Corinne Bourne in California is one of the best of the best comprehension based teachers I know of. Even years before I met her, I remember that her name often came up because Susan Gross would often talk of her great work as a Russian and French teacher who really gets comprehensible input. If that isn’t a recommendation, I don’t know what is.
Anyway, Corinne is in a professional situation with a tool of the university system that makes me want to vomit. I’m not kidding. I actually got physically nauseous reading what she wrote to me to ask the group a question this morning.
There are 4,295 posts here, going back to 2007, with 26,358 comments. The discussions have been at times lively, intense, sometimes up and sometimes down, just like our every day teaching, but never has one made me want to vomit on my keyboard until today.
This is from Corinne:
Dear Ben,
I am desperate to find someone who has written an honors level 4 program, preferably Russian. I have written many successful submissions for approval by the University of California, but for some reason their assessor of Russian programs seems to think students should be writing critical essays on authentic literature from level three onward. I got my level three approved and it sounds more like a college course. I don’t teach it like that, needless to say, as they need twice the standard 10,000 hours where Russian is concerned! Now I have to submit a course for Russian honors 4, I have six students wishing to sign up in the fall and my administration seems to think it’s just a hurdle to get over. The assessor turned my first attempt down, with comments like:
“At the fourth year level, students need to be competent writing in a variety of styles and work to develop thinking and writing skills appropriate to lower level college work. This includes writing critically about authentic literature read.
The outline should be detailed and show what skills the students will be learning, the instructional materials used to support that learning, and the goals and purposes of each unit. It should provide evidence of course rigor, relevance and development of essential skills and habits of mind, such as communication [!!!] critical thinking , analysis and synthesis of ideas. Please also keep in mind that all historical and cultural knowledge taught must be empirically based with reference to source materials.”
I have searched online for anyone on the West Coast who has taught high school Russian and might have a sample course for me to base mine on, but it seems like I may be a pioneer here. Unbelievable. I am feeling so isolated. I have some great literature topics that Katya Paukova suggested, and I have lots of other materials, but I am at a loss to put it together in a way that they will consider rigorous. I just think if there were someone whom I could bounce ideas off, it might be possible. If you can think of anyone who may be able to help with such a challenge and who isn’t already swamped with work, could you please let me know?
I unfortunately have been unsuccessful in convincing my principal that teaching levels 1 through honors 4 in two foreign languages is spreading yourself too thin.
Many thanks,
Corinne