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ED 253 104

AUTHOR

TITLE

INSTITUTION

PUB DATE

NOTE

AVAILABLE FROM

PUB TYPEDOCUMENT RESUME

FL 014 846

James, Charles J., Ed.

Foreign Language Proficiency in the Classroom andBeyond. American Council on the Teaching of ForeignLanguages, Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. 85
185p.

National Textbook Company, 4255 West Touhy Ave.,Lincolnwood, IL 60646-1975 (#93849, $13.25).Reports - Evaluative/Feasibility (142) -- Guides

-Classroom Use - Guides (For Teachers) (052)--Collected Works - General (020)

EDRS PRICE

MF01 Plus Postage. PC Not Available from EDRS.DESCRIPTORS*Curriculum Development; Definitions; *LanguageProficiency; *Material Development; *MeasurementTechniques; Rating Scales; *Second Language

Instruction; Student EvaluationIDENTIFIERSACTFL ETS Proficiency Guidelines; *InteragencyLanguage Roundtable

ABSTRACT

This collection of five essays and supportingmaterial concerning foreign language proficiency makes specific andcontroversial statements about what proficiency means foe diverse

groups of practitioners: the classroom teacher, the curriculumdeveloper, the language-learning researcher, the textbook publisher,and the businessperson. An introductory chapter is entitled "Learning

for Proficiency: The Unifying Principle" (Charles J. James), and thefive essays are: "The ILR Proficiency Scale as a SynthesizingResearch Principle: The View from the-Mountain" (Pardee Lowe, Jr.);

"Proficiency in Practice: The Foreign Language Curriculum" (Laura K.Heilenman and Isabelle Kaplan); "Materials Development for theProficiency-Oriented Classroom" (Jeannette D. Bragger); "FromAchievement toward Proficiency through Multi-Sequence Evaluation"

(Sally Sieloff Magnan); and "Proficiency Applications beyond the

Academic Classroom" (Kathryn Buck and Gregory Forsythe). The AmericanCouncil on the Teaching of Foreign Languages' Provisional Proficiency

Guidelines and the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) LevelDefinitions are appended, and person, topic, and institution citationindexes are provided. (MSE)

Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be madefrom the original document.***********************************************************************

a p aa

U.S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION

CENTER {MCI

14 This do

nl has been reproduced as #-- received from the person pr organization

1.Oligindfing it

Minor r hant t have been made to impro re

reprodur lion qualifyfair

Points of view or op,,,,,stated in this docu

merit do not netessiiniv represent official NIE position rim {"hr yLL"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS

MATERIAL IN

MICROFICHE ONLY

HAS BEEN GRANTED BY

TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)."

Foreign Language Proficiency

in the Classroom and Beyond

Edited by Charles J. James

In conjunction

withthe American Council on the Teaching of

Foreign

Languages

ME: National Textbook Company,

Linodnwood,linoiA.1

3

Copyright g 1985 by National Textbook Company

4255 West Touhy AvenueLincolnwood (Chicago). Illinois 60646.1975 U.S.A.All rights reserved. No part of this book maybe reproduced. stored in a retrieval system, ortransmitted in any form or by any means. electronic.mechanical. ,,hotocopying, recording or otherwise.without the prior permission of National Textbook Company.Manufactured in the United States of America.Library of Congress Catalog Number84-62278

4 5 6

8 9 0 ML 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Foreword

Introduction Learning from Proficiency: The Unifying

Principle

Charles J. James1

1

The ILR Proficiency Scale as a Synthesizing9

Research Principle: The View from the Mountain

Pardee Lowe, Jr.

2

Proficiency in Practice: The Foreign55

Language Curriculum

Laura K. Heilenman and Isabelle Kaplan

3

Materials Development for the Proficiency-79

Oriented Classroom

Jeannette D. Bragger

4

From Achievement toward Proficiency through117

Multi-Sequence Evaluation

Sally Sieloff Magnan

5

Proficiency Applications beyond the Academic147

Classroom

Kathryn Buck and Gregory Forsythe

Appendix A The ACTFL Provisional Proficiency Guidelines 165
(Generic)

Appendix B Interagency Language Roundtable Level

173

Definitions

Index to Persons Cited174

Index to Topics and Institutions Cited

177

Foreword

This volume of the ACTFL Foreign Language Education series is, Tike its predecessor, about language proficiency. The volume is thus unique in the series in that it deliberately follows upon and continues the discus- sion begun in last year's voluMe. Now that the profusion has outlined what proficiency is, or at least can be, and how the concept of proficiency has developed over the past thirty years, it is the task of this year's volume to make specific, even controversial statements as to what proficiency means for quite diverse groups of practitioners: the classroom teacher, the curriculum developer, the language-learning researcher, the textbook pub-

lisher, and the businessperson. As the Introduction emphasizes, it is timeto do things with proficiency.

One of the first things that I want to do as editor is to acknowledge the following individuals for contributing to what will prove,we hope, to be a high-level writing sample: the authors, of course; the Advisory Commit- tee (Theodore V. Higgs, Remo Trivelli, Heidi Byrnes, June K. Phillips); Dale L. Lange; C. Edward Scebold; and my wife. Carol. Special thanks goto Robert R. Hcitner, Lee B. Jennings, and Heinz C. Christiansen of the

University of Illinois at Chicago. Space restrictions do not permitme todetail the extent of your individual contributions. Thank you allverymuch.

Introduction

Learning from Proficiency:

The Unifying Principle

Charles J. James

University of Wisconsin-Madison

There is a saying attributed to the Chinese:

I hear and forget

I see and remember

I do and understand

For over twenty years the foreign language teaching profession in the United States has been hearing a substantial amount from researchers about the nature of language itself and what it means to learn a second language. Under the influence of the more radical forms of audiolin- gualism, it often ignored what it was hearing from students about lan- guage, namely, that while language may be a structured and "drillable"

system of human communication, it is also a very flexible and highlyindividualistic one, used by a variety of personalities for a variety of

purposes, both private and public. For the past ten years the foreign language teaching profession has seen a substantial number of books, newsletters, journal articles, and text mate- rial related to what learners should be doing with the language in real and Charles J. James (Ph.D., University of Minnesota) is Assistant Professor of German at the

University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he teaches language and methodology courses. Hewas coeditor of Volume 4 and editor of Volume 14 of the ACTFL Foreign LanguageEducation Series. His articles have appeared in Foreign Language Annals, Unterriehtspraxis,and other journals and anthologies in the United States and the Federal Republic ofGermany. He is a member of ACTFL, IFLTA, Gesellschaft fur Angewandte Linguistik,TESOL, Phi Delta Kappa, treasurer and member of the Executive Council of theChicago/Northern Illinois Chapter of the AATG. and national treasurer and member of the

Executive Committee of the AAUSC. He is a consultant to language textbook publishers, as

well as a reader/referee for Unterrichtspraxis. He has been trained in the techniques of theOral Proficiency Interview at workshops at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey,California, and in conjunction with the Illinois Foreign Language Proficiency Project.

2 Foryign Language Proficiency in the Classroom and Beyond simulated situations. However, only in the past five years can it be said that the profession has begun to focus more clearly on exactly what is required to motivate learners to do things with the languageand, as a result, retain acquired or learned language skills over a period of time that lasts longer than the time spent in the classroom.

We as educators have

also begun to deemphasize talk about language and the mechanical dem- onstration of language behavior in the language class, while emphasizing direct active participation by the learner in the language-learning process.

Opposites and Continua

Our profession is dominated by opposites. Like the search for the Holy Grail with its promise of controlling the uncontrollable and knowingthe unknowable (5), most human beings in Western cultures seem to be ad- dicted to simplifying the unsimplifiable; that is, they are addicted to reducing complex processes to binary code. As a result our professional machinery is studded with ON/OFF switches: audiolingual vs. cognitive code learning, internal vs. external motivation, subjective vs. objective testing, continuous vs. noncontinuous measurement, parametric vs. non- parametric statistics, closed vs. open test items, direct vs. indirect evalua- tion, discrete-point score vs. global rating, audio vs. video media, aural vs. oral channels, true vs. false, active vs. passive, receptive vs. creative, input vs. output, acquisition vs. learning, and now,achievement vs. proficiency. Language, however, is not a binary phenomenon, and lan- guage learning and acquisition is not an all-or-nothing proposition to be confirmed by an accumulation of points or a passagethrough a series of exercises and courses. Proficiency is a continuum, with isolated linguistic items at one end and individualistic language samples at the other, with a variety of combinations in between, their number limited only by the number of people using the language and the kinds of environments in which they operate. A person rated, for example, Novice

Mid in speaking,

according to the ACTFL Provisional Proficiency

Guidelines (1), has dem-

onstrated a level of proficiency that can be described and documented, whether or not a particular lexical item is present, or whether or not a particular structure is used in a certain way. It is admittedly possible to define a "typical" Novice Mid speaker or listener or reader or writer, but each example must be treated as a unique creation, product,' by the indi- vidual on his or her own terms. Although utremely unlikely given the nature of the proficiency level involved, itquotesdbs_dbs19.pdfusesText_25