The Kentucky Department of Education facilitated the creation of this map and the description below.
KDE
Middle School Beginning Language
At the Middle School level, it is possible to cover vocabulary topics, regardless of the textbook used, in such a way as to give the students a foundation for examining the diversity of the non-English speaking world from a cross-cultural point of view. This curriculum map is year long in scope. It integrates the National Goals and Standards (Communication, Comparisons, Connections, Communities and Cultures) and the Kentucky Content for World language Proficiency and can be added to any curriculum already in place.
The core of this project is to have each student "adopt" a country from their language of study and to use this country as a basis for each theme studied throughout the year. Each student will become the classroom "expert" for their country. This curriculum map provides a sample model for a learning environment in which the teacher is a learner/coach along with the students. It makes use of a variety of resources and may be used with or without a textbook. Contact time for each theme would generally be 4-6 days (introduction, preparation and presentation). The cross-cultural aspect of the theme could be explored as the vocabulary/theme is introduced or later after a core vocabulary has been acquired. This 6th grade curriculum could be expanded across a Middle School language program to accommodate a variety of schedules, or adapted to be used in a beginning level high school course.
This curriculum map allows students to demonstrate their capabilities in the three modes of language communication: interpretative (when they research and read authentic materials about their countries), interpersonal (as they participate in role-playing or interviewing other students in the class or interacting with native speakers with whom they correspond or who might visit the classroom), and presentational (as they report on the various aspects of their country's culture either in oral or written form).
Technology, in its many forms, plays a large role in the world language classroom providing students access to the spoken and written word, to communicative opportunities with peers, to a variety of means of presentation. The use of the Internet offers a rich resource of authentic documents such as weather maps, statistics, websites for each country, tourist information, music, news and the arts, as well as Webquests and the Thinkfinity site.
At the end of this document, there is an example (in French) of the initial information sheet that students could complete on their country. The worksheet is written in the target language but with a high use of cognates, and introduces the students, from the very beginning of the language program, to reading and decoding the target language, Their informational entries would be written in English at this point of the year, but as the year progresses, students' reports, posters, etc., will be in simple vocabulary in the target language.
-- Jean Amick, June 2004