#2 - The 10 Elements of Proficiency-Oriented World Language Instruction

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.
Go to Blog Post of the 10 Elements of Proficiency Oriented World Language Instruction (contains image printout)
Today, we're doing an overview of the 10 elements and how to recognize them. Remember that these are all what it looks like in its ideal form - no one is quite here yet. 
Some areas are easier than others to add to your classroom. 
Take action - pick 1 element from today's episode and see where you can make some tiny tweaks to add more target language into your world language class today!
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Transcript

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Hey world language teachers. Welcome to the practical proficiency podcast. I'm so excited to connect with you in this way if you're new around these parts. My name is Devin and I am the teacher, author and curriculum creator and consultant behind la libre language learning. If you teach French or la libre language learning if you teach Spanish. I used to teach both and now I have the privilege of serving, being teachers, districts, and sometimes even private companies behind the scenes full time, helping you transition to proficiency in a way that makes sense for you and still respects your time and your wellness outside of school. So let's dive into it with our topic today. Something really important to address as you are moving towards more proficiency in your classroom is understanding what does that actually look like? A world language classroom comes in all different shapes and sizes, and there are many different acceptable approaches and many different amazing, excellent approaches to delivering high quality, target language rich instruction in your classroom. So what do all of these methods have in common? And how can you tell when an approach is not going to work? There's lots and lots of material out there. So I have a framework for you to make this easy, not complicated, and a streamlined way for you to understand what proficiency or acquisition driven instruction really looks like. The framework is this there are ten elements of the world language proficiency classroom when driven for acquisition, especially through the lens of comprehensible input, which is my favorite way to teach. So when we're doing acquisition in a classroom environment, it has these ten elements and that's what we're diving into today. So get ready. The next episode two is going to give you a nice deep dive into each of these ten elements. But first we're going to do the overview and make sure that we know what a classroom looks like when you are diving into proficiency oriented instruction, what that looks like in all of the elements and areas. Keep in mind too, that you do not have to be taking notes on this. You will see at the bottom here if you're watching or if you are listening, then you'll be able to get a link to this in the show notes for the podcast of a PDF of all of the ten elements of world language proficiency instruction so that you do not have to memorize all of these to rust me. There's also a blog post, so don't worry, I got you covered. But without further ado, let's dive in the first. And my favorite, that's why it's first is one of the most important elements of world language proficiency instruction, and that is this curriculum. Many of you who know me probably guess this one, but curriculum is my absolute favorite topic to talk about. It drives everything in your classroom because it's what you actually do every day in class. It's the materials that you use, it's the units that you're teaching and the focus of your daily day to day deal. So when you're talking about curriculum, scope and sequence a couple of important things when you're moving. For proficiency, materials and content need to be carefully designed to move students up in proficiency levels in a spiraling program based on high frequency structures. And it's very important too, because as you're listening to all these, you might be thinking, ooh, that's a tall order. And it is. But this is of course the ideal that we're going for. Not anybody is there yet, but this is what we're moving towards. So the important way to get there is that teachers have a simple system in place to help save you time outside of class for adapting unfit materials. That's a very important element of your classroom right now with the teaching climate that you are in. So don't forget about that important piece. You must have some sort of system in place so that you can bridge the gap between the materials that are not cutting it. But this is what you've got to work with. Or maybe it's pretty good, but it doesn't fit in with your current curriculum. Insert ABC thing here that makes this lesson not really work well, but you've got a way to make it work so that you can go home at a decent hour. The second element is such a good one. This makes your curriculum come to life and have real meaning for your learners in class. And that is real world context. Real world context brings so many aspects to life in class. Language in class is. I'm very biased in this, but I think that we teach one of the most relevant skills in the building, so why not drench it in real life skills? Language in class should be needed to communicate in your class, as in your students need language in order to get things done in class. So if right now they're using English to do simple things such as exit class, enter class, go to the bathroom, sharpen a pencil, or get around like pass in their papers and their homework and all that stuff, talk about the numbers on the chrome laptop, books, any of that. That should be in the target language or moving in the direction where students need target language to get that done. The other part of it is that the real world context is that they're using language to learn more about themselves and the world. That's the purpose of every lesson in class, or they're using it to authentically communicate with a target language speaker in their immediate environment or community. Now, the third element is going to help you with figuring out how you're going to make that happen, because that is, again, that's the ideal that we are working towards. But the third element has to do with how you get there with this real world context. And that is the heart of everything that we do in class, and that is target language. Your target language delivery system is number three. Your target language delivery system is how you deliver language in class. So it means that you have a system in place that you actively use for making sure that there's less l one in class. And you're actively engaging students in the target language also in a way that is sustainable for you. So what does that look like? You choose one approach and you stick with it until you feel like you have mastery of it. Then you can add more and more to your toolkit before you move on. Some examples of this look like having target language routines or working on your questioning strategies, or maybe focusing in on a specific activity that you do all the time with your class. Or there's a million different ways that you can do this, but you have a system in place. Target language is not when I can make it happen, it is systematic. It is a huge part of class for you. The next part of the framework that we have here is number four, and that is two way communication in a proficiency oriented, target language oriented classroom. Your students are just as much a part of the equation as you are. It doesn't mean that they're speaking a lot or signing a lot. It means that they have a way to communicate with you in the target language, or at least not using a lot of l one. This means that they are able to ask for clarification, indicate their understanding, and they know very well that there is an expectation that you as the teacher are understandable to them, that they should be able to understand most of what you're saying or assigning to them, and they should have some ways that they can interact, react, say that they understand and give you, whether it be signals of some sort. They have some way to give you feedback on whether you are being comprehensible or not. They are not passive. Even though you are doing most of the actual output, they are not passive in that process. You also expect them in that two way communication part. You expect them to participate and take risks. That's a big part of it. Oh, this is a good one. Are you all ready for this one? This is five. Output is well timed and meaningful. So we talked about how important it is for your students to be a part of the process, and we'll talk more about input in a little bit, so don't worry. That's common, but for students, output is an important part of the language acquisition process. But timing is everything with this. Also, the quality of the output exercises make a huge difference. So that being said, you provide meaningful opportunities for output only after tons and tons and tons and tons of input. And anytime that output is happening in your class as an activity, students always have a scaffolding system to work with it and it's appropriate for their proficiency level. So let's do a quick gut check. How are those terms feeling for you? Are any of them a little iffy? If the word output or proficiency target or level or maybe input or scaffolding system are words that you're unfamiliar with, don't worry. I got you. We have further episodes on those materials and when they're done, I'll link them in the show notes below, but for now, just trust that it's coming your way. The next one that we have is being a conduit for conversation. This is my favorite la libre saying of the moment. Your classroom is a conduit for conversation. That's the whole purpose of being a world language teacher, is to equip your students with the ability to communicate in the target language. So what does that mean? It means that the whole purpose of your class is being a conduit for conversation. Your lesson's focal point is being a conduit for conversation. To either provide input for your students to work with, understand and respond to, or easy ways to interact with each other in the target language. That's it. Don't overcomplicate it. That's the whole point of your class. So however you choose to do that, yeah, that's teaching for proficiency. If you put up an authentic video and you're asking students to interpret that input and then maybe respond to it, that's a proficiency oriented lesson. If you are asking students to hear you talk and then respond to you in ways that make sense, that's a proficiency oriented lesson. If you are asking students to listen to a target language speaker speak and then asking them to pick apart the order that they used in the sentence of the words that they used, that's not a proficiency oriented lesson because they're not working with that for meaning. You can turn that into an exercise for meaning later with some work, but it's much more effective use of your time if you instead ask more of what was that person saying and how could you respond to it? Or what was that person saying? What's maybe another way that you could say along those lines? Number seven, this is an important foundational piece of how we make all of these difficult things happen, like being a conduit for conversation, or inviting your students to participate in output or giving them target language and asking them to interact with it. This needs to happen first. And that is number seven, a community oriented and inclusive classroom. In the classroom space, in the teaching space, there are so many other factors besides the skill that we're trying to teach, and we know as teachers that nothing happens, nothing gets done without relationships. Your classroom is a community oriented space and it needs to be growing into a more inclusive space. With every day that you are with your students, you are creating and preserving a community learning environment. How are you doing that? It's happening through relationships, it's happening through effective communication. It's happening through your very strong leadership. And it is rooted in diversity, equity and inclusive practices. This is something that all teachers are constantly growing and reflecting in. And without this key essential piece, your learning outcomes will only ever reach a certain barrier as well as only reaching certain students. And especially in a world language classroom, relationships are the key to doing anything that we do because we, more than any other classroom, are asking our students to really put themselves out there. We are very much a high anxiety, high risk environment. Think about all the times that you have been around adults who are trying to learn a second language or third language of any kind, and they might even be with their friends or with their family and they don't even want to say anything in their chosen target language because it is really hard to put yourself out there when you're learning a new language and being around somebody who already speaks that language, knowing that you're going to make mistakes around them, or as I would say, you're going to show your true level to them because there are no errors, there are only levels more on that later. But it's difficult for anyone to put themselves out there in a new language, which means that our students who are already in a high pressure environment of school, we are already bringing up that pressure a lot. So it is our job as a world language teacher to soothe the environment, to preserve the safety of what's going on, and make sure that students feel comfortable putting themselves out there because that's the only way they're going to grow. So we have a lot to focus on in this area. The next one, number eight, is the golden standard set by me. So this is certainly my opinion of what I think works and what worked in my classroom. Your number may be different, but 60% input is a good gauge that you are working with the right amount of language in class. So most of your time in class should be spent on input. That means I'm talking about everything. I'm talking about the moment the bell rings to the moment the bell rings for the end of class, 60% of it on average. If you took like a full month's data of class, 60% of that time your students are immersed, bathed in 60% input. The other 40% might be things like testing time or logistics time or time where you needed to use the l one, or times when you needed to organize activities or time for them to work on output stuff. But the majority of class should be input. That's what most of your contact hours you'll get the most result from that ratio, number nine. This one is one that you could go down a huge rabbit hole with. And this is proficiency oriented assessment. Assessment in our class is truly a data point to see how far have students come in their proficiency targets. So this is really crucial for us. And I know that you all are all teachers. You know how important assessment is. But for us, really, the little assessments, the formative ones, make a huge difference for us. We're assessing at regular intervals in all modes. So it doesn't mean necessarily that you're handing out quizzes all the time, but it means more that you are able to give me a number. If I came into your classroom and say, hey, you guys are working on a skill right now. I see, I see. That can do on the board is I can list all the rooms in my house and maybe something that I do in each room in the house. Cool. How many of your students can do that right now? And if you don't really have a good gauge on that yet, a great thing to do is some sort of formative assessment to do that. That means you're either talking to each kid and see how close they are to that objective, or you're doing activities and you're checking it off to see this is where they're at on this. Or, ooh, I can clearly see that they can list an activity, but they're not so great on this specific aspect of the sentence formation. So let's talk about that more. So you know that you need to assess at regular intervals in all modes. So it's very easy to assess on reading, that's what gets done the most. But we need to do more, even though it's difficult to do more. Interpersonal communication and interpretive listening, one of the most difficult things to assess. But we need more of that. And then presentational writing, we do a lot of that, so that shouldn't be an issue. And presentational speaking, that's an important one as well. The last one is probably going to be your favorite one as a world language teacher. And that is culture rich lessons. Culture rich lessons. In a proficiency oriented classroom, students are interacting with the target culture and they're interacting in the target language most of the time. I know this is really, really hard, but students are interacting with the target culture with as many authentic resources as possible. And notice, it's not like learning about the target cultures. They're truly interacting with it. They're watching videos from people from that culture, and you're doing more of a show don't tell approach so that they can absorb information about that culture on their own and make their own conclusions about how to expand their own perspectives. And there are, of course, proficiency benchmarks to see how that's going for them. Also, the important part about culture in our classrooms is that culture serves for our students as mirrors and windows. This is an important part of the student experience in school. Students have an opportunity to both see themselves and to better understand all the vast, glorious, diverse and wonderful ways of being a human that is available around the world. This is a really important part of what we're doing as world language teachers. So that's our ten elements. Let's review them just one more time so that we can kind of put it all together. And again, go to the show notes and the link below so that you can see the pdf for this and the blog post and review these. I also have a poster for you. If you're watching the video, you can see it back there, but it's nice. You can use this, you can put it in your office so that it's easy for you to see. Okay, the ten elements of world language proficiency instruction are these. Again, we talked about, number one, my fave, which is curriculum. Then we talked about real world context. Number two. Three is target language delivery system. Four is two way communication between you and your students. Five, output is well timed and meaningful. Six, it's a conduit for conversation. Everything that happens. Seven is your community oriented and inclusive classroom. Eight is 60% input. Nine is proficiency oriented assessment and ten is culture rich lessons. And that's it. That's what we got. These are the ten elements of world language proficiency instruction. So I'm so excited to hear about how this is going to help clarify things for you in your proficiency journey. Let me know. I cannot wait to hear how this goes for you. Thank you so much for being here, and I'll see you on the next episode. Go ahead and download that PDF so that you can see the ten elements in action and have these right next to your teacher desk so you can see them all the time when you're planning things for class and so that it becomes really, really clear for you. And I'll see you in the next episode. Bye for now. Bye.