View Content #17852

From the Ñandutí listserv:

Hi everyone- I just finished working with Jefferson County (KY) Public Schools on a year-long project to redesign their elementary curriculum and wanted to share the link with you. At this website: http://www.jefferson.k12.ky.us/departments/gheens/WorldLang.html you can click on Curriculum Maps to view each map by grade level. JCPS has long been one of the foremost developers of secondary world language curriculum. Now they're updating their secondary curriculum and have tackled elementary and middle school as well.

A few notes about the K-5 program (the grades I worked with them on):

JCPS categorizes elementary grades beginning with P1 as kindergarten, P2 as 1st grade, and so on. At 4th grade the teachers stop using the P# reference.

We tried to address the problems that plague elementary programs - kids transferring in and out, the program getting hijacked by pull-outs and testing prep, too many students per teacher, not enough time per week. So we divided the program into two levels, with the levels layered. Then we developed five six-week units for the last six-week period to be used as review and assessment as the state testing schedule allows. So the first level has the same five units every year for kindergarten, first grade, and second grade, but every year the vocabulary and functions in that theme get deeper. There's a lot of recycling and then moving deeper. Same with third, fourth, and fifth grades- the same theme for the unit every year with a lot of recycling and moving deeper.

We developed the program as if every teacher had the recommended minimum 90 minutes per week with students, which no one in the JCPS system does yet, so we actually recommend that teachers with less time throw out an entire unit instead of doing less per unit. If it were me I would skip unit 1 in Level 1 on the assumption that kids will develop the school vocabulary as the year goes on, and in Level 2 I would combine the All About Us and Hanging Out with my Friends units.

There are also many core content and connections built in. As teachers develop units and find resources those will be updated too, with a goal to have a really good IPA for at least each semester of 3rd-5th soon. The intercultural goals are something cool and innovative but will need some improvement so you can watch for that as well. We hope you find it useful.

--Sara-Elizabeth
musicuentos.com

Cottrell, S. [nandu] New curriculum documents from JCPS (KY). Improving Early Language Programs listserv (nandu@caltalk.cal.org, 12 Jun 2014).