In episode 66, we share a conversation between Stacey and seven members of the Williamson County Schools world languages curriculum writing team, teachers Amanda Baker, Robert Collard, Chelsea Graves, Nicole Hernandez, Brian Rentfro, and Rebecca Roa, and district supervisor Christi Gilliland. Representing three different languages, this group of colleagues has been meeting for the last three summers to write a new curriculum that moves their students toward proficiency. In this interview, the teachers report on the success of the new curriculum, and talk about their external assessments, which show remarkable student gains.
This week’s episode is part I of the interview. In part II next week, the team discusses how their teaching has changed and what a proficiency-oriented classroom looks like.
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Show Notes
We welcome feedback, resources, and diverse perspectives on this topic! To contribute to the conversation started here, leave us a voicemail or send a text message to (629)888-3398. Or you can follow us on Twitter @weteachlang or use this contact form to send us an email.
You can find the Williamson County School World Languages department on Twitter @wcsCOcg
If you are interested in seeing the curriculum that the writing team has developed, piloted, and implemented, those documents are available here for level 1: Williamson County Schools Level 1 World Language Curriculum, and here for level 2: Williamson County Schools Level 2 World Language Curriculum
Some resources mentioned in the episode…
Previous episodes mentioned on this episode…
…Episode 23: Performance Assessment, Can Dos, and ACTFL resources with Paul Sandrock
…Episode 41: Vocabulary Lists with Kara Parker & AC Quintero
While this is the first time a whole school district has been featured on the podcast, if you are interested in making the move towards proficiency, we have talked to a few teachers in the past and you should definitely check out those episodes…
…Episode 14: Making the Transition to Authentic Resources and Proficiency with Lisa Shepard
…Episode 32: Reflective, Principled, Proficiency-Oriented Teaching with Walter Hopkins
…Episode 36: A Departmental Shift to IPA-based Units with Rich Madel
…Episode 47: Professional Development and Working Together with Rebecca Blouwolff and Tim Eagan
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