STANDARD COURSE OF STUDY
STANDARD COURSE OF STUDYPROGRAM DESCRIPTION
Curriculum Guiding Principles
According to G. Blanco and I. Garcia (2000), a Spanish for native speakers curriculum based on the National Standards should promote the following goals:
- Students become cognizant of the linguistic strengths they possess.
- Students develop a sense of pride in their heritage by studying their language and culture.
- Students expand their ability to use Spanish in the communicative, interpersonal, and interpretive modes adding additional skills by using the language in new applications and contexts.
- Students determine the social situations in which standard and non standard Spanish should be employed and comfortably adjust their language accordingly.
- Students receive opportunities to become bilingual, biliterate, and bicultural.
North Carolina Curriculum Goals for Spanish for Native Speakers
The North Carolina Spanish for Native Speakers Curriculum for level I and level II has seven common goals which are based on the national standards and on the North Carolina Second Language Standard Course of Study. They are:
- Goal 1. Interpersonal Communication
- Goal 2. Interpretive Communication
- Goal 3. Presentational Communication
- Goal 4. Cultures
- Goal 5. Comparisons
- Goal 6. Connections
- Goal 7. Communities
The first three goals are referring to communication and are especially important since heritage speakers will be meeting the remaining goals of Cultures, Comparisons, Connections, and Communities through one of the three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, or presentational).
Interpersonal Communication
Competency Goal 1: Interpersonal Communication - The learner will engage in conversation and exchange information and opinions orally and in writing in Spanish.
"Students who come from Spanish-speaking backgrounds may have already acquired the linguistic ability to communicate within their own communities. However, they may lack the broader knowledge of the language and its cultures necessary to adapt their skills to interact effectively with speakers from other cultural communities and in situations requiring varied levels of formality (registers)." (Standards for Learning Spanish, p. 440).
This goal involves both the receptive and the productive skills. The language may be formal or informal. For example, it can involve a telephone conversation with a friend or with a stranger. It can include written language such as e-mails or letters requesting some information from a tourism bureau. At any rate, the originator of the message has to be conscious of the linguistic and of the social aspect of the language, so it can be adjusted accordingly.
Interpretive Communication
Competency Goal 2: Interpretive Communication - The learner will understand and interpret written and spoken language on a variety of topics in Spanish.
"Students who begin their formalized study of Spanish with a high degree of oral comprehension have the opportunity to develop greater skill in reading and interpreting. Because of their higher levels of linguistic and cultural control, they should build upon and expand their communicative skills as they interact linguistically and culturally with more diverse and less familiar texts that come from authentic sources, and that are age appropriate and of high interest to the learners. Oral and written language samples should reflect the diversity found among national and regional Spanish-language communities and incorporate the colloquial usage, linguistic patterns, dialectical variations, and lexicon common to those groups" (Standards for Learning Spanish, p. 442).
This goal involves the receptive skills only. It provides no opportunity for interaction with the originator of the message. It places a great demand on the listener who must make sense of the text but who must also place it within the cultural context. Interpretive communication takes place when students listen to the radio, to a speech but also when they read the newspaper or a novel.
Presentational Communication
Competency Goal 3: Presentational Communication - The learner will present information, concepts, and ideas to an audience of listeners and readers on a variety of topics in Spanish.
"Learners with prior experiences with Spanish, such as heritage language learners......can be made aware of the conventions of purposeful writing, strategies and organization of composition, more formalized public speaking, appropriate to the cultures" (Standards for Learning Spanish, p. 443).
This goal involves the productive skills. It relies heavily on oral and written communication with an audience of readers or listeners who cannot interact with the speaker/writer. The language used for presentational communication is more formal whether it is in oral or in written format. Heritage language speakers often have not developed the level of formality nor the skills mandated by this goal.
For this reason, teachers need to provide many opportunities for heritage language speakers to use the language in a variety of contexts, for a variety of purposes and audiences.
Cultures
Competency Goal 4: Cultures - The learner will gain knowledge and understanding of the relationship among practices, products and perspectives of his/her own culture(s).
"Linguistic fluency does not guarantee successful cultural interactions. Students of Hispanic communities who represent a variety of background knowledge, including heritage speakers from the United States, will benefit from a deeper understanding of the relationships among cultural perspectives and culturally appropriate behaviors. This goal prepares students to identify key cultural perspectives, products, practices, and concepts and to select, synthesize, and interpret them in ways that result in sensitive and meaningful interactions" (Standards for Learning Spanish, p. 445).
In addition, this goal allows the heritage speakers to develop a sense of pride, often lacking, in his/her own cultural heritage.
Comparisons
Competency Goal 5: Comparisons - The learner will develop insight into the nature of language and culture by comparing his/her own language(s) and culture(s) to others.
"Students from varied language and cultural backgrounds bring to class knowledge and abilities which teachers can use as a starting point for making observations about the diverse ways in which languages and cultures meet the needs of their people.......Heritage learners of Spanish should demonstrate an awareness of similarities between their native language and English, as well as differences among varieties of Spanish. All students develop understanding that each variety of a language is valid for purposes of the community it serves" (Standards for Learning Spanish, p. 454).
Connections
Competency Goal 6: Connections - The learner will acquire, reinforce and further his/her knowledge of other disciplines through Spanish as a heritage language.
"All students of Spanish - from beginners to more advanced learners and learners with heritage backgrounds - have unique opportunities to use their growing language skills for communicative purposes that go beyond personal survival or topics.....Inclusion of a range of issues and topics drawn from disciplines across the curriculum is likely to facilitate the development of the language skills students need." Furthermore, "students deepen and enhance their understanding of concepts when they have the opportunity to learn them both in English and Spanish" (Standards for Learning Spanish, p. 449).
Communities
Competency Goal 7: Communities - The learner will use Spanish and demonstrate cultural knowledge and understanding within and beyond the school setting for personal, educational and professional growth and enrichment.
This goal focuses on using Spanish as a means of communication with other Spanish speakers in school, in the local community, and beyond. There are many possibilities for using the language outside of the school setting, the news and other media, contacts with native speakers, travel and telecommunications are just a few of the options available to students.
Strands
Over the years, the study of a foreign language has expanded to include a much broader content. Today's successful language learners must have the opportunity to "explore, develop, and use communicative strategies, learning strategies, critical thinking skills, and skills in technology, as well as the appropriate elements of the language system and culture" (Standards for Foreign Language Learning, p. 32).
These elements, which cross over the different goals and objectives, form the strands in the
Language System
The language system is not limited to the study of words and rules but includes
gestures and other nonverbal communication as well as the sociolinguistic elements
associated with languages. It refers to "learning what you say to whom
and when" (SFLL, p.33).
Communication Strategies
Communication strategies enable the speaker to sustain a conversation even when
breakdowns in conversation occur. Strategies such as circumlocution, guessing,
asking for and giving clarification, and deriving meaning may not be inborn
to all students; however, they allow the students to compensate for language
they have not yet mastered. For this reason, these strategies and others need
to be an inherent part of language teaching and learning.
Cultural Content
"Students should have a range of learning experiences that reflect the
richness of cultures encompassed in the Spanish-speaking world and, particularly,
those they may encounter in their local communities" (Standards for Learning
Spanish, p. 444). They will need to learn about the social institutions as well
as the daily life understanding that the specific elements of culture to be
studies will vary within the different cultures of the Latino/Hispanic world.
Learning Strategies
Research shows that good learners adopt a variety of strategies. These include
monitoring their own and others' performances, using mnemonic techniques, organizing
information, incorporating graphic organizers, applying the reading and writing
processes, and many more. Students can be taught to resort to these strategies
to become better language learners and to take more responsibilities for their
own learning.
Content from Other Subjects
Students should be given the opportunity to apply their language to challenging
and engaging topics which involve the students in reading, writing, discussing,
and supporting opinions. Many of these topics can be found in the school curriculum
and may include such concepts as immigration, stereotyping, and bias. Topics
may also be expanded to incorporate concepts from disciplines such as the sciences,
social studies, math, and the arts.
Critical Thinking Skills
Throughout their language learning experience, students encounter a variety
of thinking skills ranging from basic (memorization and recall) to more complex
(summarizing, problem solving, organizing, inferring, analyzing, and synthesizing).
An effective foreign language classroom can be designed to promote the development
of critical thinking skills by involving students in activities requiring these
skills.
It is important to remember that the level of thinking skills is not tied to the amount of language the students know but rather to their cognitive development.
Technology
Students can access and use a wide range of media and technology ranging from
the Internet and CD-ROM technology to multi-media applications such as PowerPoint,
HyperStudio and many others. Students can construct webpages, participate in
audio/video conferences with others in or out of state, and countries. They
can also access television, films, tapes and cassettes, and radio. Technology
is an ideal tool to expose students to a variety of authentic materials reflecting
different dialects, accents, viewpoints, and cultures.
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