Below is the article by Sandy Cutshall that we networked over to Robert (through Michele and others) that is now in the current issue of The Language Educator, the monthly publication of ACTFL. David sent it to me.
When I communicated with Sandy about this, I got the strong impression that she just considered it a kind of chore to write about the communication standard, as just another thing to write about, to meet a deadline. She had an article to get out, is what it felt like. Of course, I sounded excited in my emails that she would be able to speak with someone about what comprehensible really is, our own Robert.
That so little of the magazine, only a two page article, was given so little space about something so important (the other articles in there were all of the gag me variety), makes me see it as a kind of written out Bizarro cartoon. And why did Sandy put the word communication in quotes in the title (see below)? That was bizzare as well.
Oh wait, I just scrolled through the publication kind of fast. Now I get it. The Language Educator is an advertisement, a delivery vehicle for selling various language products. It’s full of ads! I missed that the first time through. Now I get it.
The article doesn’t go anywhere. I couldn’t take much from it. Robert’s voice is muted. It was a hard article to read. It’s a good example of eduspeak and I honestly don’t know what position it takes. This kind of article, written in this kind of muffled tone so that we don’t really see its point, is typical of articles written over the past decades that, because they make no real point, perpetuate ignorance. The article made me sad somehow.
Here is the text of the article, if you want to take a look at it, and thank you for sending it David:
More Than a Decade of Standards: Integrating “Communication” in Your Language Instruction
By Sandy Cutshalls issue, we begin a series of five articles focused on the National Standards for Foreign
Language Learning, or the “5 Cs.” In this first article, we look at Communication—a goal that is “at the heart of language study, whether the communication takes place face-to-face, in writing, or across centuries through the reading of literature,” according to the Standards document. In other articles this year we’ll focus on each of the rest of the goal areas in turn—Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities.Language Learning, or the “5 Cs.” In this first article, we look at Communication—a goal that is “at the heart of language study, whether the communication takes place face-to-face, in writing, or across centuries through the reading of literature,” according to the Standards document. In other articles this year we’ll focus on each of the rest of the goal areas in turn—Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities. Ask someone why they are studying another language and you will almost always hear that they want to be able to converse with native speakers during travel or in their own home country. Additionally, they may wish to be able to understand what they read and be able to write—particularly via communicative technologies such as e-mail, texting, Twitter, and blogs—using the language. What they probably won’t mention is conjugating verbs or memorizing discrete grammar points. “Students come to language classes because they want to be able to communicate in the language,” says Laura Terrill, an independent consultant and expert in language education. “If we capture that energy in the first year of language instruction and build on it by designing quality interpersonal activities, we will help them to meet their goal.” Communication as a goal area of language education was an obvious inclusion in the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning when they were first developed and published in 1996. As June Phillips, project director for the grant to develop the Standards and a member of the original Standards task force, puts it: “Of course, communication has always been the intent of language education. There was never a time in our field when we said we don’t want to teach people to communicate . . . But,” she adds, “I think we have a much better match now between the intent and how we go about doing it.” That better match comes out of the 5 Cs—the goal areas of the National Standards— which for the past 15 or so years have helped more and more educators understand what it means to truly facilitate language acquisition and encourage authentic communication in their classrooms. Phillips, who was also recently co-chair of a federal grant to assess the impact of the National Standards, notes that the recent survey of more than 2,100 individuals reveals that the Standards have had an impact, helping to improve many language educators’ teaching methods, particularly in the goal area of Communication. “We can see a fuller, deeper understanding of how the three communicative modes play out in the communicative act itself,” she says about the survey, “and a greater knowledge of the best instructional approaches to facilitate those.” Of course, this does not mean that there is not still room for improvement in this area, Phillips notes. [See sidebar on p. 37 for more about what the Standards survey shows.] “Prior to the development of the National Standards, I tended to do what textbooks stressed,” admits Terrill. “The Standards initially provided the framework to see how better units could be designed, what was good in textbooks, and what needed to be enhanced. The learning scenarios that were written as part of the National Standards provide good examples of what quality units might look like.” Reframing Communication in Language Learning The National Standards present a very different approach to communication, even compared with the proficiency movement in the 1980s and early 1990s which preceded their development. While teachers have traditionally thought of communicating through the use of the four skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening, the Standards offer a new “Communicative Framework” consisting of three modes which place primary emphasis on the context and purpose of the communication. These are: More Than a Decade of Standards: Integrating “Communication” in Your Language Instruction By Sandy Cutshall Editor’s Note: In this issue, we begin a series of five articles focused on the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning, or the “5 Cs.” In this first article, we look at Communication—a goal that is “at the heart of language study, whether the communication takes place face-to-face, in writing, or across centuries through the reading of literature,” according to the Standards document. In other articles this year we’ll focus on each of the rest of the goal areas in turn—Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities. 34 The Language Educator n February 2012 Interpersonal • Characterized by active negotiation of meaning among individuals • Involving adjustments or clarifications for understanding • Most obvious in conversation where one person does not know what the responses of the other person will be (i.e., not scripted dialogues) Interpretive • Focused on the appropriate cultural interpretation of meanings that occur in written and spoken form where there is no recourse to the active negotiation of meaning with the writer/speaker • Including the cultural interpretation of texts, movies, radio and television broadcasts, and speeches • Not to be confused with the concept of “comprehension” Presentational • Referring to the creation of messages in a manner that facilitates interpretation of members of the other culture where no direct opportunity for the active negotiation of meaning exists • Examples include the writing of reports and articles or the presentation of speeches Each mode involves a particular link between language and the underlying culture that is developed gradually over time. The use of these modes is not compatible with a focus solely on grammar or the study of a language separate from its use for communication. The Standards document is clear that, “students do not acquire communicative competence by learning the elements of the language system” [i.e., grammar, isolated vocabulary words] first, and it points out that “an earlier emphasis on the learning of the language system to the exclusion of meaningful interactive activities in the classroom has led to frustration and dissatisfaction for students.” The Communication goal includes three standards based on the Framework of communicative modes. The first focuses on the Interpersonal mode, the second on the Interpretive mode, and the third on the Presentational mode. (See box above.) The interconnected nature of the Standards’ goal areas means that even when the focus is on the use of language and the development of communicative competence, students will need experience in the other goal areas (i.e., the other 4 Cs) in order to have something worth communicating. Robert Harrell, who has taught German at Pacifica High School in Garden Grove, CA, for 17 years, puts it this way: “If I’m going to communicate, I have to have content. If I’m going to communicate, I have to know something about the culture. If I’m going to communicate, a community is being established in the very act of communication itself. Part of the content I’m going to communicate will make connections to things other than language and then it’s really very easy to make comparisons between the way we communicate in the world language and the way we do in English. I think communication really embraces all of the other things that happen in language learning.” What True Communication Looks Like One major shift from thinking of skills to thinking of communicative modes is that with a focus simply on skills, a teacher may not consider the reason behind a classroom activity or approach. Yet it is in knowing the reason behind it—the purpose for the communication— that many questions regarding implementation are answered. ACTFL Associate Director of Professional Development Paul Sandrock offers this example: “When a teacher focuses on teaching and practicing writing as a skill and then is trying to decide—‘Should I allow students to do a spell-check or not?’—the question to ask is really, ‘What mode is being used?’ If the writing is Presentational, the expectation from the audience is that it is going to be pretty polished and accurate since the writer will not be there to negotiate meaning and respond to questions. However, if the writer is texting a message to a friend [Interpersonal], the degree of accuracy can be significantly less because if you don’t understand something you are going to text back and ask, ‘What does this mean?’” Any rules for an assignment or activity therefore, notes Sandrock, depend on the mode—or the purpose—of what you are doing. Those modes should set up how you design a task, how you evaluate that task, and what criteria you use. “Staying in a skill without saying which mode it is in is not useful to the learner or the instructional choices,” says Phillips. “The instructional choices you make differ according to those modes.” “I think it’s important for any teacher to answer the question, ‘What do I want my students to be able to do with the language?’” says Harrell. “That answer, coupled with what we know about how the brain functions and how languages are acquired, should then direct and inform everything we do.” He continues, “My answer to the question is: To communicate, to know how to continue acquiring the language, and to be able to advocate for their own best interests. I must reject methods that do not contribute to that goal, such as grammar translation.” Harrell offers an analogy from the world of science: “It’s the difference between dissecting an animal and looking at it as a living creature. I can learn a lot about it when I dissect it, but it’s dead. It’s never going to do anything else. But, if I observe it in its habitat, maybe even interact with it, then I see it as a living organism. It becomes much more fascinating, something you want to spend time with. That’s how I want to present language in my classroom—something that is very much alive and that we really use.” With this in mind, language learning activities in the classroom need to mirror real- Communication Communicate in Languages Other Than English Standard 1.1 Students engage in conversations, provide and obtain information, express feelings and emotions, and exchange opinions. [INTERPERSONAL MODE] Standard 1.2 Students understand and interpret written and spoken language on a variety of topics. [INTERPRETIVE MODE] Standard 1.3 Students present information, concepts, and ideas to an audience of listeners or readers on a variety of topics. [PRESENTATIONAL MODE] The Language Educator n February 2012 35 world, authentic communication as much as possible. For example, when a person reads a newspaper article in real life, what they do in response is not to translate it, answer a list of detailed questions, or complete a fill-inthe- blank exercise. Instead, a communicative activity that would more closely relate to real life would be for the reader to tell someone about what he or she just read, to express his or her own opinion on the topic, or to think about how this is the same or different as a news story he or she read on the same topic yesterday. Teachers should begin by thinking about what they would do in reaction to receiving an e-mail message, reading a wiki, needing to write a letter, or hearing a weather report—and that will give them insight into the kinds of tasks they should be asking their students to do. “This is what I most often hear that teachers are trying to process as they try to best move to the intent of the Communication standards,” notes Sandrock, who has led many workshops, webinars, and seminars on a Standards-based approach to language learning. “They will say, ‘I used to do this and now I want to try do it differently because it’s getting closer to the real thing, what people really do in real life.’” With the time limitations and other stresses, more and more language educators are realizing that a focus on actual communication gives them greater “bang for their buck” than grammar drills, worksheets, and memorizing vocabulary lists. “I simply don’t have enough time with students to waste it on activities and strategies that don’t deliver the way genuine interpersonal communication through comprehension- based teaching does,” says Harrell. “We have to get students talking because we only have them for the time they have in class,” agrees Sara Buchbaum, a Spanish teacher at Northern Highlands Regional High School in Allendale, NJ. “If it is spent with their heads in a textbook or weighed down with verb conjugations, they’re not using the language. But, the more they are using it, the more effectively they are learning it. So, teachers need to give students a topic that is meaningful for them and get them talking.” Buchbaum offers the example of a unit she does on relationships with her Spanish V seniors. The students begin by talking with each other in response to the prompt: “Es importante que un amigo . . . [It’s important that a friend . . .]” “This is Interpersonal,” notes Buchbaum, “so they shouldn’t always know what they will be talking about. It’s spontaneous, discussing with a partner about what is important to them about their friends, using vocabulary they already know. They also use the subjunctive mood—which is something in Spanish that students always find difficult to grasp. That’s because of the old ways of teaching it—I remember it was always ‘the dreaded subjunctive.’ But in these conversations, they have to go into the subjunctive because that type of main clause requires it. So I will remind them of the grammar point, but they are reviewing it without thinking about grammar. Instead, they are thinking about communicating their ideas.” Within the same unit, Buchbaum will also incorporate activities in the Interpretive mode, such as reading an authentic letter to an advice columnist about relationship problems and having the students share their ideas and interpretations. For the Presentational mode, she says, she might have students write a letter to the same columnist asking for relationship advice, or else have them work in pairs to script and act out for their peers a skit where there is a conflict between friends. Buchbaum says that although it can be a challenge for students to do this much work staying in the language and communicating— particularly if it involves presenting before their classmates—it is imperative that teachers create a comfortable environment by not embarrassing or overcorrecting students, but instead encouraging them. “The students tend to get nervous, but we work at it every day and that helps keep them from getting too bottled up,” she says. Harrell says that the Interpersonal mode is really a core element of his teaching, as he considers his entire class to basically be an ongoing conversation with his students in German. “Once you’ve really made that change and your students understand what is happening and they buy into it, class time become a lot more fun for everyone—including the teacher.” He continues, “It’s really about having a conversation with people you enjoy being with; it makes the day much less stressful in the long run. You aren’t uptight, thinking that, ‘I have to pound the indirect object pronouns into their heads today.’ No, you are going to have a conversation with them and you’re going to use lots of indirect object pronouns and you may point out to them from time to time what is happening. But since they are acquiring the language and not trying to memorize the language, you relax and you know that it takes time.” Staying in the target language the majority— if not all—of the time is critical to creating an environment where communication can take place, something Harrell says he strives to do. ACTFL’s position statement on target language use (May 2010)—which encourages the 90%-plus goal—suggests many strategies that instructors can use to facilitate comprehension and support meaningmaking, including providing comprehensible input that is directed toward communicative goals; making meaning clear through body language, gestures, and visual support; negotiating meaning with students and encouraging negotiation among students; and more. Assessing Communication with the Standards “Assessment plays a critical role in language education: to help students learn to use their new language, to help teachers focus their instruction to maximize its effectiveness, and to provide the public with the evidence it needs to enthusiastically support language programs” — Paul Sandrock in The Keys to Assessing Language Performance (2011) All educators know that they need to assess their students in some way. But if that assessment is not appropriately targeted to demonstrate what students are actually achieving— an end-of-the-term multiple choice exam to assess interpersonal conversational skills, for example—then no matter what grade they get, what exactly is this telling us? Rather than tacking on an assessment as an afterthought at the end of a unit, if a teacher uses the National Standards as the beginning point, then clear learning targets Integrating Communication 36 The Language Educator n February 2012 are identified from the outset—in fact they are stated quite explicitly. Because these goals are established and known, all instructional decisions can be derived from them. This method of “backward design” was first described by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe in their book, Understanding by Design (1998), and it is an important part of accurately assessing students for their mastery of the communicative modes of the Communication goal area of the National Standards. “A backward-designed unit will establish clear goals,” agrees Terrill. “Once those goals are in place, it becomes possible to create an integrated performance assessment (IPA) for that unit. While those assessments can take more time, they are truly designed to allow students to show what they know and can do in the language. They replace the assessments that focused on right and wrong answers. Students demonstrate that they understand and can communicate a message. Accuracy is part of the assessment, but understanding and conveying the message is the primary focus.” A few myths that exist about doing this kind of assessment include: (1) It is too hard; (2) It is only for very experienced teachers who have years in the classroom under their belts; (3) Teachers need to figure out how to do it on their own or else forget about it. Daisy Laone, a Mandarin Chinese teacher at Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School in New Haven, CT, has exploded all those myths in her very first year teaching in an American classroom. Laone uses the IPA to assess the three communicative modes with her middle school students, following the format set out in The Keys to Assessing Language Performance. “I set my goal first and then design the unit from there,” says Laone, “I design activities to help students achieve this goal. I find the format very helpful so I can look into what I can actually use to negotiate meaning.” Laone, who attended the STARTALK program for Chinese teachers in Glastonbury, CT, for several years as well as other related workshops, has embraced a Standards-based approach at this starting point of her career teaching language in the United States. [Laone has previous experience teaching English in Taiwan.] She believes that professional development is vital to language edu- Integrating Communication Continued on p. 39 What the Survey Shows In 2008, ACTFL was awarded a three-year federal grant to assess the role that the National Standards have had on the profession. This grant, A Decade of Foreign Language Standards: Influence, Impact, and Future Directions, assembled data from a variety of evidence and has resulted in three reports that together show that the Standards have indeed influenced and instigated change in how languages are taught and learned. One of the findings of the survey based on the responses from state supervisors (20 of the 2,134 individuals surveyed) was that among the goal areas, Communication receives the most attention in terms of teaching emphasis and professional development, with the other 4 Cs being less prominent. “There is a tendency to embrace Communication and Culture Standards and take these on as a primary mission,” states the survey results document, available on the ACTFL website at www.actfl.org/standardsgrant. “That overlooks the purpose of the Standards’ five-goal-area design, intended to promote greater interdisciplinary work (Connections), more integrated cultural content and the vision of language as having real world communicative use (Communities). Evidence of Standards assessment tends to be in term of Communication only.” June Phillips, co-chair of the Standards Impact Grant, has overseen the project which included the electronic survey and a review of the professional literature on the Standards, says that it is not that surprising to discover that Communication is the goal area most focused on by teachers. Another survey finding was that the majority of professional development available at the district and state level was focused on Communication (and to a lesser degree, Culture) when compared with the other Cs. In fact, 90% of formal and informal professional development was on Communication, sometimes in combination with one or more of the other Cs. Despite the fact that survey respondents said that they saw Communication as the “easiest to teach” of all the goal areas, Phillips notes that, “We still have a ways to go in impressing people with the idea of communicative modes and how important they are.” She says the survey revealed some weaknesses in language educators’ knowledge. “People sometimes said that they were designing their instruction according to Standards, but when looking at their specific responses, we could see they were still thinking in terms of skills. Others thought that teaching vocabulary or grammar were the end goal for teaching the communicative standards.” The survey shows that many teachers have learned about the modes and know what they are. “But the next level,” she says, “is to really get into understanding how these modes operate in the real world, what their characteristics are, to find the appropriate approaches for teaching them.” The literature search that was part of the grant project also revealed that more people are writing about those theoretical underpinnings and practices using the three communicative modes. “It’s a natural progression,” says Phillips. “You’ve got a new paradigm or model (i.e., the National Standards) and then you have to keep exploring it.”
The Language Educator n February 2012