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Figure 3.2. Specification of knowledge domains
in three stages
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Readers should recall that these stages and their definitions are
presented as a proposal to the profession. The goal is to delineate a path that
reflects the learning processesof a sufficiently wide range of learners in a
sufficiently wide range of Russian programs in such a way that learners can
move from one program to another and expect to have their acquisition path
mesh reasonably well the one followed by both their old and new programs.
Since at the elementary stage students function primarily at the skill
level31called "Novice" in the terms of ACTFL proficiency guidelines, this means
that they deal most often in unanalyzed chunks of material. Words and phrases
are "recycled", that is, repeated from memory rather than created in and tailored
for a particular context. Although a learner might be able to say Vtyz pjden Gfif,
he may well have no idea of the syntactic structure of this phrase. Clearly it
makes sense for the chunks being learned to be functionally useful ones.
As learners begin to move gradually into the intermediate level of
proficiency (still at the elementary stage), sentence-length utterances become
more common, and the range of topics extends into survival skills. The
expectation described in the goals for this stage (in the range of Novice-High) of
31Although the terminology is tedious, we try to use stage when referring to gradations
with language programs, and level when referring to degrees of proficiency as defined by
the ACTFL.
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