Negotiating a Language Focus in a Content-Based Unit on Food Insecurity

In many world language classes, it remains the case that textbooks dictate the nature and sequence of language elements to be taught in the curriculum. This approach ignores key findings in the field of second language acquisition and strips students and teachers of their agency. By turning to a content-based approach, world language instructors can negotiate language foci that better align with their students' backgrounds and also facilitate their content learning. This presentation details a curricular unit from a content-based French course titled “Food Insecurity in the Francophone World.” Students in the course were Intermediate Low-level French learners majoring in international trade and nonproliferation studies. Notably, the speaker highlights ways in which he negotiated language foci for the unit by consulting data from a student preferences survey, student performance on a diagnostic quiz, and a linguistic analysis of the unit’s summative performance task.

Presenter
Jason Martel is Professor of Language Teacher Education at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. He earned his Ph.D. in Second Languages and Cultures Education at the University of Minnesota and is proud to be a member of the CARLA Evaluation Team.