Language Learning Framework

Russian Language Programs in the United States

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Introduction

Overview of contents

In the 1990's American educators have been deluged with documents
called curriculum guidelines, national standards, state standards, and so on.
Why another? The answer lies in the central word of the title of this document:
framework . The aims of this project are at once both broad and practical: we
seek both to describe a theoretical foundation for Russian language curriculum
design and to define shared content in order to help educators (and students!)
understand and function better within the nation's Russian language offerings in
American schools and colleges.¹

It is important to view this framework on its own terms, and not through
the lens of predefined notions of what it must be, based on familiarity with other
documents for national, state or district audiences. Educational standards
define minimum outcome levels or benchmarks, and are usually specified for
particular grade-levels (4, 8 and 12, for example). Curriculum guidelines set the
content of academic programs and/or the pedagogical approach and tend to be
too prescriptive to work in a wide range of settings. This framework is intended
to move beyond those restrictions and provide a context in which to better
discuss and recraft the academic programs in which the majority of classroom
learning takes place in this country.

The development of the Russian Language Learning Framework (RLLF)
was part of a larger project, funded by the Ford Foundation, to develop similar
frameworks for nearly all of the less commonly taught languages taught in the

1_{We would like to thank the National Foreign Language Center for support provided to}the authors as Mellon Fellows in the summers of 1991 and 1992. We would also like to
thank the Russian Language Institute at Bryn Mawr College for hospitality and use of
facilities during our work in the summer of 1992. We had the benefit of the collective and
individual wisdom of some 35 participants at two workshops conducted at Bryn Mawr and
supported by the Ford Foundation, NEH and CORLAC. In the final years of this project,
this work was supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation to the National Foreign
Language Center. In this last phase, we joined with representatives from professional
organizations of many other of the less commonly taught languages in a process to
develop language learning frameworks for their respective languages. Throughout the
project, Richard Brecht provided invaluable vision and support.




		Introduction
	Overview of contents In the 1990's American educators have been deluged with documents called curriculum guidelines, national standards, state standards, and so on. Why another? The answer lies in the central word of the title of this document: framework . The aims of this project are at once both broad and practical: we seek both to describe a theoretical foundation for Russian language curriculum design and to define shared content in order to help educators (and students!) understand and function better within the nation's Russian language offerings in American schools and colleges.¹ It is important to view this framework on its own terms, and not through the lens of predefined notions of what it must be, based on familiarity with other documents for national, state or district audiences. Educational standards define minimum outcome levels or benchmarks, and are usually specified for particular grade-levels (4, 8 and 12, for example). Curriculum guidelines set the content of academic programs and/or the pedagogical approach and tend to be too prescriptive to work in a wide range of settings. This framework is intended to move beyond those restrictions and provide a context in which to better discuss and recraft the academic programs in which the majority of classroom learning takes place in this country. The development of the Russian Language Learning Framework (RLLF) was part of a larger project, funded by the Ford Foundation, to develop similar frameworks for nearly all of the less commonly taught languages taught in the 1_{We would like to thank the National Foreign Language Center for support provided to}the authors as Mellon Fellows in the summers of 1991 and 1992. We would also like to thank the Russian Language Institute at Bryn Mawr College for hospitality and use of facilities during our work in the summer of 1992. We had the benefit of the collective and individual wisdom of some 35 participants at two workshops conducted at Bryn Mawr and supported by the Ford Foundation, NEH and CORLAC. In the final years of this project, this work was supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation to the National Foreign Language Center. In this last phase, we joined with representatives from professional organizations of many other of the less commonly taught languages in a process to develop language learning frameworks for their respective languages. Throughout the project, Richard Brecht provided invaluable vision and support.