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Figure 4.1. Skill-level goals for the elementary stage
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The goals described here reflect a combination of current results in ETS
testing (of both high school and college students), and the desire to try to work
toward improved results by strengthening high school and college curricula.
The fact that the goals in all four skills consistently include Novice-High in their
range reflects a belief that all four skills can and should be addressed within
each stage. There is still latitude for teachers to decide whether, for example,
reading should be done from the beginning, or perhaps put off for awhile.
Nevertheless, it will be necessary for teachers to be aware of the time it will take
to develop these skills and to allocate appropriate time and practice to these
skills at logically appropriate points in their programs.
These recommendations are in some cases more optimistic than current
results might seem to justify. In the case of reading, for example, we suspect
that this skill is simply frequently not addressed at this stage in high schools.
We hypothesize that the time it would take to reach the Novice-High level in this
skill is, in fact, manageable. We also suspect more generally that the results of
proficiency testing are low in part because programs currently do not focus on
function. Thus we are hypothesizing(we are not trying to cast these goals in
concrete) that functionally oriented programs will be able to reach these levels.
If the results prove otherwise, then, obviously, the goals will have to be
modified.
Proficiency implies functions; one is proficient at something or in
particular contexts. Thus it is natural for each of the stages to enumerate some
of the functions in which students should have developed to their appropriate
level of proficiency. Proficiency and functions are discussed first in this
framework because they reflect the functional orientation that we believe is
appropriate to language learning at the high school and college levels.
It is important to recall that functions and grammatical categories do not
overlap precisely, and therefore it is incumbent on the curriculum to make
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