| Body | Stephanie Knight, CASLS Assistant Director
The word proficiency is slippery at best; it is the focus of most language classrooms and assessments, yet, as we established last week, there is no common definition nor singular approach to operationalizing what proficiency looks like. This reality can make distinct levels of proficiency feel like moving targets of sorts for teachers, which understandably complicates lesson planning.
In order to plan proficiency-oriented lessons, no matter the definitions or conceptualizations of proficiency that are operationalized in a given school or district, we recommend that teachers keep the following recommendations in mind:
- Define language functions as learning targets and only focus on the content which is critical to engagement in said functions. If a teacher desires to teach learners to apologize to friends in the target language, he or she may need to focus on familiar imperatives (e.g., Forgive me), but delving into all imperative conjugations would be unnecessary. By limiting instruction to only the critical content, educators not only help learners focus their working memory on the content at hand, but they also highlight grammar in a way that showcases what is salient for communication.
- Design scaffolded learning experiences that progress learners through increasingly more active levels of cognition. Have learners begin lessons by gathering information through collection of texts, observation journals, or taking inventory of what they understand and don’t understand. Then, ask that they analyze the texts at hand to both induce meaning as well as create robust schemata for their newly acquired knowledge and skills. Finally, have them either delve more deeply into understanding the learning targets or ask that they practice the language function(s) at hand with increasingly fewer scaffolds.
- Remember the critical nature of social interaction. Engage learners socially to not only practice target language functions but also to analyze and inspect target language functions and cultural nuances. Ask that they work together to understand, model, and practice the various conventions of communication (gestures, strategies for getting one’s point across) as well as the genres and associated audience expectations and needs for relevant texts.
- Protect time for reflection. Learners need to evaluate their work consistently and set goals for themselves. Make sure to protect time for short evaluations (e.g. exit tickets) as well as longer, more in-depth evaluations (e.g. portfolio analysis).
Certainly, adherence to these recommendations support the creation of a proficiency-oriented classroom. To further support educators, this week’s Activity of the Week provides a template to use that explicitly addresses these considerations.
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