Krashen and Lev Vygotsky fifty years before him have shown that the concept of being a valued member of a community (which leads to feelings in the language learner of self-worth and confidence) play major roles in language acquisition.
So before we get too technical in our discussion of what a curriculum is, let’s ask ourselves what we are doing on the level of curriculum to build community in our classrooms. Chomsky has said, and this nails it:
“…grammar is acquired by virtually everyone, effortlessly, rapidly, in a uniform manner, merely by living in a community under minimal conditions of interaction, exposure, and care….”
So what are we doing? Are we designing curriculum in terms of the community-building social interaction piece where our students feel as if they count for something in the classroom, or not?
By the way, textbooks can’t do that – they can’t bring the kids into the classroom process of knowing each other, of caring about each other and of enjoying each other’s presence.
We’ve moved up a notch now on what a foreign language curriculum is. It’s about time. The reign of bot teachers and bot students is over. Welcome to the new concept of what a language curriculum even is.
We can’t learn a language if we are stuck in our minds. The heart quality must be there too. That is what the research tells us. You’ve got to be out of your mind to learn a foreign language.
You don’t have to teach like your hair is on fire. Just teach in ways that bring the kids authentically into the classroom process. That’s what they want, what they have always wanted. The language will follow.