| Body | By Julie Sykes, CASLS Director
As we begin our eight-week series focused on curricular development and course planning, it is useful to revisit the fundamentals of the teaching and learning of languages. Drawing on a number of highly useful taxonomies designed to characterize best practices, this top ten list is designed as a quick check-in for practitioners wishing to quickly re-focus and reflect during the planning process.
- The curriculum demonstrates evidence of backward design and proficiency-oriented instruction.
- Salient, defined performance objectives drive curriculum development and are used to guide students through their learning process.
- Course outcomes align with national standards.
- Classroom lessons are designed to include ample opportunity for meaningful input, analysis, and contextualized output.
- Grammar instruction occurs in the service of meaning. This principle is reflected in student learning outcomes, lesson plans, and performance assessments.
- Pragmatic patterns related to the expression and interpretation of meaning are integrated throughout the curriculum.
- Literacy development is present throughout the curriculum and includes traditional genres as well as reading and writing tasks critical to successful interaction with emerging digital contexts.
- Class structures are designed to facilitate a positive classroom environment with ample opportunity for instructor-student, peer-to-peer, and peer-to-group interactions.
- Goal setting and learner reflection are an integrated component of the curriculum planning and daily lesson plans so learners are always aware of where they are and where they are going.
- Feedback mechanisms are designed to give varied types of information and assessment and evaluation tasks are proficiency-oriented with direct ties to classroom learning.
This checklist is designed as an accessible, quick check-in tool. In the coming weeks our Topic of the Week articles will address these practices in more detail.
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