Ep125 Taking Proficiency Seriously, with Paul Sandrock

Embark on a linguistic journey that promises to redefine your understanding of language proficiency with the guidance of Paul Sandrock, an esteemed language educator. Dive into the heart of what it truly means to speak another language, moving beyond the memorization of vocabulary and grammar to a place where language becomes a vibrant tool for real-world interaction. Paul and I dissect the layers of proficiency, from the ability to navigate a menu to engaging in meaningful conversations, and how these skills map onto the recognized benchmarks of novice, intermediate, and advanced levels. This isn't about learning a language; it's about living it.

Teaching strategies have undergone a revolution, and I've witnessed it firsthand, evolving from a middle school teacher into a crucial contributor at ACTFL. In our conversation, we celebrate this pedagogical shift from rote learning to a dynamic, performance-based educational landscape where students showcase their language prowess in tangible ways. The ACTFL Can-Do statements are not just guidelines but beacons that lead learners toward genuine communication, embracing the inevitable mistakes as milestones to mastery. We're not just educating; we're crafting future global communicators.

The episode culminates with a profound look at how curriculum and assessments shape the path to language proficiency. Through inspiring stories, including a district's transformative approach from early education to high school, it becomes evident that when we align educational goals with proficiency objectives, learners thrive. Join us as we share how these methods not only empower students but also create a ripple effect, fostering advocates for a new standard of educational excellence. Paul Sandrock's insights bolster our belief that with the right tools and mindset, language proficiency can become a lifelong asset for every student.

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Transcript

Norah: 0:05

So are you proficient in a language? Are you proficient in more than one language? What does proficiency mean anyway? How do you get to be proficient in a language? What does it look like when you're demonstrating proficiency? How does proficiency help you to connect to others? That's the bottom line. My guest for this week, paul Sandrock, has been helping all of us in the educational scene discuss and live into proficiency now for decades, and he brings a clarity, humor and insights into what proficiency does in the lives of human beings that I know that you will enjoy today in this conversation with Paul Sandrock.

Introduction: 0:52

Welcome to. It's About Language episode 125, hosted by Norah Lulich Jones. Norah talks with Paul Sandrock, world language educator and consultant and former senior advisor for language learning initiatives for the US language organization ACTFL.

Norah: 1:09

Welcome to this week's episode, well today you get the treat of enjoying the same compassion and insight and knowledge and professionalism that I've had a chance which I'm very grateful for to have enjoyed for decades. Now I'm talking to Paul Sandrock. Hi, Paul, welcome to It's About Language.

Paul Sandrock: 1:36

Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to have a conversation with you.

Norah: 1:40

I'm enjoying the fact that we get a chance to be able to spend some time together to explore well the multiplicity of things that you have done over the years with regard to language education and the training of educators, and I think anyone that knows you knows that the word that comes to mind outside of amazing, kind person Now that's several words, but there you go is proficiency, language proficiency. So can you help to make sure that all of my listeners worldwide understand what the definition of proficiency is, as you have been practicing and training others to practice it over these years?

Paul Sandrock: 2:26

That's a great place to start, Norah. Thank you, and I think proficiency comes down very simply to what someone can do with the language. It's not what you know about the language, it's what you can do with a language. And in the defining of it, some key words that have always resonated with me, almost a motto, is independent use of language, So while a lot of that training of learners and the guiding of learners through their language journey has taken place in a classroom, that wasn't good enough. That's not the end goal. I can do well in a classroom, in these environments that have been engineered and scaffolded and supported for me as a learner. I need to, as someone who wants to grow in my proficiency, be competent and confident to use language beyond the classroom. That independent use of language. So the teacher might help me get there, an educator is going to help me get there, but I as a learner need to take it within me and make sure that I know what I can do with language, because no one knows when that opportunity will present itself. It might be on a playground if I'm in an elementary school; it might be as I'm doing some research in a high school project. It might be out in the community. It might be with relatives or other experiences where I have a chance to communicate and use the language.

Paul Sandrock: 4:15

I've heard stories of middle school kids doing video games with kids around the world using a common language or a third language, because that's the only thing they have to communicate back and forth. So independent use of language is proficiency. And the other part of that then all of my examples you've been hearing it has to be a real world context. So it's not just contrived or controlled for the learner. That sort of is where I am. But to push me further, I need to experience that little bit of a struggle, struggle to either express, negotiate or take in meaning and use language in that way.

Paul Sandrock: 5:11

If I can just add one more thing to that definition. So independent use of language, real world. But it also needs to be certainly something that is meaningful and relevant to the learner. Again, it isn't dependent on how the language was learned. So it isn't that I've had two, three, four, five years of instruction, or the language my grandmother speaks is ___, or I spent a year living in ___. Regardless of how that language has gotten inside of that learner, it's now simply what can you do with it? And those are the markers that indicate -  can you function at a novice level.? Can you function at an intermediate level, can you function at an advanced level? Again, regardless of how you got to that point.

Norah: 6:08

What a magnificent series of concepts in that definition, Paul. I'm looking forward to continuing to unpack them for folks. You specifically did two things there. I'm going to ask you, as you answer, the question that I had about there's very future-oriented for the specific learner that you've spoken about. That real-world use, that unpredictability, the relevance all point to the future rather than to the past. As you had said, maybe your grandmother knew something, but now you… etc. Dealing with the future focus. Also, help those who are not familiar with the terms that you have used of novice, intermediate and advanced, to understand where you are anchoring that sort of scaffolded view you just provided there.

Paul Sandrock: 7:09

Sure.

Paul Sandrock: 7:10

So I'm pulling from the ACTFL proficiency guidelines, which correlate very well with those who may be more familiar with the European CEFR, the Common European Framework of Reference. They have slightly different labels, but the continuum of developing language proficiency is remarkably similar regardless of the system and the naming of it. So as I refer to the ACTFL proficiency guidelines, the novice to me is the person who can do what they know. So if I know how to introduce myself, I can introduce myself. But if you ask a question about what did you do last weekend, I might not be able to handle that yet. Until I could very easily, not because I've spent five weeks studying and memorizing a past tense form, but because my teacher, very smartly, simply said oh, you want to talk about your weekend? Here. How about “I saw, I went, I ate, I studied, I played.” There are five verbs you have. Now you can tell me about your weekend because now I can do what I know. So if I know five words in past tense, it's not that I have to have a deep understanding of a grammatical structure, but I have words in my head that I know that now I can use to function to tell you about my weekend. So the novice level is very much I can do what I know. I don't like to use the idea of being a parrot, because a parrot is simply mimicking and repeating something without a deep understanding and then you can't deal with what you said is so important, dealing with the unpredictable. So the novice I can do what I know.

Paul Sandrock: 9:03

The intermediate is much more of the person who can function in a way that they can expand and start to become a little more original in connecting some ideas together. And this is where actually, that crossover from I can do what I know to now I can start to be a little more original. That creating with language is, of course, when more errors are going to happen, because now I'm thinking more, I'm not just staying comfortable with what I know, but I'm expanding, I'm pushing myself to oh wait, there's this thought in my head in one language, but I want it to come out in a different language. I've never done that before but I think I can try. And you know, the nice thing is that anyone who deals with someone who is not at the same level, someone who uses the language every day, versus someone who's struggling to learn that language. That person who uses the language every day, is very compassionate. You know, no one says, oh, just repeat after me, or wait, that was so wrong, or don't you know anything. They just they'll help you out and they'll fill in the blanks. And so that is the attitude I think that every educator has to take, as someone is trying to move out of that comfort zone of I can do what I know. I'm a good beginner, I'm a good novice.

Paul Sandrock: 10:29

But don't be comfortable staying there. Push yourself, try to express those ideas that are original. Sure, it won't come out perfectly, but we will help you with more good input of what is through the understanding of the meaning, focusing on the meaning, maybe just even asking a question oh, did you mean to say this or this? Are you saying that you did it or someone else did it? Are you saying that that's happening now, or did you do that last week? Now I'm focusing on meaning and I, as the learner, can say, oh, I have to pay attention to something that I wasn't really so alert to and that's how I'm going to cross over into that more intermediate creating with language level. And you asked about the next level beyond that, moving up into the advanced realm, to me is the person who can really be an amazing storyteller. The storyteller doesn't sort of think one idea at a time. There is this ready to go like video in your head and you are just ready to tell that story. So all the connections, all of the prediction, all of the foreshadowing, all of the words that we use for that are already embedded, because you're thinking about the whole rather than just piece by piece than just piece by piece. So again, if I can just give some classroom examples from my experience. At that novice level, I might say, you know. If I say you know, tell me about your weekend, I would say, okay, I went, I saw, I studied. Right, I gave that example. So it's just, I can do what I know.

Paul Sandrock: 12:07

At the intermediate level, it might be oh well, I went downtown, oh wait, first I woke up, then I ate my breakfast. Then I oh no, first I got dressed, then I ate my breakfast. It's sort of like this hesitancy, because it isn't just this whole story in your head, but I'm expressing more and maybe even I'm connecting some of the ideas. Before I went downtown I did this and when I arrived I right….okay, great, good intermediate, but still not that flow, that depth, that elaboration and connection, that is the advanced level. Who would say, you know, oh, let me tell you about yesterday. It was the most amazing day because it started like this and then this happened and you'll never believe what happened next. Right, I mean all of those things because it's all in your head and I can tell the story the way I want to.

Paul Sandrock: 13:02

I can also ask questions like a reporter and probe and dig and rather than just random questions, maybe at the novice level, you know I'm going to ask a who, what, where, when, maybe even a why and a how. At the intermediate level, I can do much more follow-up. Oh, you said this -- how about or when did you do that? Or how many times do you do that? Or is that what you do every day?

Paul Sandrock: 13:27

Good, follow-up questions now, because I have the ability to do a little more thinking and be original. And at the advanced level it's probing, it's deepening. You know I heard you say this but I'm not exactly sure what you meant when you said blah, blah, blah, and it almost seems different from what you said before. Could you explain a little bit more? So kind of think of those as those three big buckets. I'm comfortable and I do what I know. I start to create and get a little more original and connect a few things and finally I'm at that more advanced stage where I'm confident and competent to just tell the whole story or dig into the whole story, whether I am trying to take in the message or express my message or have a conversation back and forth.

Norah: 14:14

Paul, that explanation of what proficiency means, both in the labels themselves and also in the examples that you have provided to anchor each, is a wonderful mini-workshop right in the middle of this podcast, and I thank you for it. So two aspects are going to come from this exposition. It's clear that not only did the listeners get to understand what proficiency and its levels mean, but that you also have distilled this information in your own mind, from your own experiences, and, by sharing with others. Help the listeners to understand. You referred to teaching Spanish. You've referred to the National World Language Organization in the United States, ACTFL, as well as to the Common European Framework of Reference, which is the European language learning. How is it then? What's your background, such that you have experienced this? Help all of our listeners to know who you are, the role that you have been playing.

Paul Sandrock: 15:28

How did I become who I am? Hmm, good question, Norah, good question. You know. I think it started early on in my teaching. I was a middle school teacher for 10 years. I then moved with one group of students into teaching at the high school level. There was a group of about 25 students that I from 7th grade through 12th grade. Because we made the transition at the same time, I learned so much about what sticks every year versus what I thought I taught every year in conversations with those students.

Paul Sandrock: 16:06

I think my understanding of proficiency started early on, just when I started to pay more attention to my learners and try to make sure that I knew what I thought I was teaching was actually getting into them, right In their heads. We had conversations in eighth grade, in ninth grade, in 10th grade, about some of the grammatical structures and my students would say well, we can do those like on a worksheet, but we're never going to really use them. They're just too complicated. This was an eighth grader, right, and it just made me think wait a minute. Well then, I should rely less on worksheets as evidence of learning and more in what my learners can actually do, their performance. And it shifted my way of teaching. It shifted my way of assessing, so that students now were demonstrating rather than simply regurgitating. Right, and that was a huge shift. And that's where I think I really picked up a lot of my focus on proficiency as the one and only thread.

Paul Sandrock: 17:16

I remember again these same students in 11th grade who said things like direct object pronouns. You spent way too much time on them in eighth grade. We finally get it and we're in 11th grade. Ok, that's three years of coming back to it. So trust the spiral. Trust that there's exposure, there's a little bit of practice, there's a little bit of movement forward, but don't expect perfection. If we expect perfection, we're just saying please use Google Translate and don't think. If we give up on perfection and say be a good beginner, here's what it takes to move into that intermediate phase. If you're a good intermediate, here's what it takes to move into that intermediate phase. If you're a good intermediate, here's what it would take to move up to that advanced level. And I think what you're getting at is let's pull back that curtain for our learners as well. And one of the best documents that does that are the NCSSFL-ACTFL Can Do Statements, which emphasize right from the beginning ….every single little statement is relying on language functions.

Paul Sandrock: 18:19

The functions are what you can do with language and each function starts at the novice low level, saying wait, novice low can't tell stories, no, but they can introduce themselves and that's the beginning of telling a story. I am Paul, I live in Madison, Wisconsin, I am old…There's my novice low, very predictable, but eventually I'm able to tell more and more and more and more. So all of those language functions start at the very beginning and continue all the way through to the highest level. Each one of those little can-do statements and doing this with students is very powerful so they can use it as a reflection tool Can I really do that independent use of language or can I only do it with the help and the scaffolding of my teacher? Because each of those statements has a language function at the very beginning:

Paul Sandrock: 19:15

I can describe, I can explain, I can tell, I can express my preferences with details, right, I can say, I can explain and tell why. Right, this is moving up to higher levels. So there's the function, there's a context. Can I do that on every single topic or only on the things that we've done in class? Can I expand beyond just what I know about myself? Can I also learn about other things and do that, explaining that, persuading on other topics. So a function, a context, and then a bit of how well.

Paul Sandrock: 19:57

What kind of language do you use? I use pretty much what's in my head, those words and phrases that are in my head. Oh, no, I can actually connect sentences together. Wait, I can even connect ideas together, like a full paragraph should be holding together all of the cohesiveness of that. So there's the function, the context, the how well, and this is so powerful to show learners. This is how you get language, your language, to a higher level. It's not just a thousand words versus 500 words, it's not just five grammatical structures versus one. It's what you can do with what you know.

Norah: 20:37

What you can do with what you know, which has so many implications in the classroom, yes, from the sense of the young person considering their accomplishment in an educational setting. But language is the quintessential human tool and should be able to be applied for the rest of one's life. So, Paul, you provided a phrase when we were preparing for getting together today that included this concept of taking proficiency seriously. What happens when we do? But there's an implication in that sentence, namely that people may not take proficiency seriously. And, as you address it, we're going to, I think, for the moment, probably be focused on the educational setting. What are the implications for taking proficiency seriously in the educational setting? But then we're going to have to address what happens in society. Let's start, though, with the education scene.

Paul Sandrock: 21:55

In my work after leaving the classroom, I was working with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, our state department of education. So I got to work with teachers throughout Wisconsin and really support them in their journeys to help their learners reach higher levels of proficiency. Through that work and then my 12 years with ACTFL, where I had wonderful opportunities and privilege and honor to work with schools across the country and increasingly internationally, what I came to know very quickly was you can philosophically and intellectually understand proficiency, but you have to believe that it is the way to help learners achieve their goals. I would always ask my seventh graders when they started in the program so why are you here? Guess what? Not a single student raised their hand to say I'm here to get a PhD in linguistics. And yet the curriculum and a lot of the teaching were aiming towards that as the end goal. Let's learn all the grammar, let's decipher everything, let's break it down into all these. I learned also early on that taking proficiency seriously is saying what do my learners, at this point in time, need to know about anything? So let's take the subjunctive. I actually taught my beginners. Que quisiera? What would you like is a nice way, instead of sort of the more blunt. What do you want? And it isn't that I spent five months teaching them the imperfect subjunctive. I simply taught them a phrase that they could internalize and be appropriate culturally and meaning-wise. And so taking proficiency seriously is saying wait a minute, you don't have to preload all the vocabulary, all the structures before you actually use them and even have your students use them. It's all about how you engage them at their level. What can they do? Well, let's leverage what they can do well to help them get to that next higher level.

Paul Sandrock: 24:23

In my work with educators, wherever they may be, at whatever level, whatever language, the belief that my students can do this has to happen before they're actually going to start changing some instructional and assessment strategies. As I shared my own journey, I had to believe that they actually could do this. They actually could not have to have all of that preloading of vocabulary and grammar and still be able to tell a story right and engage. And I think that belief preceding the shift in practice is absolutely critical. It gets strengthened then with every attempt.

Paul Sandrock: 25:12

If I don't think they can do it and I just start and it's like, oh, that didn't work, then I'll just throw it out and say, no, forget it. But I say, wait a minute, what did I? What did I not do appropriately? Where was the breakdown? Maybe, for example, I was expecting them simply to, okay, stand up, turn to a partner and tell them X, Wait a minute. Before they do that, maybe they needed to first of all write down a few things. Maybe they needed some visual. You and I are having a good conversation because we both did a little thought before we started to just chat and so the ideas were already floating in my head and they're easier to come out now. If you had just called me up and said, hey, Paul, tell me about proficiency, I probably would not have had as many things to say, you know, and the same with our learners, I think so many times too and this is what I try to do in workshops, which again, has been such a privilege to be able to do this.

Paul Sandrock: 26:18

In another phase, the later phase of my career, have teachers experience what I want them to provide as the experience for their learners. So before they have a conversation, they have done some thinking, they have done some tasks. Maybe they filled out a common Google Doc or they're having a small group discussion, but they just don't leave it hanging in the air. They actually have to write down some of the things that surfaced. Now go find another group and see how much you have in common with your lists. Wow, I can do that in the classroom, right?

Paul Sandrock: 26:53

What makes a day busy? What are some of the things that make a day seem really busy? Make your list, Talk to one person next to you. What makes your day busy? How much do you have in common? Now you have…. decide what are the top two things that make our lives busy. Now find another pair and see if you agree on the top two things that make us busy. Now I have a group of four. Now in my class of 35 eighth graders. I can simply say, okay, now, all eight, nine groups, let's post what you think are the two top things that make us make our days busy and let's see. Let's see how that what we all have in common in our, in our thinking. So it's again those kinds of things that we can do in a workshop start to change the belief that, oh, if I would set it up that way, my students could have a conversation about what makes our lives busy. Which you know. Normally teachers who are teaching at the beginning level would say my students can't have that conversation. Wait just set it up in a structured way, and they totally can.

Norah: 27:54

Set it up and they totally can. Then you use the phrase that I absolutely am going to post on my wall myself and encourage listeners to do so: Belief precedes practice. Paul, the opportunity for educational institutions and the individuals in them to use that concept and others, of course, as you've expressed I just happened to glom onto that one here, would allow them to create options within the classroom and also, programmatically, to allow proficiency to flourish. Let's start there or go there next. I guess I should say more accurately there was a very clear concept within a classroom. Talk to us about proficiency and the belief that precedes practice in helping proficiency to be the focus within an organization, a district, a school

Paul Sandrock: 28:54

Again, this comes from so many different experiences working with a variety of settings, educational settings. When people try to take on too much and change everything too quickly, it causes a lot of resistance because the belief hasn't built up to the point yet where they are ready to make those adjustments to practice. So what I found successful is start small. Choose one thing. Every language educator wants their students to be able to engage in more conversation. Right, I mean, that's like almost like. Of course we all feel that in our hearts that's what we want, okay, and I gave an example of how we might do that at a novice level, just by setting it up in a very highly structured way. So I've worked with some schools, some districts, that have said let's just take this first semester and let's just make our focus getting more conversation in our classrooms. So let's start in August at our beginning session, our PD session, and let's share three strategies that might work. Okay, we're going to try those out when we meet again in September at our departmental meeting. Let's see what worked, what didn't and why. Let's explore why. Let's all share our practices. So we're trying it out and no one else is giving us feedback or coming in and saying, oh, you're doing a terrible job.

Paul Sandrock: 30:43

Each individual teacher gets to reflect on what am I doing? That's helping get more conversation going. All right, let's work on that just for one semester. Now the belief and the practice are both starting to grow. It isn't like one goes way up and then the other goes. They go a little bit. I believe it. Let me try it out. The practice is getting stronger. Now my belief can get stronger. My practice is getting stronger. My belief can get stronger, my practice can get stronger. They help each other go up, higher and higher. And then maybe second semester, let's see how we might even assess conversation. We now have belief and practice around actually developing conversation in our classrooms. Let's just try out some very low stress, not high stakes. It's not going to count, maybe even for a grade whatever. Let's just ease into assessing interpersonal.

Paul Sandrock: 31:45

Now this may seem really slow, but taking the time to work on building capacity. To me, it's always about building capacity. We have the belief that this is what we want. No one has argued “no proficiency.” No student should get beyond the novice level, right, of course we all want that, but we need to then continually nurture our own repertoire and help each other to get better. And now it's also helpful to share with administrators.

Paul Sandrock: 32:12

Increasingly, I've been working with schools where we've created a set of look-fors. There are many wonderful documents out there, like the TELL project, but sometimes those lists look really, really long. And again, sure, all of that is important, but let's just focus on one or two things so that both myself as a teacher and anyone observing me, whether it's a peer teacher or an administrator, doesn't get lost in so many things. Just, did more students ask more questions could be one part, because that's part of a conversation. How did you get students to ask more questions? Did students add some details? This is again moving from novice to intermediate. Those just might be some of my look-fors. Was there sufficient support for the conversation or was it simply stand up and talk. Right? So those are three very specific elements that could become a look-for for this year long experience around. Let's just build our personal conversation.

Norah: 34:49

In the United States, the implications of language in use, independent use of language, does not seem to have yet, alas, had a strong positive impact in the kinds of legislation that we sometimes have at a national, state or even local level. The universities, with their approach to humanities, is a larger picture, but language is part of that picture world use of language. Help please us all with your insights into where are we headed in that and how do we build that capacity little by little, by observational format or however you want to address it. I'm just very concerned about the implications of people not realizing the positive impact of proficiency on our society and the opportunities for all.

Paul Sandrock: 36:04

Absolutely. I firmly believe that the only way to really advocate for our programs is to deliver. Let's deliver what our learners want. Let's really deliver it. If a program is in trouble it's probably because and I shouldn't say only, but often it's the curriculum, the assessment, what students get out of it. They just opt out, they say I'm not going to continue on. I encourage districts to always look at their enrollment. Do they have, let's say I'm not going to continue on? I encourage districts to always look at their enrollment. Do they have, let's say, 100 students at the beginning and 20 four years later? That's not meeting their needs. I know there are other things that compete, so it's not. I'm oversimplifying, but I think it just is a little bit of a wake-up call to say our best advocates are our learners.

Paul Sandrock: 37:03

I often think what evidence of real-world learning and a real application of this course are my learners taking home? I would have said what goes on the refrigerator, but now less of the evidence is paper. You know what goes home. And here's a real example my own district, when I was department chair as well. We realized we needed to change the evidence going home and the evidence of our assessment from what were traditional semester exams, which meant usually everything that we covered with, everything that was irregular, just longer and harder than the way we did it during the semester, and this is why students usually didn't do very well and didn't feel real well about it. And you know they go home and say, yeah, okay, I kind of just did. You know we started to shift towards, as you were saying, the integrated performance assessment. What evidence of real growth and proficiency can my learners take home? So, and also as a middle school teacher, we felt tremendous pressure from high school teachers, right, oh wait, we're going to send them on. What are they going to think of what we've been spending three years working on, years working on, and when we changed our evidence to, rather than all the fill in the blank and multiple choice kinds of tests to. Here is a recorded conversation that our learners had. Here is an example of a text that they read and not how they answered some mindless comprehension questions, which is us looking for details, but really analyzed it filled out a graphic organizer to show the relationship of the elements of this text, right? Or here is a presentational task they did. It might be written, might be spoken, when you show that kind of evidence to the next level teacher, to the parents, to the learners. It is incredibly empowering because now they have evidence that they are excited about wow, I really can do this. Not just I thought I could and I could do it in a classroom, but wow, this is the teacher letting go and giving me an hour to just show what I could really do.

Paul Sandrock: 39:20

One example a district that hooked this to heart and, as they had developed an elementary program and then when they moved into the middle school as well, every semester from kindergarten through eighth grade, they had an integrated performance assessment at the end of that semester, and so they were constantly getting this evidence that the students were making progress. Okay, moment of truth, it's eighth grade, what's going to happen when they hit a traditional high school program? So they used their end of eighth grade assessment, the integrated performance assessment from the eighth graders. They also had the high school first and second year students do the very same tasks. The teachers came together there were no names on any of the assessments. They put them together and they said, okay, let's put a pile of pretty good, okay and not so good, and now they had evidence that those eighth grade students were as good as, if not better than, the second year high school students. So they said, hmm, this really works well, let's continue it on. They transformed their high school program to be four levels, but they each had a two year content. Two-year content of units, two years of units. So students were being placed into a course based on their proficiency evidence and they could stay in that course for one semester, two semesters, three semesters or four semesters until their proficiency was matching, similar to the next course, and they would move on. The majority did it pretty much at one year at a time, but some students needed an extra semester, some needed less than that. So they really understood this application of proficiency and, of course, that embeds in the curriculum.

Paul Sandrock: 41:17

I'm thinking of again schools that have really taken this to heart in their curriculum and set good proficiency targets, but as a range. So I don't think, oh, this course is my. You know, my students have to be performing like at intermediate. It's like they won't be intermediate at the beginning of the year, but that's my end of year goal. So my range in this class you're going to function fine if you're somewhere in the novice high to the intermediate low. This would be a really good second year high school target. So I'm coming in.

Paul Sandrock: 41:50

I've made my progress through the novice level in my first course. Now I have some evidence of novice high, but it's not independent use of language, it's pretty teacher-driven. Okay, let's make it more independent and push them over that threshold into intermediate. Now I have that nice range. This is where curriculum and proficiency and assessment all start to come together, and what I find is that it so empowers the learners. And what I find is that it so empowers the learners. And, as you were saying, how do we get this out into society to be believers of all of this as well, producing more learners that are saying, not at a cocktail party when they're 25 or 35 or 45, hey, I had this language for X number of years and look what I can do. Right, it's the I can do it, rather than it's not sticking with me. It's like it will stick with you, and that, I think, is how we empower our learners. We give them the evidence of what they can do. They're the ones who will start to change society's mind about the value of languages.

Norah: 43:01

And the best advocates for that will be the folks, young and on beyond, that advocate for the language because they have seen the power of it in their lives. When you look in the United States right now and globally, because you are working globally we were talking before we recorded that you've been working with a school in Singapore even more directly, now that you have moved from your actual position into the opportunity to continue your work around the world, what do you see as especially strong signs of hope that people are discovering, the various configurations here in the United States and elsewhere that can help to bring about this kind of transformation and excitement?

Paul Sandrock: 43:52

You know, I think part of it has to do with, again, the idea that we are not the only discipline going through this. When I was at the Department of Public Instruction in Wisconsin, it was the time when standards were being developed, and then the early part of this century when the Common Core process was happening, and so what was being transformed was the purpose and therefore the approach for learning English, mathematics, science, social studies and languages as well, and I think languages have always especially since our standards came out in 1995, have really focused on the purpose behind what we do every day in the classroom. The modes of communication are a purpose. I'm not just speaking for the sake of speaking. I am speaking because I want to negotiate meaning and express and exchange ideas and opinions, or I'm speaking because I want to simply be persuasive in my speech, right? So the purpose behind the communication is, I think, what is so critical, and I think that, as different learners are really understanding this and other disciplines are looking at what is the application of the knowledge that happens and the skill that develops in our courses, we are on that same journey, and I think that is where we need to continue to go is really show that the learning is meaningful, it's purposeful, it empowers.

Paul Sandrock: 45:44

We don't control how. We don't control how learners will use language in their future, and so we can't just design 20 different courses for 20 different careers. But we can prepare our learners to be able to think, read, negotiate, meaning, express persuasively. You know all those things in a language and they might be doing it in a biology career, in a journalism career, in an arts career, in a hospitality career, in a medical career, we don't know. But they have the language skills and the again, confidence and competence to be able to use those skills in their career. I think that's the transforming piece to really realize that's what we are preparing our learners for. We don't get to control how they're going to use the language, so let's just prepare them to use it however they want to use it.

Norah: 46:45

Very freeing and also a very strong invitation to all who are out and about in the world designing businesses, industries, organizations and, of course, the educational scenario. Thank you, paul, and as you reflect here on what we've been talking about in this last 45 minutes, what is it that you feel that you needed to say, that you haven't had a chance to say yet, or that you'd like to reemphasize because it just needs to be said again, doggone it. Or however you would like to interpret that invitation to make sure that what you want folks to hear, they have heard.

Paul Sandrock: 47:38

Thank you, Norah. You know, I think one thing perhaps that I left out that is also part of our need to think about the way that we are educating learners to take on a new language has to do with our attitudes towards grading and retakes, and I think that is another critical element that grading is not about just showcasing errors. It is about guiding our learners through our feedback to what are the things that they could work on to get to that next higher level. And again, when we take away the need to be perfect. And again, when we take away the need to be perfect, even I use English regularly all the years of my life and yet you probably heard a few grammatical mistakes during this conversation, but they didn't matter because we were able to focus on the meaning and that is what we work through meaning and that is what we work through.

Paul Sandrock: 48:44

And I think, when we take a different attitude in our grading and think of ourselves, if we act more like coaches supporting our learners you can't comment on everything, so you're highly selective. You say you know, sure, there were some mistakes, but what's really going to help you get better is pay more attention to and then not don't just leave it there, say so what are some things you might do next time to address that? How might you add more details? How might you use some connecting words so I have a better, I can follow what you're saying better? What might be some questions that you could ask right in a conversation?

Paul Sandrock: 49:21

Some questions that you could ask right in a conversation to get them, give them something to think about and then something actually to identify in their heads. Oh, this I could do, because now I'm prepared to do better next time. If you simply circle the errors and I correct them, it's like you know that's that was so last week. I'm not gonna remember that next week, the next time I and I make the same mistakes over and over and over again. So I think I think all of that comes into. Focusing on proficiency means that we we never give up on our students. You know, we just keep coaching them, we keep supporting them, we keep thinking what can we do to create the environment where that development of proficiency will happen?

Norah: 50:00

Let's never give up on our students, never give up on those who are working to bring language into the scenario of their lives and their work. What an important and again, to start from the beginning a compassionate invitation and insight. Paul Sandrock, thank you so much for what you've shared today, the clarity and the purposefulness and that very strong invitation to all Really appreciate what you shared today, what you continue to share with the world.

Paul Sandrock: 50:39

Thank you so much, Norah. I would say you are definitely at that advanced level. You asked good probing questions, good follow-up questions that I didn't think I was ready to answer, but you coached me, you guided me to, I hope, give an advanced performance back. You really did an amazing job of modeling what a higher level conversation is like and how we can pull that out of our learners. I felt like a learner in your hands today. Thank you so much.

Norah: 51:13

Well, I appreciate that so much. It's been always a partnership with that and I consider that to be a wonderful outcome of following in your trail, my dear sir, over these years. Paul, again, thank you and best wishes to you as you continue your important work among us.

Paul Sandrock: 51:29

Thank, you Norah, so much.

Norah: 51:31

Thank you for listening to this podcast with my guest, paul Sandrock. Please do go to my website, fluencyconsulting, to learn more about Paul and his resources, and please let's take real-world use of language seriously indeed, because it will bring delight and opportunity to all. Until next time,