|
part, in the work of the last several years as a collaborative effort ofACTFL,
AATF, AATG and AATSP on developing national standards for language
instruction. The first major step in this process has been realized with the
publication in 1996 of Standards for Foreign Language Learning: Preparing for
the 21st century (henceforth referred to as Standards ).1 1Work is now underway
to develop language-specific standards for a wide variety of languages,
including Russian.
The development of standards reflected in curriculum-wide goals and
benchmarks for grades 4, 8, and 12 will require curriculum redesigns and will
therefore provide an ideal context for the process of embedding the common
curriculum described below in this document. It is important that the Standards
and the common curriculum of this framework not be seen as competitors. In
fact, the two sets of curricular recommendations have very different, but
complementary aims.
The standards are expressed with respect to five major goal areas, 5 C's:
1) communication, 2) cultures, 3) connections (with other disciplines), 4)
comparisons (with the learner's own language and culture), and 5) communities
(around the globe). Within each of these five goal areas are two to three
content standards. Note the term standards is taken to mean: what students
should know and be able to do. The executive summary of the Standards
presents the goal areas and standards as in the following chart.
11National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project.
|
