Using Proficiency as the Organizing Principle in an Advanced Speaking Course for Majors

Abstract

While the proficiency movement has spawned numerous first and second year textbooks, very few proficiency‐based materials are available for advanced students and majors. This article describes an advanced speaking course designed using the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines as the organizing principle. Students prepared and performed a wide variety of communicative tasks at the Advanced and Superior levels, including narrating and describing, hypothesizing, supporting an opinion, debating and being interviewed for a job. Assignments involved students in pairs and small group work as well as in the class as a whole. Audio and video taping provided feedback. Oral Proficiency Interviews administered at the beginning and the end of the course indicated an improvement in OPI rating for some students.

Building a classroom discourse community in university Spanish courses: What high‐achieving language teachers do

“…Nevertheless, the differences in their approaches to instruction yielded statistically significant gains on student assessments focused on reading and writing. Positive results in student reading and writing achievement support previous research on proficiency‐based and communicative curricula (Dodds, 1992; Freed, 1987; Glisan et al, 2007; Smith, 1984; Villar & Meuser‐Blincow, 1993). There remains a common misconception that a focus on oral proficiency poorly affects performance in other skills (Glisan et al, 2007; Huebner & Jensen, 1992).…”

“…Nonetheless, numerous studies in which an emphasis on oral proficiency during instruction was measured against more traditional reading and writing measures concluded that student achievement did not suffer in the other skill areas, such as reading and writing, as a result (Glisan et al, 2007; Huebner & Jensen, 1992). Several notable postsecondary level studies have supported the use of ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) training to inform proficiency‐oriented practices (Dodds, 1992; Freed, 1987; Villar & Meuser‐Blincow, 1993). Results of those studies indicated higher student self‐confidence in speaking, student satisfaction with the curriculum, improvement and implementation of real‐life communicative activities, testing materials, and higher performance on assessments provided by the respective departments.…”

Effects of the ACTFLOPI‐Type Training on Student Performance, Instructional Methods, and Classroom Materials in the Secondary Foreign Language Classroom

“…There is, however, readily available information on the effects of the ACTFL-OPI training at the university level (Dodds 1992;Freed 1987;Halleck 1992;Kaplan and Sinclair 1984;Ke and Reed 1995;Liskin-Gasparro 1984;Manley 1995;McMillen Villar and Mueser-Blincow 1993;Meredith 1990;Wolf and Riordan 1991;Wing and Mayewski 1984). Dodds (1992) described the foreign language curriculum at the University of Colorado as having a stronger emphasis on oral proficiency after six faculty members participated in the ACTFL-OPI training and became certified testers. As a result of the training, goals for an advanced speaking course were adapted to fit the proficiency level descriptions.…”

An Uplifting Experience: A Course Sequence Designed to Facilitate Proficiency Development

“…It is evident, then, that instructors should guide classroom activities in upper‐division courses to elicit paragraph‐length discourse on topics of personal and public interest. Guiding classroom activities toward a projected goal, a hallmark of backward design, is nothing new in foreign language pedagogy and is extremely useful in planning curricular goals and setting assessments to meet those goals (Dodds, ).…”

“…It is evident, then, that instructors should guide classroom activities in upper-division courses to elicit paragraph-length discourse on topics of personal and public interest. Guiding classroom activities toward a projected goal, a hallmark of backward design, is nothing new in foreign language pedagogy and is extremely useful in planning curricular goals and setting assessments to meet those goals (Dodds, 1992). 49 1 We are grateful for feedback from participants in the Target Linguistics Course as Capstone Course session at the 2012 ACTFL Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the session organizer, Susanne Nimmrichter.…”