National Standards Update: Your Input Needed! Marty Abbott, Director of Education American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Helene Zimmer-Loew, Executive Director American Association for Teachers of German (AATG) SWCOLT Conference Salt Lake City Februrary 29, 2008

THE NATIONAL STANDARDS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION PROJECT A Collaborative Project of ACTFL, AATF, AATG, AATI, AATSP, ACL/APA, ACTR, CLASS, & NCJLT) Thank you, Lynn. And now representing the ACTFL Performance Guidelines for K-12 Learners is Greg Duncan.

Foreign Language Collaborative Projects 1993 Federal funding received to develop national standards for students K-12 1996 Publication of generic standards. 1999 Publication of language-specific standards in Chinese, Classical Languages, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish; (seven languages developed K-16)

More Language-specific Standards Arabic Published 2006 African Languages—Swahili, Yoruba, and Zulu [in development] Hindi [in development] American Sign Language (ASL) [in development] Need to include more Critical Need Languages

ACTFL PERFORMANCE GUIDELINES FOR K-12 LEARNERS Thank you Greg. And now representing the Standards Assessment Design Project, otherwise known as the PAU (Performance Assessment Unit) Project is Rita Oleksak. www.actfl.org

Benchmarks Novice Learner Range Intermediate Learner Range Parallels Novice High in ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines (K – 4, 5 – 8, 9 – 10) Intermediate Learner Range Parallels Intermediate Mid in ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines (K-8, 5-12, 9-12) Pre-advanced Learner Range Parallels Intermediate High in ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines (K-12)

Domains Comprehensibility How well is the student understood? Comprehension How well does the student understand? Language Control How accurate is the student’s language? Vocabulary How extensive and applicable is the student’s vocabulary? Cultural Awareness How is the student’s cultural knowledge reflected in language use? Communication Strategies How does the student maintain communication?

Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) Project Rita says: As you have just heard… if the National Standards are the WHAT (What all students need to know and be able to do) and the K-12 Performance Guidelines are the HOW WELL then the HOW TO MEASURE are the Performance Assessment Units, also known as the P A U s www.actfl.org

What is an IPA? I P A Authentic Performance-Based Integrated Reflects tasks that individuals do in the world outside the classroom Performance-Based Reflect how students USE the language and cultural knowledge in communicative tasks Integrated Integrates Communication plus other goal areas of the Standards Developmental Progress of Proficiency Novice Intermediate Pre-advanced Blend with Classroom Instruction and Experiences Based on the 3 Modes of Communication Interpretive Interpersonal Presentational

www.cal.org/flnaep Thank you Dorry. And now representing NCATE the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education is Eileen Glisan.

The FL NAEP Assessment Framework Visual * participating in multilingual communities at home and around the world. Are there any comments on this so far? Speaker may, as time permits, entertain discussion from the audience

National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education Thank you Eileen. And now representing INTASC, the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium is Marty Abbott. www.ncate.org

NCATE determines which colleges of education meet rigorous national standards in preparing teachers and other classroom specialists. is a coalition of 33 national education organizations representing teachers, teacher educators, subject matter specialists, and policy makers.

NCATE 2000 Unit Standards are performance-based—radical departure from input-based system focus on what teacher candidates should know and be able to do require institutions to show candidate performance data

Required Program Components Development of proficiency, especially oral Ongoing assessment of proficiency Language, linguistics, culture, & literature components Methods course: on teaching of foreign languages, taught by qualified faculty

Program Components cont’d. Early field experiences in foreign language classrooms Field experiences supervised by qualified faculty Opportunities for candidates to experience and use technology Opportunities for structured study-abroad/immersion experiences

INTASC INTASC www.ccsso.org/intasc Thank you Marty. And now representing the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards is Fran Pettigrew www.ccsso.org/intasc

INTASC: Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium Program of the Council of Chief State School Officers Established to promote collaboration among states in standards-based reform of teacher preparation, licensing, and professional development Centered around performance-based standards and assessments Compatible with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards

www.nbpts.org Thank you Fran. And thanks to all of the representatives.

National Certification for Teachers of World Languages Other than English Designed to recognize accomplished practice in the field Standards adopted in 2001 WLOTE Certificates: Currently available in French and Spanish Early Adolescence through Young Adulthood (ages 11-18+) Revision of standards underway More certificates available in the future

ACTFL Assessment for the Performance and Proficiency of Language (AAPPL)

Grade Clusters and Proficiency Ranges PK - 7 8 - 16 Proficiency Ranges Advanced Low - Superior Intermediate Mid - Advanced Low Novice High - Intermediate Mid Novice Low - Novice High

Report Example Sean’s performance Novice Low Novice Mid Novice High …provides evidence of the ability to understand short, disconnected utterances within highly predictable and familiar contexts. Comprehension often depends on recognizing memorized words and phrases, …provides evidence of the ability to understand short, simple speech with memorized words and phrases on highly predictable and familiar topics most often related to self. …provides evidence of the ability understand simple speech with memorized phrases on familiar subjects. Can understand speech on content that has been previously seen or heard. Understanding Sean’s performance Sean’s performance falls in the Novice Mid range. He can understand conversations and recorded materials in familiar contexts. He relies heavily on memorized words, phrases, and structures and expends enormous effort to accomplish these listening tasks. Next Steps Language learners at this level would benefit from increasing their exposure to spoken language in live and recorded oral texts. Listening should focus on understanding key words and main ideas. Sources for listening practice include level appropriate texts that are related to academic content as well as individual student interests.

VOTE! Situation: Your Chinese class is partnering with a social studies class on a project designed to encourage Chinese-speaking people in the community to vote in the upcoming mayoral election. You’ve agreed to make signs to be placed around community showing each candidate’s priorities. The social studies team has come up with graphics for each sign. Task: Place the Chinese text next to the matching graphics. Type of Response: Modified selected response

ACTFL PERFORMANCE GUIDELINES FOR K-12 LEARNERS In a few minutes you will have an opportunity to learn more about one of these projects. Here is how we will proceed. You will fan out and cover all seven projects. But before you split up-- find out what your table wants to find out. What do we want to know about individual projects? What overarching questions do we have? INTASC Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA)

Impact of the Standards State Frameworks Local curricula Assessments AAPPL (Assessment for Performance and Proficiency of Languages) Project Individual classrooms—Annenberg video library www.learner.org

Need to address lack of impact on instruction Only 16 states have some kind of graduation requirement in languages Several states are pushing for proficiency exit standard rather than “seat time” IRS (USED) grant application to assess impact of standards

Issues to Consider Do the Goal Areas (5 C’s) or the Standards need revisions? What has the impact been on institutions of higher education? What kind of professional development is needed for teachers? Can standards-based assessments drive changes in instruction?