by For language educators in the United States, proficiency is a driving factor in second language acquisition. It is an integral part of the framework for curriculum and assessment.
According to the Center on Advanced Research in Language Acquisition (CARLA), “within this framework, language learners practice the four modalities (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) in order to communicate meaningfully, effectively, and creatively in their target language for real-life purposes. Instruction is student-centered and takes into consideration varying learning styles.”
The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Proficiency Guidelines is regarded as the benchmark for state and local educational foreign language standards, and many closely parallel ACTFL. The Ohio Department of Education Proficiency Targets and the New Jersey Student Learning Standards for World Languages are two examples of the many organizations that detail a proficiency framework.
Implementing strategies to reach proficiency goals.
As the proficiency guidelines are set, it becomes the responsibility of language teachers to develop a curriculum with strategies to engage students to accomplish these goals. The instructional tools in LIVE Language Lab On-Demand can help.
Managing class time to incorporate proficiency-based tasks and communication-focused activities is often challenging. LIVE facilitates teacher-student interaction and student-student communication in every synchronous class – in school, remote, or hybrid.
We have reviewed the most common strategies currently being used and aligned them with the interactive teaching tools in LIVE Language Lab. You can see how LIVE helps to facilitate the three modes of communication, gives language teachers the ability to differentiate instruction based on individual student needs, makes it easy to monitor student progress, provides a simple way to record-collect-assess student work, and more.
See the instructional tools first-hand.
Are you using any of these strategies to reach proficiency goals? If you think that LIVE Language Lab would be beneficial for your language program, we can arrange a virtual tour of the interactive instructional tools and explain how other language educators are now using LIVE to engage their students in proficiency-based learning.
Reach us at moreinfo@sansinc.com, or complete an information request form.
Additional resources.
NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-do Statements
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