With assessment and instructional strategies considered, curriculum will now need to be modified. Such changes mostly relate to the student learning outcomes, or SLOs, for your program's courses, but additional changes may be made in order to better support target language proficiency growth.

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In this step, you'll want to:

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• Conduct a needs analysis

• Update and revise all student learning outcomes at the program level

• Consider establishing proficiency goals

• Consider "developmental" and "competency" stages of proficiency

• Select course materials

• Increase student engagement

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The Details

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Conduct a Needs Analysis

• Identify the stakeholders (i.e. language instructors, non-language instructors, administration, students, community members) and request input in order to determine the perceived needs; what does each group need students to be able to do with the target language? 

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Update Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) 

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• Update your program's course competencies, or student learning outcomes (SLOs), to include proficiency benchmarks, conceptual knowledge, skills, or other abilities put forth by institution or other stakeholders; click here for sample SLO updates to two ESL courses

• Consider the progression of SLOs as students move from one course to the subsequent

• The collective course SLOs will all work to support communicative competence, or appropriate and accurate application of knowledge and skill to communicative situations (Canale, Swain, 1980),  as students progress through and leave your program

• ​SLOs may be crafted or organized to be "modular" (broken into logical communicative units); backwards planning is central here; where do students need to be, by when?  "The desired end result, the experience, will influence your planning" (Alber, 2012)

• SLOs may be written in the first language or, if in the target language, first-person Can-Do Statements (VanPatten, Hopkins, 2015) for students to be able to better understand

• SLOs should be written in a way that reflect that all students are: (a) capable of learning, (b) can achieve the expectations put forth, and (c) can be successful

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Consider Establishing Proficiency Goals

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• If SLOs do not reflect the proficiency standards for your program, you may want to consider developing a "proficiency goal"

• Proficiency goals are simplified, measurable outcomes reflecting proficiency, or what a student is able to do using the target language in unrehearsed, spontaneous situations (ACTFL, 2012); they are used to define where students need to be with their overall language, by when, within the course or program

• If you use a proficiency test (i.e. OPI) to place students into your courses, the criteria used in the placement test may act as the proficiency goals

• These proficiency goals may be embedded within (or kept distinct from) the SLOs

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Consider Proficiency Stages

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• As stated in the Assessment recommendations, while students may be able to demonstrate certain SLOs conceptual knowledge or other isolated skills at any time during the course, proficiency development takes time and a student should not be penalized for the normal language acquisition process

• Therefore, you might consider a "Developmental Stage" (i.e. first 75% of course) and "Competency Stage" (i.e. last 25% of course) when it comes to curriculum planning of proficiency assessments

• Before the first half of a course, rubric scores of 1-2 might be expected; at midterm, scores of 2-3; entering into the Competency Stage, scores of 3-4; by end of course, scores of 3, 4, or 5

• Proficiency assessments are largely formative during the Developmental Stage and summative during the Competency Stage; there may be a midterm summative proficiency assessment

• Certain SLOs may not be subject to chronological timelines; assessments measuring these types of SLOs may not be subject to these two proficiency stages 

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Select Course Materials

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• Existing or new course materials need be aligned with and supportive of the course SLOs

• Since this model recommends an integrated computer lab (see Organization) through which learners regularly access low-stakes, relevant comprehensible input, lab materials should be carefully selected; such materials are level-appropriate and might be videos (i.e. documentary, TED Talks) or audio (i.e. radio conversation); students are offered a wide range of choice through (a) needs analysis or (b) repository

• This model also recommends integrating extensive reading within a course (see Organization); such materials are level-appropriate and selected based on student choice and interest (Bamford,Day, 1998; Grabe, 2008).

• Consider "flipping" the language classroom; instructional videos identified or created can be posted to your institution's learning management system (Spino, Trego, 2015)

• Consider establishing an "approved textbook list" to help ensure program unity; program administrator or committee might oversee this process; additionally, consider a process for instructors who wish to pilot a textbook before being on formal approval list

 

Increase Student Engagement

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• "In order to acquire second language communicative competence, students need to be actively involved in the learning process" (Dornyei, 2018​)

• A recent U.S. Gallup poll (2015) suggests that only 50% of students are engaged in class. Additionally, a CCSSE (2017) poll finds that community college students rank low in active and collaborative learning

• Supported by Kolb's experiential learning theory (2014) as well as Kuh's high-impact practices (2008), locate, plan for, and create regular learning opportunities that will increase student engagement: cultural exchanges; nature walks; flying kites; collaboration with content courses; music lessons; community-based projects; pledge system (The Redhill Academy, UK)

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