As part of proficiency-based teaching, we shift from thinking about what students KNOW about the language (ex: how to form the preterite) to what they can DO with the language. When thinking about what you can do with language there are 3 categories or modes of communication. They are interpretive, interpersonal and presentational. We'll break down the 3 different modes and talk about ways to include them in your classroom practice.
Interpretive Mode- Interpretive communication means reading, listening and viewing. This is where learners are not necessarily expected to produce language but instead comprehend and interpret it for meaning. When looking at this we are talking about main idea of an article, infographic, video or audio. Students can't speak back to the text so it's what we call "one way communication". This does NOT mean translation. Translation means that you are taking each and every word and putting it in your native language. That's not our goal. We want to have students thinking in the language and learning how to process the language without thinking in their native language. This means we are teaching them to read/listen "between the lines" to find out why the author wrote it that way and what the author meant. There tends to be a push to use what are called authentic resources (#authres) which are resources written BY native speakers FOR native speakers. When looking for these resources we want to think of what our learners will be able to comprehend and also what they're interested in. There are so many examples but here are just a few: Reading- Newspaper articles, blogs, short stories, infographics, magazine articles, Tweets, Instagram posts, Reddit posts, advertisements Listening- Songs, Youtube videos, News clips, speeches, audio clips, movies, short films This mode is crucial to language acquisition. As learners read and hear more authentic language they are learning new words and grammatical structures that they can use when they produce language. Interpersonal Mode- This is when learners are speaking or writing with another person or a group of people. However, just because two people are talking doesn't make it interpersonal. There has to be a conversation with back and forth, negotiation of meaning (explanation if you don't understand), follow up questions, reactions. It has to be like a normal conversation and not talking at someone. This mode is one of the most fun ones to use in the classroom but it's important to set up situations where your students need to talk with another person and not just at them. This is a skill that a lot of adults struggle with, yet alone children. To teach this mode, we have to show the importance of listening and reacting appropriately (aka social emotional learning). Speaking activities are fun to create and easy to come by. Some of my favorites include: Speaking- Role plays, debates, info gap activities, games like headbands, ask ask switch, give one get one, pair crossword puzzles, turn and talk. This mode is crucial to creating communicators not conjugators of the language. You can also have interpersonal writing but this is less frequent. It involves two people writing to each other and, again, negotiating meaning and going back and forth. Some examples include: Writing- Text messaging, instant messaging on Google Docs, passing notes, emails (if there is back and forth). Presentational Mode- This mode is when learners are producing language for an audience. They are the ones communicating with no back-and-forth and they are essentially presenting their point of view. This can be done in writing and in speaking. This mode is the most frequently done in the classroom however, in reality, the least frequent in the real world. We do it in the classroom because we want to see how our students can write but in the real world it's not often that you are presenting in another language. That doesn't mean it's not an important skill, it just means we should always keep that in mind when planning our units and assessments. Some of my favorite activities include: Writing- Blog posting, writing a diary post, RAFT assignment, snowball fight, writing a tweet/social media post Speaking- Leaving a voicemail, jigsaw activities, short presentations to group members. Presentational writing is one that takes time and requires a lot of feedback to do it well. The idea of presentational writing is that it can be polished or on-demand. On-demand means the student produces it in class while on-demand means students wrote a draft, got feedback and edited to produce a finished product. Intercultural Mode- This isn't what is considered one of the three modes of communication but has become increasingly important as we aim to create global citizens. This "mode" is one that is found throughout the interpretive, interpersonal and presentational modes and is presented in the ACTFL Can Do Statements. We are looking for our learners to investigate and interact with other cultures through those other modes. For example novice level students will point out their observations of similarities and differences between cultures while intermediate students will begin to compare and contrast those similarities and differences. In the interpretive mode, we do this by interacting with authentic texts. Those texts provide us with a cultural perspective of the people from the target culture. For example, we could read a teacher written text about Día de los Muertos or we could have an authentic text of someone talking about how they celebrated and what it meant to them. In the interpersonal mode, we do this by discussing similarities and differences. Those conversations are important because they allow us to work with language to complete tasks. For example, we could practice asking each other questions about an element of teenage life from our culture or we could interact with a teenager from the target culture and ask questions to learn more about their teenage life. And, more importantly, learn what to do when we don't understand or need more clarity around an explanation. In the presentational mode, we do this by presenting our observations, our opinions and our questions. This mode is great for getting our thoughts on paper and allows for reflection. For example, we could write a blog post talking about what we see in a picture of a Carnaval celebration or we could ask students what they think they know about Carnaval, interact with texts to learn more and have students reflect on what perspectives they learned.
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