There are some clever Public Service Announcement videos on YouTube made by the participants at #LILL2015 that I have been using to better understand the 6 core practices. One of the jingles was “For good lesson design start with the assessment in mind”. Core Practice #3 is about lesson design and assessment. Students benefit when teachers use backwards design, starting with functional goals, and asking how do we get there, and how will we know when we do? The first step in planning is asking what are the essential questions and functional goals, and how will they be assessed? I use the ACTFL Can-Do statements and The ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines to begin my instructional planning. The guidelines explain what a language learner can do in unrehearsed situations at each proficiency level. I plan to make my students more familiar with the Can-Do statements this year as a tool for how to move up the proficiency scale.
Thematic units are perfect for incorporating essential questions and integrated performance assessments (IPA). There are examples of thematic units on Laura Terrill‘s wikispaces. There are also sample units on the ACTFL website, as well as a blank template for lesson planning from The Keys for Planning for Learning by Donna Clementi and Laurra Terrill.
Consider creating and sharing units around the ACTFL Global themes for language learning. These are: Belonging, Challenges, Creativity, Discovery, Exploring Time and Place, Identity, and Well-Being. I created a unit around the theme of belonging with the essential question What is a family? Here is the Spanish version Familia Unit . Here is the French version. La Famille Unit. Many thanks to the Creative Langauge Classroom for the Spanish inspiration and to Catherine Ousselin for the French ideas.
There are great IPA Examples from the Creative Language Class. Toni Theisen has some examples of IPA’s in French. These two sites also have some IPAs! http://swcolt2011.wikispaces.com/IPA+examples
http://swcolt2011.wikispaces.com/IPA+examples-Andrea+Henderson
Of course once you have your functional goals, and Integrated Performance Assessment including authentic texts for interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational tasks, it’s time to add the hook. Check out Teach like a Pirate by Dave Burgess.
Please look over my family unit and offer suggestions for improvement, Now to add the hook…….