabulary. Introduce them to synonyms, idiomatic expressions, and culturally relevant words and phrases.

Practical Strategies to Empower Students in Increasing Proficiency

Integrated Skills: Encourage students to read texts, watch videos, and engage in discussions that require them to use all aspects of language – listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

Cultural Context: Connect language proficiency to cultural context. Help students understand how language is used in real-life situations within different cultures.

Feedback and Assessment: Provide timely and constructive feedback. Give students specific comments on their language use, highlighting areas for improvement.

Self-Assessment: Have students reflect on their language progress and set goals for improvement.

Peer Collaboration: Arrange activities that require students to work together, provide feedback to each other, and learn from their peers.

Celebrate Progress:  Celebrate progress, no matter how small. Recognize students’ achievements and growth in proficiency. Whether it’s an improved pronunciation or successfully navigating a conversation, acknowledging their efforts boosts confidence.

Putting It All Together

Supporting students’ proficiency growth is a dynamic journey. It involves understanding their current proficiency levels, scaffolding their learning, and fostering a supportive and engaging classroom environment. As language teachers, we have the privilege of guiding our students along this exciting path, equipping them with the skills and confidence to become proficient communicators.

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Path to Proficiency Wall for Language Classroom

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I’m a big proponent of students taking an active role in their language learning journey.  This means that they need to have a solid understanding of the ACTFL Proficiency Levels or Performance Descriptors.  They can then track their progress and set concrete goals.

Path to Proficiency Wall for Language Classroom (French, Spanish)

The Proficiency Levels can be little challenging to understand, but when broken down they are quite accessible for students.  I created a Path to Proficiency Wall that lays out the text type (language input and output) at each each level and sub-level from Novice Low to Intermediate High.

Students can easily understand the level and use the Proficiency Wall as a reference along their language learning journey.  The text types for each level are displayed along with the specific language functions associated with each individual proficiency level. It has also been helpful in conversations with colleagues and it helps families to grasp the concept of proficiency and  acquisition-focused language instruction.

Path to Proficiency Wall for Language Classroom (French, Spanish)

I put this picture on social media to inspire teachers.  I received many requests for the documents so that teachers could create something similar to use with their students. I put all of the documents together in one PDF that you can download, print and post in your classroom.

Path to Proficiency Wall for Language Classroom (French, Spanish)

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61: Goals and Assessment in the Language Classroom

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In this episode we look at goals, and assessment of those goals, in teaching and learning language.  This is the third of 5 episodes dedicated to the book Common Ground: Second Language Acquisition Theory Goes to the Classroom by Florencia Henshaw and Maris Hawkins. Actionable insights and takeaways that you can use right away as you set goals for your students and create the assessments that support students moving toward them.  

Topics in the episode:

  • ACTFL Proficiency Levels
  • Setting Proficiency-Based Goals
  • Performance and Proficiency
  • Assessment; Integrated Performance Assessments and Rubrics
  • Intercultural Communication Goals
  • Making the discussion interactive on Twitter with Joshua (@wlcalssoom), Florencia Henshaw (@Prof_F_Henshaw) and Maris Hawkins (@Marishawkins).

Blog posts referenced in this episode:

Get your own copy of Common Ground.  Hackett Publishing is generously offering a 25% discount when you use the code WLC2022.  [Available through December 31, 2022].

**The 25% off discount code can be used for any book through the end of December, 2022.  Hackett publishes several intermediate language-learning textbooks in Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Latin, and Classical Greek. New releases include Cinema for French Conversation, Cinema for Spanish Conversation, and Les Français.

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Work with Joshua either in person or remotely.

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Teachers want to hear from you and what you are proud of in your classroom. Join me on the podcast.  We record conversations remotely, so you can be anywhere.

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Follow wherever you listen to podcasts.

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60: Building & Leading a Proficiency-Based Department with Tim Eagan

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In this episode we discuss building and leading a proficiency-based language department.  Tim Eagan, the 6-12 Department Head of World Languages in Wellesley, MA, joins me to talk about his experience leading his department through the process of embracing proficiency.

Topics in the episode:

  • contemporary and emerging research and the shift in approach and expectations.
  • what collaboration looks like in a proficiency-based department and how this supports consistency, particularly with assessments.
  • the objectives and benefits of using success criteria in a language department.
  • the essential role of feedback in a proficiency-based program.
  • how we get our department members on board.
  • www.visiblelearningmetax.com
  • Blog Post in Reflective Practice and Success Criteria

Connect with Tim Eagan

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Work with Joshua either in person or remotely.

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Teachers want to hear from you and what you are proud of in your classroom. Join me on the podcast.  We record conversations remotely, so you can be anywhere.

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Follow wherever you listen to podcasts.

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What If the Next Teacher Doesn’t Embrace Proficiency-Based Teaching?

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We are getting there.  More and more teachers are embracing proficiency-based language teaching.  There are increasing amounts of research that support an approach to language teaching that focusing on communication.  Along with Communicative language teaching we use proficiency levels and ACTFL Performance Descriptors that provide concrete benchmarks.  Simply put, proficiency is not what students know about the language, what rather what they can do with it.  Resources, such as Can-Do statements, help to keep our teaching (and student learning/acquisition) focused on what students are able to communicate.

What If the Next Teacher Doesn't Embrace Proficiency-Based Teaching (French, Spanish(

As happy as I am to see so many teachers adopt this approach, I am often reminded of how much more work we have to do.  I find that individual teachers tend to implement communicative activities in their classrooms, but language departments and districts are slower to get there.  In May of each year I often get a reminder of the work that is to be done when my 8th graders ask me to fill out a form to recommend them for their high school language level.  I teach in a school that ends in 8th grade.  Our students go to numerous high schools after, so I get a look at what is expected and what programs look like when I receive the recommendation forms.

Here is one that I got this year, but it is a typical of many of these forms that I get from studentsWhat If the Next Teacher Doesn't Embrace Proficiency-Based Teaching (French, Spanish(

As you can see, it is just a list of grammar topics.  They place students in a language level based on what grammar topics they have studied.  There is no place to speak to what the student is actually able to communicate in the target language.  These types of lists are the opposite of proficiency, with a request to know what the student knows about the language and not what they can do with it.

The reaction when I put this on Twitter and Facebook was reassuring that there are many language teachers who are fighting the good fight.

What If the Next Teacher Doesn't Embrace Proficiency-Based Teaching (French, Spanish( What If the Next Teacher Doesn't Embrace Proficiency-Based Teaching (French, Spanish(

So, how do we respond?  I usually use it as an opportunity to educate about the ACTFL Core Practices and Proficiency Levels with a description of the students proficiency level.  I provide examples of what the student is able to do with the language at their particular proficiency level. Hopefully this creates some interest in learning more.  Just planting the seed, and hoping they will water it.

“Ben performs consistently at the Intermediate Low ACTFL Proficiency Level for Interpersonal Communication and at the Intermediate Mid Level for Presentational Writing and Interpretive Listening and Reading.  At the IL level Ben can confidently and consistently speak in discrete sentence that he creates on his own without resorting to memoized chunks.  At the IM Level he consistently writes, reads and listens at a slightly higher level with strings of 2-3 connected sentences.”

I would imagine that this is more useful than “Ben can conjugate regular verbs in the present tense.”  Even if Ben can talk about the verb forms how does that indicate that he can actually use them to communicate?  This is a frustrating situation at time, but hopefully the more often we use this as an opportunity to educate our colleagues the more the entire language teaching community will move toward proficiency.

One final point that I want to make.  I fully understand that there are teachers, departments and districts that firmly believe that that a focus on grammar and structures is the most effective way to teach a language.  I am always happy to have the conversation.  I usually have several of these conversations each time I do a workshop in a school.  I like to be challenged and appreciate the opportunity to show the benefits of a proficiency-based program.  The only thing that I ask is that those who disagree have empirical evidence to support their argument and beliefs, because that is what I am bringing to the conversation.

 

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Communicative Language Teaching Mindset Shift. That Was Then. This Is Now.

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The field of language teaching is always on the move.  Every decade or so there is an innovative way to approach language teaching.  For a recap of the language teaching methodologies that have surfaced over the past century take a look at this post.  Over the past decade many foreign language teachers have embraced communicative language teaching, which focuses on authentic communication over language forms such as grammar structures.

That Was Then. This Is Now. Communicative Language Teaching Mindset Shift (French, Spanish)

To be clear, a certain level of accuracy of language is needed to convey a message that is comprehensible.  The difference from methodologies of the past is that previous approaches to language teaching focused almost solely on accuracy of language.  These days we see the value in focusing on the message, even when that means looking past some errors when the learner has not yet acquired the language structure.  ACTFL has compiled a significant amount of research to support the the effectiveness of communicative language teaching.

There has been a significant shift in mindset along with the arrival of communicative language teaching.  Previous methodologies focused on what learners did wrong rather than on their progress.  The goal was complete accuracy in the past along with the belief that a speaker would not  be understood if the language was not completely correct.  We now accept that communication can happen despite occasional inaccuracy.  This is the base of the difference in mindset, or underlying tenets that support the approaches.

Here are four areas of this mindset shift that distinguish current communicative approaches from accuracy-centered approach of the past.

Objectives and Content:

  • Past: The teacher was the all-knowing possessor of knowledge and directed all content and objectives to ensure progress toward correct language.
  • Present: The teacher works in collaboration with students and there are shared learning objectives.  Content is driven by both the teacher and the student.

Communication:

  • Past: Typically communication was focused on the four traditional language skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking.  This usually meant that these skills were practiced in isolation and were not interconnected.
  • Present: The three modes of communication (presentational, interpretive, interpersonal) are now the focus.  They provide students with opportunities to do something with the four skills.

Performance:

  • Past: The focus was on what students knew about the language and its structures.  Practice of correct grammatical forms of the language were typically done in isolation and out of context.
  • Present: The focus is on what the learner is able to do or accomplish with the language.  This is always tied to context and students communicate authentically with the language despite occasional inaccuracy in language when the message is clear.

Assessment:

  • Past: Assessments determined the level of language accuracy and the teacher could easily and quickly point out what was incorrect, such as verb forms, noun gender, adjective agreement, etc.
  • Present: Assessments are performance-based.  Teachers use tools and strategies such as backwards design and Can-Do statements to guide students toward communication.

Where are you regarding your teaching mindset?  If you want to embrace communicative language teaching, take a look at the “present” mindset statements and see where you are.  It can take some time and a solid approach is always evolving.  It doesn’t have to happen this week.   Download this PDF with some questions to help keep your lesson planning in the “present.”

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Design Communicative Activities in the Foreign Language Classroom

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There are six ACTFL Core Practices that serve as guide for teachers as they teach toward increased foreign language proficiency in their classrooms. One of the key core practices is designing communicative activities for students.

Design Communicative Activities in the Foreign Language Classroom (French, Spanish) www.wlclassroom.com

Design Communicative Activities in the Foreign Language Classroom (French, Spanish) www.wlclassroom.com

The wave of communicative language teaching began several years back when the language teaching community (linguists, teachers and students alike) took a hard look at the “best” practices of language teachers and came to the conclusion that these practices were not leading students toward being able to use the target language.  Much of the language teaching that was happening several decades back was focused on what students knew about the target language (i.e. verb conjugations, adjective forms, pronoun placement) and not what they were able to accomplish or do with the language that they were learning.  When it became clear that students were not able to communicate effectively using the target language it was clear that we needed to modify how we teach languages.  This was the birth of the concept of communicative language teaching.  Essentially it is an attempt to guide students toward an increased ability to communicate.

What is a Communicative Activity?

There are three concepts of communicative language teaching that set it apart form more traditional approaches:

  1. The focus is on communicating and doing something with the language as opposed to practicing isolated language features out of context.
  2. It is student-centered as opposed to teacher-centered.  Students create with language rather than having the language explained to them.
  3. The approach is focused on understanding the message being conveyed by students despite inaccuracy in language form as opposed to being focused on correct usage of language structures and only secondarily tending to the message.

Design Communicative Activities in the Foreign Language Classroom (French, Spanish) www.wlclassroom.com

Tips for Designing Communicative Activities

Here are a few tips and ideas to keep in mind as we design communicative activities.  Remember, communicative language teaching, or teaching that will guide students toward confidently communicating in the target language, is focused on the message, not practicing language structures out of context.

  • Activate background knowledge  (pre-speaking activities) on the topic of the activity and/or choose a topic with which students are familiar.  When the focus is on communicating and building confidence we want students to be comfortable with the topic.  If they have the language proficiency, but lack content knowledge they will not communicate as much as they would if they were more familiar with the topic.
  • Use open-ended prompts and questions when designing an activity or task.  Prompts that are more finite will not allow for opportunities to engage with the topic and negotiate meaning.
  • Design prompts that require that pairs or groups of students must rely on and listen to each other.  If the prompt requires sharing an opinion, but not finding a commonality or difference with their speaking partner the task is more presentational in nature.
  • Create questions and prompts that require pairs and groups to collaborate and use the language to arrive at a product, not necessarily something physical that they will produce, but more finding a collaborative solution.
  • Be sure that the tasks students complete are at their proficiency level.  Know what their level is and the text type (lists, chunked phrases, discrete sentences, connected sentences, paragraph).  Design a task that will require creating with language using these text types.  A prompt for intermediate low students that requires speaking in connected sentences will lead to a communication breakdown because the text type for their proficiency level is single, discrete sentences.

Design Communicative Activities in the Foreign Language Classroom (French, Spanish) www.wlclassroom.com

Is the Activity Communicative?

Of the three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, presentational) communicative language teaching lends itself best to interpersonal communication.  This mode is about active, real-time exchange of ideas and messages in a two-way (rather than one-way) exchange.  Often when teachers create activities that appear interpersonal they are actually more presentational.  Here are some questions to keep in mind to make sure that the activity that you are designing is actually interpersonal:

  • Is the activity student-centered, rather than teacher-centered?
  • Is the language spontaneous and unrehearsed, rather than prepared and practiced in advance?
  • Is the focus on conveying and understanding the message, rather than on correct language forms?
  • Is the communication a two-way exchange, rather than one-way, requiring response, reaction and spontaneous follow-up?
  • Do students have opportunities to negotiate meaning if they don’t fully understand, rather than understanding all vocabulary and language structures?
  • Do students have communication strategies that they can employ (language ladders, functional chunks, circumlocution)?

Design Communicative Activities in the Foreign Language Classroom (French, Spanish) www.wlclassroom.com

Examples of Communicative Activities

Here are few examples of activity structures that, regardless of proficiency level or content, take into account the concepts of communicative language teaching outlined above:

  1. OWL (Organic World Language) Conversation Circle
  2. Info-Gap Activities
  3. Jigsaw Activities
  4. Picture Prompts
  5. Task-Based Activities

I created a PDF with one-page description of communicative activities along with a lesson template and an example lesson.  Download it HERE.

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Backwards Planning in the Foreign Language Classroom (SlideShare)

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Backwards Planning in the Foreign Language Classroom (French, Spanish) www.wlclassroom.comOne of the ACTFL Core Practices is to plan with Backwards Design.  This approach lends itself very well to proficiency-based foreign language teaching.  Check out the SlideShare below.

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World Language Lesson Planning with Backwards Design

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One of the ACTFL Core Practices is to teach with the Backwards Design Model. Backward Design is a teaching method that involves designing educational curriculum by setting goals before choosing instructional methods and forms of assessment.  This teaching model lends itself very well to proficiency-based language teaching as it requires the teacher to focus on what students will ultimately be able to do with the language, rather than simply knowing about the language.

Foreign Language Teaching with Backwards Design (French, Spanish) www.wlclassroom.com

Traditional language teaching has often focused on learning and producing language structures and vocabulary through practice-type activities.  When it comes time to assessment (or testing) it has typically been a matter of verifying what students can tell the teacher about the language, such as  vocabulary lists or verb forms, rather than demonstrating what he or she is able to do with the language.

Backwards design planning and execution happens in three phases or stages.

1. Identify Desired Results

Consider these questions when identifying these goals and desired results for a foreign language unit or lesson.

  • What will students do with the language?
  • Does this goal only focus on what the students know about the language?
  • What is the current proficiency level of the students? (novice mid, intermediate low, etc.)
  • What is the text type that students can produce? (lists, chunked phrases, discrete sentences, connected sentences, etc.)
  • Is this goal specific?
  • Can I create 2-3 can do statements to focus on this goal?

2. Determine Acceptable Evidence

Consider these questions when determining acceptable of language learning and progressing in proficiency.

  • Are there opportunities to demonstrate proficiency in the three communication modes? (interpretative, presentational, interpersonal)
  • Are the prompts at the appropriate proficiency level?  (novice mid, intermediate low, etc.)
  • Do the prompts focus on the text type of students at this proficiency level? (lists, chunked phrases, discrete sentences, connected sentences, etc.)
  • Is there opportunity for student choice?
  • Do the assessments provide insight in to students’ ability to perform the can do statements articulated in the goals and desired outcomes?
  • Are there opportunities for spontaneous language production?

3. Plan the Learning Experience and Instruction

Consider these questions when planning instruction to move students toward the desired outcome of the unit or lesson.

  • What are the vocabulary themes necessary to reach the goals and desired outcomes?
  • What are the language structures necessary to reach the goals and desired outcomes?
  • What activities will provide opportunities to meet the goals and desired outcomes using the three communication modes? (interpretative, presentational, interpersonal)
  • What tasks will provide students with opportunities to use the language to accomplish a goal that is independent of practicing the language structures and thematic vocabulary?

Foreign Language Teaching with Backwards Design (French, Spanish) www.wlclassroom.com Foreign Language Teaching with Backwards Design (French, Spanish) www.wlclassroom.com

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The PACE Model: Inductive Foreign Language Grammar Teaching (SlideShare)

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The PACE Model: Inductive Foreign Language Grammar Teaching (SlideShare) (French, Spanish) www.wlclassroom.comOne of the ACTFL Core Practices is to teach grammar as a concept in context. The PACE model provides a concrete method of doing this.   It works well as a way to teach foreign language grammar inductively.  Take a look at the SlideShare below for details on how it works.

 

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