This book creatively redefines how teacher educators and faculty in secondary and post-secondary language education can become designers with intercultural education in mind. The author aligns theoretical frameworks with practical features for revising the modern language curriculum via themes and novel tasks that transfer language learning from classroom to community, developing communicative competence for mediation and learner autonomy along the way.
For novice and experienced instructors alike, this book empowers them to:
- design curriculum from transferable concepts that are worthy of understanding and have value within the culture(s) and to the learner;
- develop assessments that ask the learner to solve problems, and create products that transfer concepts or address needs of various audiences that they will encounter in community, life, and work;
- direct language learners through a spiral, articulated program that supports academic, career and personal goals.
Pedagogical features include a glossary of key terms, research-to-practice boxes, scaffolded design tasks, reflection questions and template samples representing language exemplars from the following languages and cultures: Arabic, Chinese, Èdè Yorùbá, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Ladino, Nahuatl, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Te Reo Maori and Urdu. The accompanying online resources offer blank templates, PowerPoints and guides for designing bespoke curricula with key performance assessments.