We keep coming and going to and from the Scope and Sequence thread. Diana told me yesterday, in another clarifying comment, that any experienced CI teacher would not even need to ever look at the DPS Scope and Sequence, nor would they need to work from the list of 100 most common words (for lower level classes) and the 200 most common words (upper levels) that is connected to the S/S. Just naturally teaching with CI results in compliance. I have always said that. Why sweat what words you target when, if they are frequent, they are going to make their way into our classes anyway?
I say that because I had mentioned earlier that Diana tells her teachers that their students need to address for acquisition 25 to 35 structures by the end of each year. She clarified that by explaining to me that she says that to administrators and new teachers, both of whom expect to see some kind of statement including a numeric goal in a S/S. It’s just something to tell people who get nervous when they don’t see numbers.
Sabrina shared this as well this past week. She said that this year, her second in DPS, she never once looked at the S/S or high frequency lists, but then a few weeks ago she did, and, big surprise, they were the exactly the same words she had targeted by selecting them naturally for her classes starting back in the fall.
Diana knows that if we just speak to our kids in the TL all year for the first year or two, they will master the words on the most frequency lists naturally without effort and most will achieve NH, IL or even IM on the ACTFL Proficiency scale by the end of those few years. We don’t need to stress so much about what we teach.