CA Standards

The State of California adopted on 7 January 2009 a new set of Standards for World Language. In that document are some significant statements about what teachers should be doing in the classroom. I consider the following statement from the introduction to be one of the most significant sentences in the entire document: “We can no longer afford to simply learn about languages and cultures but rather, we must provide students with opportunities to learn languages and cultures by participating in communicative interactions that prepare for real-world language use and global citizenship.” (World Language Content Standards for California Public Schools, Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve, p. 1)

We must remember, however, that these are Content Standards for a broad spectrum of situations.

1. They indicate what students should know at different points in their study.
   

2. They are intended to cover 13 years of instruction.
   

3. ✤Until world language instruction begins in Kindergarten, these standards will never be implemented fully in the school setting.
   

4. They should be complemented by the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines and/or the Language Learning Continuum (from the College Board), which indicate how students at different stages ought to handle the language.
   

As of May 2010 (nearly 18 months after adoption), the California Department of Education still had not posted the new World Language Standards. Fortunately, the California Foreign Language Project has a copy of the draft standards posted; the changes between the draft and the final document were minimal. Furthermore, the Department of Education website has a link to the minutes at which the World Language Standards were adopted. Click here to view the draft standards and here to view the minutes. Item #1 on the page will download a Word document of the minutes and Standards. Adoption of the Standards was agenda item #7.

I have also prepared some pages to help make the Standards more understandable and easier to work with by separating them a couple of different ways. Click standards_by_stage.pages

Below is a QuickTime® movie of a PowerPoint® that I presented at a Project COACH workshop on  4 December 2008. I hope others will find it useful as an introduction to the California State Standards for World Language. Give it a moment to load, then click on the image to advance the slides and animation