BACKWARD DESIGN , LANGUAGE TEACHING, A ND TECHNOLOGY

1. BACKWARD DESIGN, LANGUAGE TEACHING, AND TECHNOLOGY Can we adapt this widely used K-12 curriculum design process to language teaching? What help from technology? Françoise Sorgen-Goldschmidt, UC Berkeleysorgengd@socrates.berkeley.edu With warm thanks to Valérie Braimah for her introduction to Backward Design, her insights, and her help.

2. What Is Backward Design? • Backward Design is a process of lesson planning created by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe and introduced in Understanding by Design (1998). Have you heard about it? • This lesson design process concentrates on developing the lesson in a different order than in traditional lesson planning. Identify desired results. Determine acceptable evidence. Wiggins, G & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/198199/chapter1.html Plan learning experiences and instruction.

3. Backward Design and Language Teaching:WHY? • We have been using or referring to analogous processes and/or concepts for decades • When we start “at the end”, I.e., when we consider the target audience (learner) first in designing WHAT and HOW we are going to teach. • When we adapt National Standards to Language Teaching. • When stressing “authentic” vs. “de-contextualized” contexts. • Our assessment methods have been affected by “backward processes” (although far from universally) • When we assess what learners can do with the language and not just what they know about the language. • When we assess the whole language vs. only discrete points. (The familiarity of the discourse is what initially got me interested in ”Backward Design”.) • However we have not systematically used this design process, particularly where the passage from assessment to curriculum is concerned. What do you think?

4. Backward Design and Language Teaching: WHO? • Chinese Language Teachers - CLTA conference http://clta.osu.edu/flyers/program2003.htmApplying "Backward Design" to Chinese 8-12 CurriculaChair: Butler, Craig, Hong Kong International School * "Backward Design" ,"Technology by Design”, "Listening by Design" • Margaret Azevedo teaches BD in her course on Curriculum and Instruction in Foreign Language at Stanford Ed.264 • I have found no higher learning institution that uses or promotes BD. Do you know any?What do you think?

5. Backward Design and Language Teaching:HOW? Stage 1:Identify Desired Results - The issue of standards National Standards for World (or Foreign) Languages were regrouped around five categories (the 5 C’s), each with sub-categories. • Communications: Communicate in Languages Other Than English • Cultures: Gain Knowledge and Understanding of Other Cultures • Connections: Connect with Other Disciplines and Acquire Information • Comparisons: Develop Insight into the Nature of Language and Culture • Communities: Participate in Multilingual Communities at Home & Around the World The state of Hawaii for example, has defined “Performance Standards” for World Languages, and indicated “Benchmarks” for each one. Here is a short excerpt from a sub-category of the 1st C, i.e., Communications Content Area: World Languages Grade Cluster: 9-12 Content Standard: INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION “Students engage in conversations, provide and obtain information, express feelings and emotions, and exchange opinions.”

6. Backward Design and Language Teaching:HOW? Let’s imagine that our goal (Desired Result) is for students to be able to communicate with (understand) natives speaking at natural speed in an authentic context.What evidence can we use to determine whether they have met standards/proficiencies?Here are some possibilities:For message (global) comprehensionStudents listen to or watch an authentic discussion, and are asked to- Sum up the topic of the discussion (orally or in writing) Multiple choice format is possible for less advanced students, with instructor suggesting different topics- Imagine a continuation to the discussion- Create an answer where one was erased from the recording.For discrete point comprehensionMultiple Choice or Cloze Exercises for checking comprehension of discrete points of the discussion. Stage 2: Determine Acceptable Evidence-The issue of assessment

7. Backward Design and Language Teaching:HOW? Learning experiences are planned after desired results and the method of measurement of those results are identified.What will the students need to know in order to achieve the desired goal, learning, or understanding?Possible learning experiences for message (global) comprehensionExpose students to a wide variety of spoken registers, and vary length of clips. Provide different sorts of help when necessary, such as:- Pre-listening or previewing activities for greater advance familiarity with a topic or a place,- Images or video, which provide a context that facilitates understanding of general meaning.- Play the same authentic clip at different speeds,- Same type of activities as defined above for Stage 2.Possible learning experiences for discrete point comprehension- Train students to recognize patterns (rather than individual words) that make understanding the spoken language difficult.For example in English: “Waddaya” for “What do you”; or “I wanna” for “I want to”- Demonstrate, teach, and/or explain these patterns, depending on what strategy will be most useful for better comprehension. - Train students to alternate between using and not using help (e.g. same language captions or written transcripts), when listening or watching, with the aim in mind of understanding the audio or video clip without the assistance of the written word. Stage 3:Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction

8. Role of Technology Using multimedia technology in the Backward Design Process expands possibilities for assessing and teaching. • While the possibilities are too numerous to adequqtely develop in the poster format, here are a few that I use in the case chosen to illustrate the three stages of Backward Design, i.e., where the desired result(Stage 1) is for students to understand native speakers. • For determining evidence (Stage 2) of students’ understanding of authentic spoken French, I use a virtual lab (Langlab, currently demonstrated in the vendor area and on some of the lab computers), which allows me to have students respond orally to what they hear during the pauses I create within a discussion, or write what they hear, or about what they hear natives say. • For learning experiences that will get them there (Stage 3), I use the multimedia website I have created, which combines a variety of audio clips, video clips, written texts, images, explanations. My website can be visited on some of the lab computers What would you recommend?

9. Discussions and Open Questions • Adapting BD to Language Teaching and Language Teaching to BD:Does the basic backward process have potential for our profession? • Proficiency Guidelines may not fit the definition of “enduring” understanding, but can we benefit from the tenets of BD? • The BD Process sharpens our sense for curriculum design: “Activities” (which are used in languages more than in other fields at the University level, partly because beginning language students lose their regular communication abilities in their new language), are not good in and of themselves, when gratuitous and not aligned with goals and assessments. • We start to understand that “Determining Acceptable Evidence” BEFORE establishing a curriculum is NOT the same as the often decried “teaching to the test”: it can au contraire insure more coherence (less of a disconnect) between classroom activities and “what’s on the exam”. • What standards should we use? Are some more conducive to using BD? • What is the relationship between Proficiency Standards and Language Skills and how do they fit in with (or into) the BD Process for creating curricula? Are YOU also interested in exploring this further? A final note: This was clearly too ambitious a project for a mere poster session.I’ll try to develop it into a presentation for IALLT, and look forward to your feedback. THANKS! Françoise Sorgen-Goldschmidt sorgengd@socrates.berkeley.edu