While you are considering making fundamental change to your language program, you may also want to modify the underlying organization in order to maximize proficiency growth in the target language. For example, part-time students may not have regular access to comprehensible input if they are only in class on, say, Monday evenings, or Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Or, to help students develop competency on course SLOs, consider offering a one-credit co-requisite course to complement language study.

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In this step, you'll want to:

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• Offer students a co-requisite personal assistant (PA) course for individualized student support

• Maximize frequency of contact hours

• Integrate the four language domains

• Flip the classroom

• Build in computer lab time

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The Details

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Offer a Co-Requisite Course for Individualized Support

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• Consider offering a co-requisite personal assistant (PA) course to complement a student's courseload

• A PA course serves to support competency-based learning and learner success in two ways: students may (a) work to develop competency in any underdeveloped SLOs for their current course or (b) work to develop competency on SLOs for a subsequent course in attempt to advance or accelerate

• The PA course instructor's role is to provide guidance, feedback, assistance, resources, instruction, and support to individual students as related to their respective SLOs; the instructor may also need to coordinate and collaborate with the language course instructor 

• Secondarily, the PA course may provide for individual conference time, study time, study strategies (i.e. time management, attitudes toward learning), since "...college students with high levels of overall academic achievement tend to have more effective study habits that do low-achieving students with respect to study techniques, time management, and attitudes toward learning" and "the variable that has been found to be among the best predictors of foreign language achievement among college students is overall academic achievement" (Bailey, Onwuegbuzie, 2002)

• Thirdly, the PA course could allow for integration of a built-in "study hall" for students who have limited access to technology, who may need resources on how to study in general or to learn a language, who may not have a dedicated study or homework location or time, or who are better motivated to complete homework by attending a scheduled (required) time

 

Maximize Frequency of Contact Hours

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• "High frequency (how frequently an L2 construction occurs in the input) decreases implicit learning difficulty"; with exposure to "input...over the course of time...can be activated with less energy";"exposure to linguistic feature influences subsequent speed of responding to that feature"  (Benati, 2009)

• Maximize the frequency of class meeting times; it is recommended that students meet every day, as opposed to, for example, a class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (see examples)

• If possible, dedicate approximately 20% of class meeting times to an integrated computer lab component (see Build in Computer Lab Time)

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Integrate the Four Language Domains

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• Integrate the four language domains (listening, reading, writing, speaking), when possible (see examples)

• Instead of explicit grammar courses, consider embedding the grammar SLOs into other courses

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Flip the Classroom

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• To maximize in-class time on real-world application of the target language, consider moving instructional content online (i.e invest in textbooks with an online workbook or compensate instructors to develop or locate video materials) (Strategies for Flipping the Communicative Classroom, 2015)

• Strategize solutions to potential barriers students may have concerning technology (i.e. flexible due dates;  providing computer and internet access; built-in computer lab class time)

 

Build In Computer Lab Time

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• Build in to a course a dedicated computer lab competent (see example) in which learners are provided regular comprehensible input (Krashen, 1982) through extensive reading (Bamford,Day, 1998; Grabe, 2008) and/or listening materials (i.e. articles and/or videos for pleasure, respectively)

• Instructor is responsible for locating and providing learners access to such materials ; materials selection should be based on learner input and needs (i.e. surveying students on interests, goals, etc.), making materials engaging and intrinsically motivating for learners

• Such materials should be low-stakes (participation grade only) and authentic

• Computer lab time is not a time to complete in-class or out-of-class work unless (i.e. no online quizzes or grammar exercises)

• Computer lab component may take up approximately 20% of a course's contact hours (i.e. a Monday-Thursday class with a Friday lab)

• The instructor's role shifts from facilitator to "coach" (i.e. circulates, assists with comprehension, explains or simplifies content)

• Computer lab component provides implicit technology training; however, if students have no or limited technology proficiency, such a prerequisite (or co-requisite) course covering such tasks as keyboarding, word processing, navigating the learning management system, uploading and downloading documents, following simple instructions, etc. can be designed and offered

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