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OVER the last decade, foreign language education has experienced significant changes, in part as a response to developments in the world outside the foreign language classroom. For instance, increasing concern about this nation's ability to compete in the international economy has heightened awareness of the importance of competence in languages other than English. This consciousness, in turn, has raised public expectations regarding student achievement in language learning and has led many states to increase foreign language requirements in the school curriculum. At the same time, the growing cultural diversity within the United States has prompted a somewhat belated recognition of the value of cultivating the rich, pluralistic language potential of our population. In addition, the call for national standards has raised concern about the prospect of political forces outside the academic community mandating how foreign language education will be delivered. For these and other reasons, educators have increasingly begun to see foreign language instruction as being not on the margin of the curriculum but at its core.
But the profession has faced several challenges: lack of a shared framework for foreign language education, domination of the language curriculum by textbooks, inaccurate student placement at all levels, repetition of content year after year, and lack of a well-understood and widely shared understanding of what students should know about language and be able to do with it. As Janet Swaffar writes, foreign language education currently possesses “no consensus about a coherent instructional sequence from school through college. The profession lacks a sequence based on a shared framework for foreign language teaching and learning.”
Efforts have been made to address this problem. Notably, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) published and made widely available its proficiency guidelines in 1986; the College Board followed in the same year with an expanded statement on foreign language curriculum and instruction entitled Academic Preparation in Foreign Language ; the National Standards in Foreign Language Education Task Force received federal funding in 1992 to develop broad goals for language instruction; the College Board began development of a curricular model in Spanish, called Pacesetter, the same year. What these and other initiatives have not done, however, is to translate recommendations and general guidelines for foreign language education into well-defined and commonly accepted achievement levels for student work at successive grades in the school-college continuum. In short, they do not provide a framework for, or adequately inform, the articulation process. As a consequence, foreign language teachers at different grade and course levels function much too independently of one another and often, because they do not know what students have already learned, act as if the students had no prior instruction or experience. This problem is particularly acute at the critical transition points between middle and high school and between school and college, because teachers have little opportunity for interaction with colleagues at the other levels. In these transitions, when some teachers simply “start over,” valuable time is too often wasted; and student progress is devalued and student confidence undermined. Unfortunately, without a sense that their achievements are recognized, students are often inclined to discontinue their second language study, leading to enrollment declines in language and literature programs.
In 1992 the College Board, the New England Network of Academic Alliances, and ACTFL began a collaboration to address this clearly identified need. Funded by the United States Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, the project sought to provide an articulated learning-outcomes framework and matching classroom-based assessments for student transitions between middle school and high school and between secondary and postsecondary education. The major goals of the group were
Now it is third year, the project team—composed of colleagues from colleges, schools, and education organizations—has completed, published, and disseminated throughout the Northeast a described set of performance outcomes (entitled Provisional Learning Outcomes Framework ); developed classroom-based performance-assessment activities, which include an electronic assessment portfolio; assessed and evaluated student performance in all model sites; created a database containing results of student performance; trained participants in holistic scoring methods; and locally disseminated project developments in a workshop format with a packet of presentation materials. Ten sites at schools, districts, and colleges with broad socioeconomic diversity are testing a pilot version of the articulation framework. Feedback from participating teachers and students has resulted in refinements to the Provisional Learning Outcomes Framework : it continues to be a work in progress. Results from the project are reflected also in the work of ACTFL on national standards.
The focus of the first year of the project was on the development of uniform student outcomes and matching classroom assessment strategies. The group held two faculty institutes, which provided the project team with information, research, and professional-development experiences to help them reach informed consensus around project objectives. The need to establish common ground for discussion among the participants led the team to base the outcomes on the organizational structures most common in New England: programs that begin in the seventh grade and terminate in the twelfth grade and college programs that use a semester format. Thus, the outcomes would represent what students will know and be able to do at the end of these time frames. Five stages were devised to differentiate levels of competency. Within these stages, five categories— function, context, content, text type , and accuracy —were established to reflect the terms commonly used among language professionals to describe what students should know and be able to do.
At the first faculty institute, the project team decided that an assessment strategy that allowed ongoing evaluation of student progress and involvement of students in monitoring their linguistic development was key to the success of the articulation framework. The members of the team agreed that while the process could be so time-consuming as to be counterproductive, a well-controlled and well-planned portfolio procedure based on the principle of significant sample would enhance both instruction and learning. The team decided that each participant would begin collecting student work that supported the outcomes for each stage of development. The group would compare procedures over time and adopt the best method for inclusion in the final document.
Participants returned to the second faculty institute with an entirely new perspective on assessment. The process of reflecting on and developing realistically high outcomes, combined with the practice of using assessment strategies that emphasize performance, resulted in a new level of insight about language teaching. During the year, the faculty members studied and tried a number of assessment strategies that supported the developing outcomes. They quickly learned that the assessment of authentic performance worked best to accomplish the project's objectives. Among the strategies that the participants tried and refined in classrooms was the modified oral proficiency interview. The greatest difficulties encountered in the use of this important tool were allocating the time to test each student and finding a practical and reliable method for evaluating the results.
The project team worked together to develop assessment rubrics matched to the outcomes and designed to evaluate student productive performance holistically. This collaborative endeavor enabled the faculty members to work together on a model that has since been replicated and modified for each of the five stages in the articulation framework and has facilitated the standardization, to the extent possible, of the evaluation of activities such as the modified oral proficiency interview.
The second major topic addressed at the second institute was integrated assessment. Modeled after the methods developed at the Modern Language Center of the Institute for Pedagogical Studies in Ontario, integrated assessment is a thematic, coherent assessment device in which students are asked to perform certain language-specific tasks across modalities. The team felt that this approach holds real promise for a balanced kind of assessment that fits naturally into the teaching and learning process.
Armed with classroom experience gained in the months between the first institute and the second, the teaching faculty members were able to make enormous progress on the articulation framework, which, though in draft form, is beginning to reflect the best we can expect of foreign language students (see app. for an example). Students are exposed to authentic materials and realia throughout the five stages. As they achieve degrees of competency in the language and understand and interpret textual materials, they are introduced to literature. The use of authentic literary texts is encouraged beginning at stage 1 to the extent that the reading is age-appropriate and consistent with reading ability as described in the function and context categories. Stages 4 and 5 in particular focus on reading literary texts, as well as on developing proficiency in speaking and writing. Moreover, the Pacesetter project is consistent with the outcomes of stages 3 and 4, and a close study of the Pacesetter initiative will reveal the careful integration of literary texts.
In the second year of the project, after the two faculty institutes, participants reported that their teaching and testing strategies had changed noticeably, that student involvement had improved, and that students were participating more in monitoring their own progress. Team members collected samples of student work to validate project outcomes and to provide a basis for comparison with the 1993–94 school year, in which teachers piloted the outcomes and the new assessment strategies across grades 7–14 and provided workshops at state conventions and regional alliance meetings.
The most significant problem faculty members faced in the second year was how to move students beyond stage 3, the critical stage at which attrition is greatest and beyond which most student materials have not been produced and innovative practice has not occurred. This problem arises in part because students make significantly more mistakes as they attempt to master the rules of the language; the experience “errors of growth” (Gardner, Unschooled Mind 109) as they attempt to avoid certain formerly appealing responses that now seem to them inappropriate. Instead of penalizing learners for venturing beyond their levels of fluency in the language, the team felt, instructors should allow students more time in stage 3. It is a question of equity—providing all students with the tools and the time to become proficient in a second language.
In the last year of the project, the team members continue to refine the framework. They have standardized methods and procedures for gathering samples of student work so as to provide the most reliable information possible. The final draft of the articulation framework is expected to be completed in the next few months; it will suggest appropriate content and materials and describe in full the most effective classroom assessment strategies. Samples of student work chosen from among those sent to demonstrate student performance in each area defined in the framework will be appended to the final draft.
Even as the articulation and achievement project has been under way, other national initiatives have been moving forward. The National Standards for Foreign Languages Task Force has drafted five broad goals and areas for which standards will be established. In response to Goals 2000 legislation, states have begun to determine how best to translate standards into curricular benchmarks. The College Board's Pacesetter program is being piloted in schools throughout the country. These various initiatives have made it increasingly apparent that foreign language professionals need to see a coherent picture of how the projects interface, if they do at all. Teachers require language learning and teaching models that connect from standards through to curriculum. The essential linkages implicit in the various initiatives need to be made explicit.
To that end, the College Board, the New England Network of Academic Alliances, ACTFL, and the National Standards in Foreign Language Education Task Force have joined together again to build on the results of the articulation and achievement project at a national level and to undo “standards pandemonium” (Gardner, “Need” 56). This new project will seek to
There is already an implicit fit among the various foreign language initiatives. The dissemination project will seek to make it explicit. Goals 2000 has defined five broad areas for which standards are being established. States are charged with translating the standards into curricular benchmarks. The articulation and achievement project is based on objectives and outcomes; the project team has already formulated outcomes that match several goals of the national standards. Revisions to the provisional learning outcomes based on feedback from student performance are being undertaken. Goals 2000 presents broad guidelines; the articulation and achievement project formulates outcomes; and initiatives like Pacesetter provide a curricular content-driven experience for students that supports outcomes and assessment and meets standards. The states are all in various stages of framework development.
The point of intersection among these initiatives is their attempt to define what students should know and be able to do at various levels of study—the basis for articulation frameworks. The dissemination package will stress compatible approaches to describing language learning among the four projects. The discovery by participants in the articulation and achievement project that there is a disjuncture between inter and actual practice in stage 3, for example, should be extremely useful to language teachers.
The articulation and achievement project has made significant strides in developing a common language that describes a continuum of student learning without reference to years studied, textbooks used, or coverage. Participating faculty members have developed classroom-based performance-assessment strategies that match the outcomes to validate student achievement. What we have learned from the project modestly begun is that an enormous amount of work remains to be done and that our success depends on the collaboration and commitment of language and literature faculty members from all levels of schools, colleges, and universities. 1
Claire Jackson is Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction of the Public Schools of Brookline, Massachusetts. Karen Masters-Wicks is Director for Curriculum and Instructional Development at the College Board. This reporton the College Board's project Articulation and Achievement: The Challenge of the 1990s in Foreign Language Education was prepared specially for the ADFL Bulletin.
1 For further information about the projects, interested readers should feel free to write or call the authors: Claire Jackson, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, K-12, The Public Schools of Brookline, 333 Washington St., Brookline, MA 02146 (617 730-2429; fax: 617 730-2108; jacksoc@meol.mass.edu), and Karen Masters-Wicks, Director for Curriculum and Instructional Development, Office of Academic Affairs, The College Board, 45 Columbus Ave., New York, NY 10023-6992 (212 713-8215; fax: 212 713-8304; cb17@transit.nyser.net).
Gardner, Howard. “The Need for Anti-Babel Standards.” Education Week 7 Sept. 1994: 44+.
———. The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think and How Schools Teach . New York: Basic, 1991.
Swaffar, Janet. “Articulating Learning in High School and College Programs: Holistic Theory in the Foreign Language Curriculum.” Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education meeting. Washington, Oct. 1990.
Throughout stage 2, students will develop that ability to
| Function | Context | Content | Text Type | Accuracy |
Assessment
Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perform all the functions described in stage 1 | in face-to-face social interaction | about the topics included in stage 1 and stage 2 content areas | using sentences and strings of sentences | that demonstrate increasing fluency and control of vocabulary, with no significant pattern of errors. | Modified oral proficiency interviews, short letters, notes, role-playing |
| Engage in conversations | in face-to-face social interaction |
about the topics included in stage 2 content areas:
Important historical and cultural figures, places, and events Clothing City and town Buildings Food Seasons Animals Shopping, stores, money Professions, work Transportation, travel Geography |
using sentences and strings of sentences. | The message will be comprehensible and culturally appropriate, but some pattern of error may prevent full comprehension. | Modified oral proficiency interviews, daily class interaction and discussion of topical material, role-playing |
| Express likes and dislikes | in face-to-face social interaction, lists, surveys, notes, and postcards | using sentences and strings of sentences. | Modified oral proficiency interviews, role-playing, informal conversations (teacher/students and student/student), short discourse, questions; short paragraphs, opinion surveys, letters | ||
| Provide and obtain specific information | in face-to-face social interaction, letters, ads, tickets, brochures, signs, readings, and video | using questions, polite commands, and short sentences and strings of sentences. | Modified oral proficiency interviews, role-playing, situational interactive activities, questions and answers; checklists, surveys, guided composition, notes and letters | ||
| Express important ideas and a few details | in face-to-face interaction, notes and letters, and short paragraphs | at the sentence level in the oral mode and in simple paragraph form in the written mode. | Brief summaries or commentaries, responses to pertinent questions; guided composition | ||
| Understand important ideas and a few details | from culturally authentic spoken and written discourse and visual and written media | at the sentence level in the productive mode and understanding short texts enhanced by visual clues | with few errors in comprehension. | Comprehension activities, summarizes in paragraph form, checklist, interviews and conversations | |
| Describe and compare | in social interaction, notes, letters, postcards, and short, simple paragraphs. |
Topography
Directions |
In the written mode, the message will be communicate at the paragraph level. In speaking, the message will be communicated in sentences and strings of sentences. | The message will be comprehensible, but some pattern of error may interfere with full comprehension. | Interviews, oral presentations; short compositions and letters |
| Express needs | in correspondence and in personal and social interaction | using sentences and strings of sentences. | Role-playing, communicative activities, interviews, guided composition, letters and notes | ||
| Use and understand expressions indicating emotion | in social interaction, in the media, and in authentic texts | using expressions such as “C'est dommage!” and “¡Qué bueno!” | using learned expressions | accurately with a demonstrated awareness of sociolinguistic propriety. | Role-playing |
© 1995 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
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