#3 - Element 1: Curriculum, Scope, and Sequence | 10 Elements of Proficiency-Oriented World Language Instruction

Dive a little deeper into the #1 element - curriculum, scope, and sequence.

This is the essential world language teacher framework for each piece of your target language rich classroom based on proficiency practices. If you're into proficiency-oriented instruction, here's where to start.

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What's up Kloke a saloo World language teachers welcome to the practical proficiency podcast where we make the transition to proficiency oriented instruction in your world language class in a way that works for you, your unique context and teaching style, and doesn't sacrifice your well being along the way. I'm your host, Devin Gun, the teacher author, conference host, curriculum creator, and consultant behind La Liba language Learning. This podcast is for the creative world language teacher like you, who's ready to ditch the overwhelming pressure of switching to acquisition driven instruction and CI overnight, you're ready to discover how using more target language in class can actually bring you and your students more joy. Instead of adding to your plate with practical, authentic, and down to earth strategies that don't require reinventing the wheel or more training, we'll work together towards the magic of a community based, target language rich classroom rooted in the power of community and comprehensible input. Let's go everybody, to another episode of the Practical Proficiency podcast. Today we are diving into our series on the elements, the ten elements of a world language classroom oriented for proficiency. In our previous episode. If you haven't caught it, jump back on in that one, we talked all about those ten elements, and I give you an overview of what they looked like. It's important when we're trying to get on that journey of moving towards proficiency that we actually get clear on what that looks like. So this framework will help you identify which areas of your classroom are already looking good, which areas you can quickly tweak to get there, and which areas you can spend a little bit more time in in order to get to your proficiency oriented goals. Today, we're diving in to my favorite one, which is why we're talking about it first, which is curriculum scope and sequence. So without further ado, let's jump into this acquisition in a classroom environment looks like this in these ten pieces, curriculum scope and sequence, which is what we're focusing in on today. Real world context target language delivery system two way communication output is well timed and meaningful. It's a conduit for conversation in your class. Community oriented and inclusive classroom. 60% input and proficiency oriented assessments and last but not least, that we are working towards culture. So let's give a tiny overview on curriculum scope and sequence today for this first important, crucial element. The reason that this is first is because this is the majority of what your students understand and see about how you see the world, what you present to them, and what you put in front of them. As important is what they will understand to be important as well. So what we put in our curriculums is very crucial in curriculum scope and sequence. The important part that we're trying to get to with this one here is that all of our materials and content are carefully designed to move students up in proficiency. In a spiraling program based on high frequency structures, it means that we're following the natural patterns of language acquisition. Now, this is not where we are at right now in the world language space. So until we get there, teachers have a simple system for adapting the unfit materials that we have because it's okay. Right now, we're in a transitionary period, all of us, around the world. So instead of trying to make all of it ourselves, there is a balance we need to strike between I'm going to try and get as much of it as I can from reliable sources and the rest of it. Let's see how I can adapt this. And then every year, adapt less and less and less, use more of reliable things that I find or my own stuff, depending on your style or what works for the teaching season that you're in. Now, how do we do this? It means that the how is, instead of throwing away the worksheet that might have a lot of language features, might have a lot of grammar. Let's just adjust those exercises. Can you adjust that same exercise for meaning? Can you cross out a few instructions so that students are working for meaning instead? Or maybe even do the grammar exercise and then add meaning to it by either adding or taking away elements? There's no need to throw away the baby with the bathwater. Meaning that if your department, if you as a person or if your district is transitioning, like most people are, into a more proficiency oriented program and you're trying to get away from that big old grammar syllabus, you cannot start from zero. That is a recipe for disaster in so many ways. So many ways. That's a whole nother episode. So let's find a transitionary route. Can you just, like when you are trying to transition to perhaps a keto diet, an anti inflammatory diet, maybe a vegan diet, you don't jump all in on day one. You go through your pantry, you maybe get rid of the things that you know are going to be like, ooh, that's not going to work for me. That's actually going to create lots of problems. So you get rid of the big problem areas first, and then you slowly start to integrate until you're getting into that 100% goal of whatever dietary approach that you're going for, right? So it's the same thing for us here. We're not going in overnight 100%. That is going to be too much of a change too quickly. So find a way to adjust the materials that you have in the meantime. The second aspect of this that's very important is that you are using any curriculum templates that you have. If you are listening to this and you're a part of my community, if you're part of the practical proficiency network, then you have curriculum templates that are based off of high frequency verbs. So you're using that in order to decide what materials go in what order. And you can also use the curriculum guides, the scope and sequences that come with your textbook, anything like that. Anything that's giving you some sort of skeletal outline for your class. You are using those with, as well, an understanding of the high frequency verbs for your target language. And you're making sure that you're teaching the right things at the right time. That's far more important than making sure that you teach specific things. It's more important that you go in the right order, actually, because there are many things that you could teach in all levels that would hit the target skills that you are going for. For more information on that, make sure that you're really familiar and you consult with, depending on where you teach in the world, either the CEFR standards, a one, a two B one, b two. Those magical standards of use that are used widely in the European Union and elsewhere, or if you are teaching in an american context like I am, then you're using actful standards. And those actful standards are novice, low, novice mid, novice high, intermediate low. That's where we're working with. So you're using those, which also is a nice transition for us, into number three, you're transitioning. We're transitioning. You're starting with performance indicators based off of those two standard groups, and you're using those performance indicators to say, okay, I know that my level threes need to be able to describe in detail something that happened to a friend yesterday, so it doesn't need to be completely accurate, but they need to be able to confidently add some details in about five sentences. So if that's what I'm going for, what units are going to get them there? So you should be thinking right now in your head, okay, I know we're going to need to do some past tense practice, but more importantly, we're going to need to be talking a lot about narratives and answering questions such as calipaso, like what happened yesterday and answering that question, I don't know. Seka yomo fuerte. She fell. And then starting to give some details about what happened. And when you start with that question, what do my students need to be able to do in this level? What's that? Performance indicator. And then what do my students need to complete this task that makes it a lot easier to choose your curriculum materials. A lot easier. So use those when choosing what to teach. If any of those terms for you are causing some confusion, such as performance indicator, CEFr Actful, any of those can do statements, don't worry, I've got you. There's more episodes coming up on those, and if you're watching this a little bit in the future, you'll be able to see links right below in the show notes, or just scroll through and you'll find them. But there's plenty of content for you to give you some more details about those. But for now, we are going to wrap this up to keep it short and sweet. This is the number one deep dive on the ten elements of world language proficiency instruction, according to me, your host, la libre. It was such a joy to hang out with you today. Thank you for giving me a little bit of your time, either in your commute or hanging out in your classroom. And let me know what curriculum, scope and sequence means to you and give this show a rating. Send it to a colleague that you know would benefit specifically from curriculum, scope and sequence. It does wonders for the show and for the world language community at large. Thank you again so much for being here, and we will chat in our next lesson about number two. So get ready for that one coming your way. But for now, I'm Devin. It was lovely to spend some time with you. I'm out and I'll see you in the next one. Bye for now, y'all.