Hi Ben,
Guess what I did today? Yes! Absolutely right! I went to a department meeting where we took a stab at trying to come up with a curriculum map. Woo-hoo! Do you know if anyone out there has one that I can riff from? I am dragging my feet on this because I know it is just for show, but I am also having a hard time communicating what I do and what I believe to my 2 colleagues who are supportive of me doing this, but who are still very output driven and so I find myself just smiling and nodding sometimes.
In general, we are transitioning into a CI dept. (I think?) but I honestly don’t really know if we are or what that means, because we never sit and talk vision / transition / what it all means and what is our goal and how can we best work toward it. And the school itself is in the middle of a big transition. So it is just me all alone doing my thing. Well, not alone bc I have all of you guys! Thank goodness! Dept. head “sees a difference in how we teach levels 1-2 and the upper levels.” I am not sure if she means we can do CI in level 1-2 but then switch to “eclectic” for level 3 and up. I really don’t know what she means by this. Both of the other teachers emphasize grammar and writing things like “papers” and 200 word essays on topics. I have not done the weekly freewrites this year, otherwise I could claim that we write too. But I am committed to NOT forcing the writing. I will be doing a bit more now, at this time of year, because things begin to “head south” so that will keep morale up I think, and we have all those new templates.
There is also the issue that came up about what we are preparing the kids for as they exit our program. Well, who knew? Not me. Apparently the long term goal is to prepare them for college language classes in which they will be expected to read literature and write academic papers. Sigh. I have nothing against those things, but really? That is our end goal? I am not sure how I feel about that because I highly doubt that a majority of our students will be language majors. Isn’t this the 4% syndrome kicking in?
Suddenly I feel adrift again. What do I write for a curriculum map? I was going to list specific skills from the interpersonal rubric, along with specific language skills, but how do I even describe those? “Understands and responds to questions in L2 about a variety of topics?” Apparently “understands” is not one of the words you are supposed to use in a curriculum map. UGH Would the skills be output skills? LIke “Can write a 100 word story with a beginning, middle and end?” And dept. head wants me to list the specific structures. I think I could just go through my class stories and pull them out. I would love to hear how others come up with a curriculum map that is CI friendly OR disguised cleverly to meet the admin. needs.
Sigh. Thanks!
🙂 Jen