How do I design and implement a theme based curriculum? How does the curriculum framework relate to the day-to-day classroom? What are my short and long term learning objectives? This hands-on workshop will provide teachers with fundamental tools and strategies to resolve the above issues, and explore the role of proficiency standards in curriculum design and lesson planning. Participants will also be exposed to effective lesson planning and teaching strategies that maximize target-language use in a student-centered classroom.

The focus of many language teacher training programs is on what the teacher is doing or should be doing in the classroom. This focus on the teacher often leads to a neglect of what the learner is doing or should be doing in the classroom. This workshop approaches this question through reverse engineering. If the goal is to get our learners to use Chinese appropriately and accurately while interacting with Chinese people, what do they need to be doing in the classroom to develop the skills they need to accomplish that goal? And, what, then, should the teacher be doing to create the conditions necessary for those skills to emerge? This shift in focus requires a major shift in how the role of the teacher is viewed, a shift from knowledge disseminator to linguistic coach, from teaching content to coaching skills. Practical classroom techniques effective in creating culturally contextualized learning situations, constructing culturally and linguistically authentic contexts, sustaining a target language environment, eliciting high quality performance from learners, providing varied, informative feedback, generating intrinsic motivation, and injecting behavioral culture into the learning equation will be explored.

Chinese Education Conference 2009

Presenters: David Kojo Hakam, Curriculum Specialist, Portland Public Schools (PPS)
Shen Yin, Curriculum Specialist/Chinese Teacher, PPS Chinese Flagship