Here are this year's curriculum maps!

Some acknowledgments and explanation:

• Templates come from the Ohio Department of Education​
• Levels 1 & 2 source Language Gym materials ( Gianfranco Conti et al) quite a bit
• Levels 3 and 4 are based on the AP themes (we do not teach AP but I thought it best to align them in the event we do in the future)
• The documents are Creative Commons marked to be shared or adapted with attribution but cannot be sold or used in part for commercial purposes.

Les voilà!

French 1 (débutant complet - Novice Mid) -
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JxWj7wMQWB8m4znp7TFHF619gmdYLfIo_BfhaqTKz9U/edit?usp=drivesdk
French 2 (débutant - Novice High)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KcvPNQEktbPt0cfp3YUlRvh1JRV5ahi9HPynZjyxfvE/edit?usp=drivesdk

French 3 (intermédiaire - Intermediate Low)
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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o53BrwFtiYmXdwWjSFanx4wBdhpQYHttPVmdzYguato/edit?usp=drivesdk
French 4 ( intermédiaire - Intermediate Low)

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iwAgyjMHGIvXk9_MfCrXWAGD0TcP18t0W0rqWqtInO8/edit?usp=drivesdk
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I wanted to respond to a question on Twitter from fellow teacher @HeyArchy about my policy for work completion required to unlock summative assessments, and I think it also may give some food for thought in the ongoing discussions about giving zeros, late work and retakes.

I teach at a mastery grading school - students are expected to reach mastery (70%) or higher to get credit for a class and move on to the next level. Parents have to sign off if they want students to move on with a grade 60-69%.  As part of the mastery system, we are expected to allow retakes or remediation of some kind for performance/summative assignments that are below mastery. Since our gradebook is set up 90% performance + 10% practice (formative), students need to hit mastery on the performance to pass the class. Unfortunately, many decide that since the practice is only worth 10%, they will not do it, roll the dice on the performance, and then count on a retake. This is problematic for many reasons, but especially in the language classroom, where if students do not engage with the input or output practice they will not be able to perform on assessments. It simply won't work. The flip side of this is that if students do the practice/engage with the input, they are almost guaranteed to be successful on the performance assessments (especially with the EPI method I am using which is super effective for all learners).

Initially, I would create a list of must-do practice assignments to be completed or redone for students who had failed their assessments, they would have to do those, have me check it, then schedule a time for a retake. This was not a good use of anyone's time, and would also mean students were working a lesson or two behind all the time trying to reach mastery. And then there was the question of whether or not to rewrite the assessment for students taking it a second time, since some students viewed as a game of "I won't study or do the practice but will try the test to see what it looks like, then get a retake." And yes, students actually articulated that, because kids are smart and if they can figure out a way to streamline their experience, they will! Strategic they are.

Not to be outstrategeried (maybe you have to be of a certain age in the US to remember who used STRATEGERY...), I pulled out an old trick I learned from working at The Ohio State University Individualized Instruction Center in the 1990s. Students had to work through a certain checklist of practice activities to a mastery level to take the relevant assessment. And they had to schedule appointments to take their assessments, as well as other time limits involved. It really helped students manage their time and stay on track with their learning. So I took the notion of prerequisites plus the gaming idea of "unlocking" the next level (Duolingo does this!) and came up with the following policy.

• Lesson/unit is preplanned out for however many weeks it will take
  
• List of practice activities is compiled
  
• When lesson/unit starts, students are told when the performance assessment will be, and that they will need to complete ___%/# of practice assignments in order to take the performance assessment on time. Generally I fixed it at around 75% of the assignments. I explained to the kids that it was like attending (sport) practice so they had the skills to play in the game. No practice, no play.
  
• I contacted parents/guardians generally to let them know the expectations, then specifically if we got close to the assessment and their student was not on track. Parents were 100% supportive because the policy makes sense - why allow a student to take a test we know they cannot be successful on?
  
• Students who did not have their practice work done on assessment day had to spend the class working on their practice work. Because I was using Formative to deliver most of the assessments, it was easy to assign to individual students and exclude those who were not caught up. Obviously in a classroom, simply do not hand out the test to those who are not prepared.
  
• I did put zeros in for missing performance grades that were missing because they were not unlocked. I understand all the equity concerns about that, but my students were not motivated by a Missing mark, and guardians could not see what the negative impact would be of those missing assessments if I did not put in the zero.
  
• Students then had to schedule a time to make up the assessments. This was fairly easy last year because we had asynchronous Wednesdays with office hours. This year I will have to make other arrangements. Students may have to stay after school (we have buses available). or we have an exploratory period when students could come do makeups.
  
• I had to set a deadline at the end of the grading period for work. Yes, I did have a few students who pushed this to the edge last year and were consistently behind, but on the whole, this policy kept more kids on track, and parents seemed to find it reasonable and understood that it was truly about making sure the students LEARNED French instead of just gaming the assessments. My principal was supportive as well.
  

I will likely have to do a little bit of tweaking this year as our situation will be changed, but I plan to stick with the general policy. It does not serve the students to give them a performance assessment when we know they have done no practice, and it helped them to understand the the practice work was not just to keep them busy, it was leading them to be able to perform.

I hope that was helpful! I'm happy to discuss via email, contact form here, or on Twitter @madamednmichael!

Recently,  the Language Gym   added a Listening Trainer to complement the Vocab Trainer. If you are at all familiar with  Gianfranco Conti's   EPI   (extensive processing  instruction), you are familiar with the  Listening as Modeling/Reading as Modeling  first part of the sequence.   On the Language Gym site, the  Vocab Trainer can serve as part of the Reading as Modeling and now the  addition of the Listening Trainer  provides the Listening as Modeling .  (If you need information on the method,  check out Conti's blog or Dylan Viñales'  post here.   

The following explanations assume you  have some kind of access to the Language Gym site as well as a basic familiarity with the Conti approach.

How it works

Identical to the Vocab Trainer, the first ' activity'  is a list of the terms in the set - called Self Study - with audio for both the target language and English. Having the audio for the English is especially beneficial for those students who need to hear and see text in English - especially because in the US we have many students who have  "read-aloud"  accommodations required by law as part of their special education plan (I am not sure how this works legally for my UK and global colleagues).    The learner should start by listening to the terms in  Self-Study before proceeding to the other activities.

The  8 different activities that follow begin with focus on  meaning, then expand to focus on form (spelling) and word order.   The   beginning tasks require a lower cognitive load and prime for the later activities with less scaffolding that require  a higher cognitive load (but that load will be reduced if the activities are done in order - very important to explain to students!)   This explanation about sequencing comes  from Conti's Becoming an EPI Teacher workshop  - see his blog also.

Considerations

As always, be mindful of students who have any kind of auditory processing issues, attention or working memory issues, or  processing issues that effect spelling or word order (dyslexia, dyspraxia).  Provide textual support on paper with the terms in the set, and direct students to omit activities that they may not be able to do successfully. For example, as I mention the video below, students with working memory or attention challenges may not be able to do the Delayed Dictation and Delayed Translation tasks. 

Possible Uses

If you are using the full  or partial MARSEARS sequence from Conti, the Listening Trainer could be a valuable addition to (or replacement for) teacher-led activities in the classroom for Listening as Modeling. I do a sort of blended-learning with students doing a lot of work online, so I plan to use this and the Listening as Modeling activities on SentenceBuilders.com  at the start of the sequence; I like it because students can change the speed of the audio, choose the level of difficulty and move at the pace they need to. This provides for differentiation and personalization while minimizing my labor.  Obviously I will require students to use headphones   so the room does not become too noisy and distracting.

The Listening Trainer could be used as homework or cover work for when a teacher is out of the building, as it  is independent work and could be  done easily without adult supervision.   It also is a good option for students reviewing for assessments who need reinforcement of their listening skills, or students who simply require more practice than what they get in the classroom with the teacher-led activities.

Overall, I find it to be a very valuable tool that will provide my students with  Listening as Modeling in a manner that is accessible and allows them choice while sparing me a bit.  

Here is my walkthrough video with commentary:

What follows will be neither a review nor a complete step-by- step how-to guide for the new site, SentenceBuilders.com . I have been a beta tester for the site, so I would not be able to do a review with the appearance of impartiality, but I don't work for the site either so I will leave the creation of detailed instructions to them.

Background

If you are a teacher who is unfamiliar with the use of sentence builder type knowledge organizers and/or the work of Gianfranco Conti , I suggest some reading before exploring further. Conti has written several books with Steve Smith, but I am linking a helpful blog post he did below for a quick glance at his method.

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EPI/Sentence Builders approach - Gianfranco Conti
https://gianfrancoconti.com/2018/07/30/patterns-first-how-i-teach-lexicogrammar-part-1/

Simona Gravina’s Padlet with examples & explanations of EPI approach
https://padlet.com/simograv/svi55fluxeolisi9

My blog post about how I incorporate the EPI into US proficiency-based instruction
https://madamemichael.weebly.com/mon-blog

Twitter thread about importance of understanding the whole method and not just using a sentence builder in isolation: https://twitter.com/j_st_88/status/1384942779051167750?s=09

How To Videos

I created several demo videos to show how to use various aspects of the site.

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Need to Know

• Premium resources (Language Gym)
• Community resources
• Private/School resource
• Import from a sentence builder you create
• Easily import terms from Quizlet
• Limitations & suggestions for teacher-created - work in progress on Martin Lapworth’s end - will be adding more functionality
• Sequences follow Conti’s Listening/Reading as Modeling approach
• Data analysis available
• Easy to differentiate for students - create different assignments with the same set
• US - easy to use along with stories and authentic resources (what I do)

​Considerations

• Will take a while to learn how long students will take to complete activities for pacing
• Important to understand whole method - intentionality in your instructional design
• Cost - more teachers = better deal
• No packaging with Language Gym or other Lapworth sites - Textivate or TeachVid - not possible because of the way their businesses are set up
• Some overlap with Language Gym -I plan to use both
• If you are not full-in Conti method/materials and need something customizable, you may want to only choose Sentence Builders
• Tech support as a beta tester has been OUTSTANDING!

Want more information or still interested in a demo? Reach out via my Contact Form or Twitter !

A votre service,

​Dawn

I have had this blog post in my head for months now, but felt guilty blogging when my focus " should" have been on managing the 6000 ring circus of pandemic teaching. It is now officially winter break, and I have no excuse - and I need to blog more, for my own professional development. Alors, allons-y!

For the past 4 to 5 years, I have worked very hard to design instruction based around authentic resources, as this is considered the goal of our ACTFL and Ohio standards - what can a student do with authentic resources designed for native speakers. From the first weeks of Level 1, I would use authentic resources  in class, and I was very proud of how well most  of my students could handle an Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) based on authentic documents or audiovisual. However, there were always students who struggled, such as students with learning disabilities that affected reading, students who were designated as ELL, students who lacked successful literacy strategies in English. And no matter what sort of pre-reading or scaffolding I offered, many of these students were so anxious or afraid of the authentic texts that they would not attempt - or would rely on using their phone or Google Translate to try to sneak by that way. While I was very proud of my chops as a "standards-based proficiency-focused teacher", I was uneasy knowing I was not helping ALL my students feel like they could succeed in French class. It happens too often that the students who struggle are simply considered as afterthoughts - we must modify our instruction to make it doable for some who cannot do it as designed - rather than design instruction that will work for ALL students in the first place. (Check out Universal Design - I learned about this after I had figured out I needed to shift my design perspective, but it definitely informs my practices now)

Along the way I discovered the work of GianFranco Conti  and began incorporating some of his lessons and units into the lessons I had written and the ones I had adapted from Français Interactif. My level 3 students in particular raved about how much they liked it, because they were able to quickly create compound and complex sentences that felt natural to them, and did not need to struggle to assemble individual words and phrases to communicate at a level that felt like high school, and not elementary school. The more activities that I added in his style, the more impressed I was with what ALL  the students could do with the language, confidently and with accuracy. As I learned more about his method (see his blog and books, I am not going to attempt to summarize), I decided that it was more conducive to enabling ALL my students to learn language than my existing strategies which revolved around authentic resources. A more equitable pedagogical method was the clear choice.

This year I am using Conti materials and methods along with my own materials that I write with Conti principles in mind. For the first time in probably 5 years, I did not start my Level 1 students out right away with authentic resources (infographics usually) and spent some time with the Conti beginner workbook activities and stories I wrote using the structures and vocabulary we had been working with. I have created listening and speaking activities as well, using GoFormative because we have been either hybrid or virtual all year. As time goes on, I am incorporating a few authentic resources in Level 1, but I still see the students who lack confidence shutting down completely as soon as they encounter something they know is "real" French,  so I still have some work to do to reassure them.   But on the whole, the students have responded very favorably to the method - they feel empowered to create sentences and communicate at a level that feels less child-like, and it is still a joyful surprise to me each time I see a level 1 student creating strings of compound or even complex sentences with a high degree of comprehensibility.   Levels 2 and 3 are getting regular work with authentic resources, but supported by language practice that is based on  Conti's or using his materials from Language Gym and TES (I often adapt them for our needs). The students often tell me, this stuff works! The sentence builders, the repetition, the scaffolding - it all facilitates acquisition and builds students' confidence in using the language. My colleague @profe_hanna and I both say, the only way they won't learn with Conti methods is if they won't do the work!  And yes, to be honest, there are plenty of students who are not working for a whole variety of reasons, so I am not going to pretend that what I am doing is a magic bullet that will lead to 100% engagement. But, I will say that I know that the way I am teaching now is absolutely more equitable, and I know that ALL of my students can learn French this way.

So, Conti + authres? This is the way.

(A second part to this blog post will follow with a sample outline of what class looks like for me at all 3 levels)

I have blogger block - I think and think about what I should and want to write, but then I don't do it because I'm afraid it won't sound brilliant. I need to stop with that and just produce. In other words, I need to do what I teach my students - worry less about my form and more about my message.

I know there are many language teachers who start the year 90-100% target language (TL). I understand the reasoning, and I will never quarrel with them about it, because that's their prerogative to do what they feel serves their students best. For me and my students, the goal at the start of the year was to lower the level of affect and build a sense of trust in me as a teacher and the proficiency-oriented classroom.

Classroom culture

In all my classes, French 1-3, we did a PearDeck - Notre salle de classe -  so I could establish trust and norms  - I want my students to feel safe and comfortable being human, having emotional needs, and knowing that I do not expect robotic compliance or plastic happiness. Judging from the verbal responses I heard, and the feedback in the PearDeck, this was a success. And since doing that, even the kids I had previously have been more open about sharing their moods and needs with me. This was a good thing, and I wish I would have done this previously. (I have always had them fill out a Who am I? activity, but this went deeper) You can find this PearDeck/Slides  here.  I also continued the use of my backchannel communication - just a simple "Tell Tatie" form that is always available by my desk - and it's already been used. Kids can let me know anything they don't feel comfortable telling me in person. I also prefer this to an online tool because it's untraceable and not on the district server. That form is here.

Language Learning by Level

French 1:   We spent a bit of time learning about what proficiency is, what the state standards are for their level, and how that looks in assessment and grading. This is a monumental shift for students who came from other language classrooms that were hyperfocused on grammar and accuracy, and I wanted to erase any existing anxiety they had from those experiences. I used the same presentation with the students that I shared with parents.  That is available here.

We began with giving basic personal information about ourselves (je m'appelle, je suis de), the alphabet and how letters sound in French, bearing in mind that developing phonemic awareness is fundamental in growing listening skills. Students recorded several Flipgrids to practice speaking - with no concerns about grades or being corrected on their pronunciation - and response was enthusiastic and engaged! We did 3 Flipgrids so far: Je me présente (Je m'appelle, je suis de); Je peux epeler mon nom (Je m'appelle, ça s'écrit); Folie Flipgrid (talk to 5 classmates, introduce each one and spell their first name). We wrapped up with examining the school schedule of the seconde year at a high school in France, Gimkitting school subject vocabulary, doing a dictée with the school subjects to reinforce letter/sound/spelling, and then writing/speaking their own school schedules from a template in Seesaw. The #authres based school schedule activity I wrote is here.

French 2: French  2 is my data class for the Ohio Teacher Evaluation System (OTES), so I had to do the pre-assessment IPA for those classes. That's not a great way to build emotional support - starting with a test - but I spent a lot of time reassuring them that this is zero stakes for them, and they seemed to buy in (for the most part). The speaking part of the test was the most anxiety-producing.  I then started an IPA-a-day style review based on #authres - which by the way, is the EASIEST way to build instructional materials, and if you're not doing this, let me talk to you one-on-one to explain how to! We've reviewed giving personal identifying information by using CVs as the authentic resources, and we're looking at school subjects and materials using the model school supply lists and lycée scheduling documents on education.gouv.fr (this led to intercultural discussions as well). Using the IPA or partial IPA format as a daily instructional model greatly lowers the affective filter for students on actual test days, because they are so familiar with the format. I use InsertLearning for most of these since I'm 1-to-1 this year and all the kids can get on a computer. We did have one writing mini-assessment, the kids all did well (vive proficiency-oriented instruction and grading!), and I hope that builds their confidence as we continue. I'm so impressed with where they are coming off a 3 month break!

French 3:  Pushing into the intermediate range, we have started with  describing our academic load, our plan of studies, and what we did during summer vacation. Every starter involves writing about what they HAVE DONE  the past few days since the last class (we are on an A/B day schedule).   Tomorrow we will wrap that up with some interpersonal speaking and some presentational writing, and then discussing stereotypes about Americans and French. The students in the class came in ranging from Novice Mid through Intermediate Low, so I'm working on getting those kids who are still at NM to level up with lots of scaffolding - for example, I provided a Quizlet set with personal questions and the sentence starters for the responses to get them off to a solid start in their productive skills. This group is excited to be working in the target language - for the most part - and is mature enough to understand that is what it will take to grow. Beginning the year with talking about ourselves is helping to lower the affect level and increase their willingness to take risks with the language.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with the atmospheres we are creating in class, and I am excited to see my students grow over the next months. A suivre...@madamednmichael

 Here we go again. New school year = new curriculum maps. Well, new map. I'm fairly satisfied with my French 1 and French 2 maps, which I revamped last year to align with the AAPPL test, so those remained fundamentally the same. French 3, well....

French 1 and 2: The only significant change that I made to both was to remove any mention of discrete grammar points, and instead replaced it with the term "lexis" (see Gianfranco Conti's work). This was also inspired by the Williamson County (Tennessee) Scope and Sequence documents which also reference "Language Chunks" - for their Level 1 document, click here.

French 3: To use a turn of phrase my students like...see what had happened was...I needed to streamline this class because it was too much work. I have a chronic autoimmune disease that requires vigilant management that is essentially my full-time job. So I thought I should make this course easier to deliver. While I was contemplating the new direction of the course, I saw many discussions on Twitter in my PLC, #langchat, about delivering content through language, rather than language being the content, and calls to emphasize interculturality (@doriecp) . Adrienne Brandenburg tweeted asking if anyone was using the Teaching Tolerance Social Justice Standards, and that inspired me to consider those in my design. Finally, I considered my own academic background - I began as a political science major in undergrad, and had a concentration in French civilization for both my M.A. and Ph.D. programs - and decided that a course focused on cultural questions would not only align best with my foundations, but also be the most provocative experience for my students. Level 3 is the terminus of my program at this point, and while many of these themes are typically considered Level 5/AP, I am going to work with them as well as I can at the Intermediate Low/Mid level. I pulled out an old edition of an intermediate university level text I taught from over 10 years ago (Quant a moi, 3rd edition) to examine some of the themes and language structures they used, and then built from there. 

If you examine this map closely, you will notice it's very open-ended. In fact, I did not list any language chunks or lexis at all; instead I stated "Structures: As determined by communicative context". I'm a Department of One again in my district this year, but I'm hoping that another world language educator would be able to infer that if students need to be able to propose solutions, they may need to learn some subjunctive constructions, or if they are comparing, they need to learn comparatives and superlatives. What I don't want is to limit myself (or my students) to a discrete list of resources or language functions because it's on a document I have created in August.    On verra!

I want to be certain to acknowledge  two  language educators whose work informs my own:  I've listed Lisa Shepard's blog as a possible resource, and as always, will use Gianfranco Conti's methodology of teaching presentational skills  in chunks as I create practice materials for writing and speaking.

MAPS

(If you grew up in the 70s & 80s, you may recognize that line from a jingle advertising a sugar-laden, artificially-colored breakfast cereal...)

As promised on the #langchat, I'd like to share my AAPPL implementation plan and experience.

Background: Last year, my principal emailed me and a colleague asking us about the STAMP test for the Seal of Biliteracy. Our district contracts with an ESC to provide Chinese instruction, and they were using the STAMP to test their students, and he was wondering if we should be doing it for French and Spanish. I'm the kind of person who would rather implement changes on my own timeline than be mandated by the district, so I volunteered to test my French 3 class at the end of the year, knowing that it was unlikely any level 3 would reach the level for the Seal.My experience with STAMP and examination of their average scores in French led me to ask to switch to the AAPPL test for this year.  (I'd be happy to discuss that experience individually, I don't think this is the appropriate forum for that).

Plan: With the goal of getting some Level 3 students to the Seal of Biliteracy, my tentative plan is as follows:

• French 1: take the Form A Presentational Writing test. Writing is where many students often lag, and I want the measurements early so I know how much I need to build.
• French 2: take the Interpersonal Listening and Speaking test. This will give me another benchmark and expose the students to that part of the test.
  
• French 3: take all 4 parts, hoping that some of the most proficient students will reach the level for the Seal (Intermediate High).

After my principal approved this plan in theory, I examined my curriculum guides, and added themes where needed to make sure they aligned generally with the AAPPL topics. I did not have much to change or to add, fortunately. Once the year began, I switched from using the ODE-created proficiency rubrics for scoring to the AAPPL level descriptors  in order to align my expectations to those students would see on the test. This required very little shift in practice on my part, as I was already grading based on proficiency-level descriptions. The nice thing about the AAPPL descriptions is that they are easy for students to understand as well. Before my 1st semester French 1 class took the AAPPL, I scored their last writing assessment and explained to them which level they had reached. They were really excited to see how well they had done, and to have an idea of exactly what they would need to be able to do to reach that level on the AAPPL. (I had no such way of preparing students for the STAMP)They also did the demo test, which was identical in format to the test, which lowered the level of affect when they reached the testing session.

Round 1: My first round of AAPPL with this French 1 group went very well. The State of Ohio sets Novice Mid as the target for Year 1; I teach with Novice High in mind for an A grade. This meant N-2 and N-3 (Novice MId) would be at-level scores, and N-4 (Novice High) would be above level (see AAPPL to ACTFL proficiency levels). 80% of the class scored at N-2 or higher, with 40% scoring at N-4 or I-1. I felt like the grading I was doing in class using the descriptors was generally aligned with their AAPPL results, and there were no surprises in the results. (Note: I did request 1 rescore, which I have not yet received. I really liked that I can see the students' responses and scores, it is very helpful for me to calibrate my scoring in the classroom).  With so many students at N-4/I-1 at the end of Level 1, I feel hopeful that I may be able to get a few high-achieving students to I-5 at the end of Level 3. (Note: Level 3 target in Ohio is Intermediate Low  - I1. ) It was also extremely valuable to have a 'standardized' measurement of my students' work, both for shaping my own practices, and for providing data to my administrators.  The high percentage of students who were at or above level is evidence of the effectiveness of my proficiency-based instruction, and provides a validated measurement that those of us in 'untested' areas do not usually have. Honestly, if I could use the AAPPL for testing for evaluation purposes, I would .

Unknowns: I did not have any students who required accommodations in this group. I am not sure how well some of my students who have severe challenges with literacy or  attention (IEP or 504) will do with this test as it is entirely on screen. I do not know if LTI/AAPPL tracks that subgroup and has any relevant, I will look into that to see.

Takeaway: I'm all in for the AAPPL. I found the preparation information (topics, score descriptors, practice tests) to be transparent and aligned with the actual test. I will report back after the spring and further testing at the other levels!

You have one minute to build a solid Lego building. Which stack do you choose?

The answer, obviously, is the stack on the right. While the little pieces provide detail and variety, the larger blocks will allow us to build quickly, and reach our goal within the designated time frame.

Before Ohio transitioned to proficiency-based standards, I was the Queen of Cover It. I was so proud of the fact that we could "get to" recognition of the passé composé at the end of Level 1, and I was excited about all my grammar PowerPoints to teach the formulas for si-clauses. I remember talking about students who were unsuccessful because they "couldn't conjugate verbs" or "form the passé composé correctly."

Being a 'teach what I'm supposed to teach' kind of girl, when the standards changed, so did I. I spent hours reading about IPA assessment, attended training, rewrote my curriculum, and have been reworking my instructional materials. I no longer teach grammar out of context, and instead rely on "chunking" or "lexis" (see Gianfranco Conti) to present lexical units containing the grammatical structures necessary for the communicative goal. The longer I teach this way, and the more I see how others teach to proficiency, the more I have developed instructional tools to help students learn language in meaningful units (phrases, sentences) rather than individual words or verb forms. The results have been amazing!

Grammar-accuracy/Cover It Dawn would have had few students be able to comfortably produce paragraphs by the end of Level 1 (try putting together all those little Legos!). Many could answer matching or fill in questions, but could not spontaneously produce much beyond rote phrases. Now - in September, some students in my semester-long French 1 were able to write paragraphs describing their preferred activities, complete sentences including adverbs! Nearly all could write in sentences (big Legos). This exceeds the state target for Level 1 - Novice Mid - and after only a month of class! Students had NO DIRECT GRAMMAR INSTRUCTION OR VERB CONJUGATION PRACTICE. None. And yet, many could communicate at sentence and paragraph level! Those who were still at word and phrase level are still on track for the standards, but I hope with continued scaffolding, their skills will develop as well.

I wasn't trying to collect data to justify my shift in practices - I do believe that it is my professional responsibility to teach to the standards set by the State of Ohio, and that alone was justification enough. But given what I'm seeing my students are able to do with language now, I would use my lexical Legos  example to explain to any critic why proficiency-based chunking is the way to go!

Allons-y! Let's build!