Articulation of Language Instruction

The Minnesota Articulation Project

This statewide initiative involved second language K-12 teachers, second language faculty from colleges and universities, and second language researchers from the University of Minnesota collaborating on the development of a model for articulating French, German, and Spanish curricular strategies and outcomes across all levels of instruction and systems in Minnesota. The project resulted in the publication of the Proficiency-Oriented Language Instruction and Assessment: A Curriculum Handbook for Teachers, and the Minnesota Language Proficiency Assessments.

Proficiency-Oriented Language Instruction and Assessment: A Curriculum Handbook for Teachers

This handbook is designed to provide world language teachers with the background knowledge, ideas, and resources for implementing proficiency-oriented language instruction and classroom-based performance measures into their curriculum. Tied to the national Standards for Foreign Language Education, the Handbook gives teachers a solid foundation of the principles and practices that are central to standards-based and proficiency-oriented language instruction and assessment. The Handbook gives teachers a wide variety of tasks and activities to use in the classroom along with ideas for adapting these activities for different levels and languages and longer curricular packages.

The Proficiency-Oriented Language Instruction and Assessment (POLIA) Train-the-Trainer Program

Two year-long cycles of the POLIA program provided intensive professional development for fifty language teachers on the principles and practices related to proficiency-oriented language instruction and assessment and how they are integrated with the state and national language standards. The program prepared these teachers to become POLIA trainers in their own right who subsequently offered workshops to over 700 language teachers across Minnesota and in other states around the country.

The Critical Languages Articulation Project

This articulation effort focused on developing models for articulating curriculum for teachers of Japanese and Russian within the Minneapolis Public Schools system. The teachers involved in the project produced curriculum frameworks for K-12 Japanese and Russian language instruction. These frameworks are available through the CARLA working paper series.

CARLA Summer Institutes for Language Teachers

Each summer CARLA offers a wide array of professional development opportunities for K-16 language teachers including institutes focused on proficiency-oriented instruction and developing assessments.

CARLA Bibliography

The CARLA bibliography has more information on presentations and publications done by faculty, students, and staff involved with this project.