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Language Competence
PerformanceProficiency
Certification
Current Status and New Directions
Catherine Doughty
Title VI: Language Competence
Current Status
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Title VI: Language Competence Current Status
• Funding – Yea!
• Interest – Yea!
• Expansion to LCTLs & Critical Languages
• Teacher Recruitment & Development
• Materials and Resources
• Professionalism
• Standards
• Assessment
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Funding and Interest
• Title VI– NRCs, FLAS, IRS, F-H, CIBEs, LRCs– NDEA (1958) HEA (1965) NSLI (2006)
• My focus– Language Resource Centers– International Research and Studies Program
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The 14 LRCs
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http://nflrc.msu.edu/index-1.php
Foci and niches
• LCTLs: African; East Asian; Central Asian; Middle Eastern; South Asia; Asia Pacific
• K – 12 Education• Assessment• Resources• Immersion and Study Abroad• Technology• Culture and Literacy• Heritage Languages
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Expansion
• Languages of importance to business
• Languages of importance to national security
• LCTLs
• Heritage Languages
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Teacher Recruitment & Development
• Emphasis on NS teachers– Train NS in language pedagogy– Update the teaching skills of traditionally trained
NS teachers– Collaborate with NS content teachers
• Summer Institutes – impressive!– Immersion Assessment– Pragmatics Materials Development
• Certificates; Degrees
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Materials and Resources
From almost nothing to a dizzying array!
• Dictionaries, textbooks, teachers’ guides
• CD, DVD, or web-delivered materials
• Databases, repositories
• Websites that collect or point to resources• Blogs http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/salrc/
• Distance and blended learning programs
• Heritage language materials
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Professionalism
• Peer-reviewed Journals– 1997 Language Learning and Technology
http://llt.msu.edu/
– 2007 Language Documentation and Conservation www.nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc
– 2008 South Asia Language Pedagogy and Technology http://salpat.uchicago.edu
• January 2009 – ACTFL announced Heritage Language SIG
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Standards: National K-12 for FLL
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Assessment and Evaluation
• Standards-based Measures of Proficiencyhttp://casls.uoregon.edu/stamp.php
• Portfolio Assessmenthttp://casls.uoregon.edu/lfo.php
• Foreign Language Program Evaluationhttp://nflrc.hawaii.edu/evaluation/
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Title VI: Language Competence Current Status
• Funding – Yea!
• Interest – Yea!
• Expansion to LCTLs & Critical Languages
• Teacher Recruitment & Development
• Materials and Resources
• Professionalism
• Standards
• Assessment
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Performance?
Proficiency?
Certification
Title VI: Language Competence
Current Status and Future Directions
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Title VI: Language Competence Current Status plus Future Directions
• Funding – More please! Integrated
• Effectiveness
• Articulation within across programs
• Needs analysis
• Innovation
• Individual differences
• Outcomes – Performance/Task-based
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U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education, Enhancing Foreign Language Proficiency in the United States: Preliminary Results of the National Security Language Initiative , Washington, D.C., 2008. http://www.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/competitiveness/nsli/about.html
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The Ohio State U - Chinese
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Chinese K-12
Summer Day Camp
Language Resource Center
Is any of this stuff working?
National Research Council (2007) Report:
“At the present time, limited information is available to rigorously assess the outcomes and impacts of the Title VI/FH programs …”
http://books.nap.edu/catalog/11841.html
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This is not rocket science!
Are we …
• following SLA and general learning principles?
• implementing innovative pedagogy?
• developing coherent language programs?
• articulating across programs?
• learning from our northern neighbors?
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10 Principles for FL Teaching
1. Use tasks, not texts as the unit of analysis.
2. Promote learning by doing.
3. Elaborate input.
(don’t simplify; authentic too hard)
4. Provide rich input.
5. (not impoverished)
6. Encourage inductive learning.
6. Focus on form at most opportune time.
7. Provide feedback on error.
8. Respect learner “syllabus.”
9. Promote collaborative learning.
10.Individualize by needs (communicative & psycholinguistic).
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http://llt.msu.edu/vol7num3/doughty/default.html
7 Steps to Coherent FL Program Development
1. Conduct a task-based needs analysis to identify target tasks.
2. Classify into target task types.
3. Derive pedagogic tasks.
4. Sequence to form a task-based syllabus.
5. Implement with appropriate methodology and pedagogy.
6. Assess with task-based, criterion-referenced, performance tests.
7. Evaluate program.
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Innovations in Language Teaching
Option 2 Option 3 Option 1
Language Learning
Analytic Analytic Synthetic
Language Focus
Meaning Form1 Forms
Syllabus Examples
•Natural Approach•Immersion•Content-based LT•Procedural Syllabus
•Task-based LT•Process Syllabus•Cased-based•Project-based•Problem-based
•Grammar-translation•ALM•Structural•Lexical•Situational•Notional/Functional
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1 Forms + Meaning + Function
http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/foreignlang/top.htm
Technology: Cool tools – are they used innovatively? effectively?
• http://international.ucla.edu/languages/nhlrc/quiz/
• Rich internet apps at MSU
• http://clear.msu.edu/teaching/online/ria/index.php
• CASL reviews of optimizing LT with technology
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Title VI Pedagogies
• LCTLs - from “antiquated” to communicative. Need to move to innovative.
• HLs – “the first new language teaching field since ESL.” Great opportunity for innovation; especially in
terms of learner-internal syllabus. UMD LCPP
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Leave behind common myths
• Authentic language is best
• Communication is the goal
• Learners should guide their own learning
• Children learn language fast and easily
• Eclecticism is innovative
• Language teaching requires a textbook
• Technology is inherently effective
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Worries …
• Many programs are content-based.
• Many programs are skills-based.
• Many programs have parallel components for language, culture, and content.
Need to move to integrationLearning by doingLanguage across the curriculumNeeds-driven syllabus design
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Articulation across programs
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The Language Flagship
Key Components
• Learners have a discipline
• US program – prepares for overseas
• Overseas component– Direct enrollment in discipline courses with
native speakers– Internship related to discipline– Engagement through media with
contemporary culture
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Ex: UHM Korean Flagship
• Needs Assessment from KFOP drives the KFP curriculum
• Target task = listen to lectures in discipline given to NSs– Filmed, scripted lectures in discipline– Lectures by graduate students to NNSs– Lectures by experts to NNSs– Lectures by experts to mixed NSs and NNSs
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Ex: Korean Visa Issue
• Target task: Conduct survey research– Become familiar with a community issue using
prepared, elaborated materials– Prepare the survey questions and practice
with feedback on error from instructor– Go into the community and conduct the
survey– Use technology to analyze results and
present findings
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Articulating K-16 and beyond
• Work backwards from TL needs analysis– Chinese, Arabic K-12 Flagships
• What about Title VI? (NRC, 2007)
“There is currently no systematic, ongoing process for assessing national needs for foreign language, area and international expertise an developing approaches to assess those needs.”
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Are we learning from our northern neighbors?
• Which types of programs work?
• When to assess?
• What to assess? Language, academic, and cognitive advantages
• Whom to compare to? Monolingual peers; peers in traditional language classes
• Immersion alone is not enough!
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Recent work in Canada
• Precise understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of bilingualism– Smaller lexicons in each language; longer search
time due to activation of all items– Superior inhibitory control ability
• Can ignore irrelevant information• Better cognitive multi-tasking
• Tease apart language and reading difficulties early with accurate predictor tests (individual differences)
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Assessment and Evaluation
• Problem – Letting all the flowers bloom
• Others have done this too
• StarTalk – Correcting that situation now
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CASL StarTalk Projects
• Assess the language development that takes place in StarTalk Programs– Look inside the black box!
• Compendium of curricular approach• Then develop nationwide assessment
• Develop a blended learning tool that can be used in assessment and program articulation
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Assessment & Standards?
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COGNITION
Language Assessment
• NRC (2007) “Stop doing self report and move toward more reliable and valid assessment.”– Evidence-based assessment– Task-based assessment– Performance based assessment
• Focus has been more on program evaluation than on individual learners
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Empirical studies needed
• K-12 LRC at Iowa State– Spanish two-way immersion “treatment vs.
“control schools.” K-3– Chinese FLES (SOPA and STAMP)
• Remember the “black box” problems in early instructed SLA
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2008 IRS Funding
• Instructional materials projects– Bangla without Borders; Deep Approach to
Turkish Teaching and Learning; ILR-based Translation/Interpretation; Visualizing Culture; Chinese Literacy
• Dictionary and infrastructure projects:– Iraqi, Moroccan, Syrian dictionaries
• Evaluate the Standards
• Develop Dynamic Assessment
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Title VI: Language Competence Current Status plus Future Directions
• Funding – More please! Integrated
• Effectiveness
• Articulation within across programs
• Needs analysis
• Innovation
• Individual differences
• Outcomes – Performance/Task-based
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Performance?
Certification
Proficiency?
