May 16, 2024 • 12 mins
We're continuing this series on the new 2024 ACTFL guidelines. This answers a common question I get - what level should my students be in and how do I know that? Let's talk about what Novice Mid actually looks like and what it means for your world language program.
Check the ACTFL 2024 Proficiency Guidelines here
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What's up? Ken, OK, a saluteworld language teachers. Welcome
(00:05):
to the practical proficiencypodcast, where we make the
transition to proficiencyoriented instruction in your
world language class in a waythat works for you your unique
context and teaching style anddoesn't sacrifice your well
being along the way. I'm yourhost, Devon Gunning the teacher,
(00:25):
author conference, host,curriculum creator and
consultant behind la liberlanguage learning. This podcast
is for the creative worldlanguage teacher like you who's
ready to ditch the overwhelmingpressure of switching to
acquisition driven instructionand CI overnight, you're ready
to discover how using moretarget language in class can
(00:47):
actually bring you and yourstudents more joy, instead of
adding to your plate withpractical, authentic and down to
earth strategies that don'trequire reinventing the wheel or
more training. We'll worktogether towards the magic of
the community based targetlanguage rich classroom rooted
(01:08):
in the power of community andcomprehensible input. Let's go.
Welcome back, y'all. We are heretalking about the new
proficiency guidelines for 2024and how we can use these to
(01:31):
better support by betterunderstanding our students and
understanding and celebratingwhere they are at today's
episode, we left off with novicelow, so now we're jumping into
novice mid. And what it meansfor this is where, usually you
know what, let's go ahead andanswer this question too,
because this happens a lot,where with not only my work with
(01:56):
teachers and being aninstructional coach, I'm also a
curriculum consultant. So I getthis from both sides very often.
With department heads anddistrict leaders, they want to
know, like, what, whatproficiency group should I be
representing in each level? Aswell as teachers who have those
students that are kind of amixed bag in, like, their level
one and their level two, andthey want to know what, what
(02:19):
should this really look like?
Here's the here's the shortanswer for you. It is
complicated, because you aregoing to have a mixed bag of
students no matter what, but atthe end of the day, it's most
common and most appropriate tohave at the end of a level one
course in high school, novicemids. So that's what we're
(02:41):
talking about today. If you'rein the middle school level, it
will take you almost twice theamount of time to get through
the same amount of material thata level one course will get. So
if you have something like an a,like a French one A and A French
1b course, like your studentswill be novice mid by the end of
(03:03):
your French 1b course, or likein the second year of you
working with them, that's prettycommon. If you are a fairly
confident practitioner ofproficiency oriented
instruction, you can get themthere faster, for sure, but your
your middle schoolers willprobably hit novice mid like at
(03:24):
the end of a second year withyou in elementary it's
definitely a different realm.
It's not my area of expertise,but it is a different realm. And
I you know those programs don'tsee their students as often, but
it's all about seat time. It'sall about how often you see your
students. So I hope that thosetime frames, and you know,
(03:45):
talking about like years timeframes, will help you with that
as well, but I'm going to deferto an elementary expert on that
one. That's not my area ofexpertise, but let's get into
what your novice mid learnerswill be able to do, and for my
elementary teachers that willprobably help you to see where
that where they will where theywill fall on your spectrum of
what your classes look like,because those levels are
(04:07):
different, right? Like you labelyour classes more like fourth
grade French, fifth gradeChinese, sixth grade Russian,
that kind of thing. So let's getinto this. Here. We left off
with novice low and what itlooks like to kind of transition
to novice mid. Here's whatactful In 2024 says is one of
the most important things aboutnovice mid. And you know, as a
(04:28):
disclaimer, this is completecopyright of actful, and we are
just using this to make surethat you have high quality
programs that are based off ofthese performance indicators for
you to teach better, createbetter programs. Support your
people, better, all that goodstuff. So coming from ACT full,
this is what we've got withnovice mid. With novice mid, the
(04:50):
thing that I pulled out that wasthe most important for me. And
of course, you can find theseperformance these new
performance indicators from 2024linked below in the show. Show
notes as well, to refer to thatthe most important thing for
novice mid is the the jump thatyou'll see from novice load to
novice mid is that they're ableto start handling some social
(05:11):
interactions and some socialtasks. Now they're not going to
be crazy social tasks. They'recertainly going to be basic
social communication, and theywill be using what actful likes
to call stock phrases, which isreally, really helpful. It's
that exactly what we talkedabout in the previous episode of
that ready. I call it ready togo packaged phrases. So students
(05:33):
are this is a nice way toremember that students at this
level, even at novice mid theyare not making their own
language that is not in thebrain of a novice mid learner.
They are recycling. They aretaking anything pre packaged and
they are putting it back out inthe world. That is what they
have available to them. So themore that you can give them
(05:53):
those, you know, those frozenburritos, that they can just pop
in the microwave and just go,go, go for lunch. They are not
ready to create. They're notready to cook at all. You need
to give them those, those frozenburritos, those pre packaged
phrases, so if you give them acouple good frozen burritos,
they'll be ready to use them inthe appropriate situation. For
sure, there's going to be a lotof mess ups, though. There's
(06:15):
going to be a lot of slip ups.
There's going to be some kind ofsocio cultural understanding of
a little bit of interplay.
They'll be able to do, you know,basic turn taking. They'll be
able to, quote, unquote, readthe room, which is my own
phrase, but not much more thanthat, they will, they will have
a basic understanding ofcultural awareness, but just
(06:36):
enough for them to survive. Theywill not be thriving at this
stage. They will also be relyingheavily on their partner for
communication, meaning that theyneed you as the language parent
in order to get anything done,in order to make any kind of
communicative progress, whichmeans for you as the teacher,
(06:58):
something important to noteabout your novice mid students.
And again, this is many of yourstudents that are at the end of
your of your insert languagehere, your German one program,
or in middle school at the endof your like year two German
program. These students,whenever you put them in
partners together, they stillneed a lot of scaffolding, and
(07:22):
they would benefit a great dealanytime that you could sit down
and have conversations and dointerpersonal activities with
them, because they're not goingto be able to get any cues from
their partner right, becauseboth of them are on the same
level, so they're going to playto each other's level, and Those
conversations are going to berough, really, really rough.
(07:43):
They will be able to kind ofbounce off one idea off each
other, but that will be it. Somethings that they can do in just
concrete terms, for your novicemids to know where they're at is
they will be very familiar withfamiliar questions about
everyday topics. So if you areworking with anything about
daily routines, places theyoften go, immediate interests,
(08:05):
school or family life or theirfriends, they will be ready to
answer. The answer will not benative, like the answer will be
rote. It will be disjointed, andit will have hesitation to it,
and they may even rely on somelists at some points in order to
get the job done, but they willbe able to answer you as long as
(08:28):
it's language they've seenbefore. This is not the era of
them. You know, working throughnew contexts, they will struggle
with interpersonalcommunication, but if you give
them simple and rehearsedquestions about everyday life
and environment, and if youallow them to have time and
pauses, they can, they can dosome things with it for sure,
(08:51):
and they're gonna, they're gonnamimic you, mimic you, mimic you.
That is the mark of a novicemyth. Now, of course, if you
give them simple language thatthey can read, they'll do
beautifully with that. Novicemids are at the point where
they're like, Okay, I'm ready toabsorb language. They're still
very spongy. So especially ifyou're working with the high
(09:12):
frequency side of life, like Ihave here, the proficiency
guidelines for apple here forfor speaking, and they're for
novices, they're they're quiteskilled with high frequency
words and highly rehearsedexpressions. So give them those
high frequency words, the highfrequency structures, they'll be
able to navigate them very well,especially in immediate tenses.
(09:38):
You're talking about presenttense or like, immediate future
or like just happened past, theycan do that. And it has to be,
you know, just for a few subjectpronouns, I certainly found that
the ones that you use the mostin class, like I did this, you
did this, she did this, they canhandle that. But as soon as you
start getting into we or they ory'all, that's. Things get weird
(10:00):
for them. So remember that part,especially when you start to
move into other tenses with thenovice mitts. You don't need to
shy away from it, but they aregonna get tripped up by you
using plurals for sure. Andsomething important to note as
well for our novices is thatwhen it comes to presentational
mode, is be patient. There aremany students who might be in
(10:24):
novice mid in their heads, butbecause they're still in a new
language environment, will notbe able to display that. Also, I
would say something important tokeep in mind at this stage is
that there's so much going on.
Oh my god. Like you know what itis, in a level one class,
there's so much newness, there'sso much going on, that your
(10:45):
students may be able to do farmore than they think they can,
and there's a huge confidencebarrier. So you may think that
your students are at novice lowwhen and they may think that
they're at novice low, butwhat's really happening is that
they are terrified. They areterrified to make a mistake in
front of you and their peers. Soremember that Be compassionate
(11:09):
when it comes to being in a newenvironment and trying to speak
a new language in front ofsomebody. It's terrifying, even
if you know what you're doing. Imean, it happened to me while I
was in Austin just a few weeksago. I mean, I speak Spanish,
and you still get that like inyour throat of like, Man, I hope
I don't make a mistake. Soremember and be compassionate
for what it feels like to be astudent, even though you know
(11:32):
that they know it and you knowthat they can do it, keep in
mind how they are feeling,because that will definitely
impact how you perceive whatthey're able to do. Okay, so
that is what we've got fornovice mid. And I'm really
excited to get into novice high,because y'all this is where you
(11:53):
know world language teachersspend the most time. So get
ready for novice high. I willsee you for that episode. Bye,
for now. Bye.
What's up? Ken, OK, a saluteworld language teachers. Welcome
(00:05):
to the practical proficiencypodcast, where we make the
transition to proficiencyoriented instruction in your
world language class in a waythat works for you your unique
context and teaching style anddoesn't sacrifice your well
being along the way. I'm yourhost, Devon Gunning the teacher,
(00:25):
author conference, host,curriculum creator and
consultant behind la liberlanguage learning. This podcast
is for the creative worldlanguage teacher like you who's
ready to ditch the overwhelmingpressure of switching to
acquisition driven instructionand CI overnight, you're ready
to discover how using moretarget language in class can
(00:47):
actually bring you and yourstudents more joy, instead of
adding to your plate withpractical, authentic and down to
earth strategies that don'trequire reinventing the wheel or
more training. We'll worktogether towards the magic of
the community based targetlanguage rich classroom rooted
(01:08):
in the power of community andcomprehensible input. Let's go.
Welcome back, y'all. We are heretalking about the new
proficiency guidelines for 2024and how we can use these to
(01:31):
better support by betterunderstanding our students and
understanding and celebratingwhere they are at today's
episode, we left off with novicelow, so now we're jumping into
novice mid. And what it meansfor this is where, usually you
know what, let's go ahead andanswer this question too,
because this happens a lot,where with not only my work with
(01:56):
teachers and being aninstructional coach, I'm also a
curriculum consultant. So I getthis from both sides very often.
With department heads anddistrict leaders, they want to
know, like, what, whatproficiency group should I be
representing in each level? Aswell as teachers who have those
students that are kind of amixed bag in, like, their level
one and their level two, andthey want to know what, what
(02:19):
should this really look like?
Here's the here's the shortanswer for you. It is
complicated, because you aregoing to have a mixed bag of
students no matter what, but atthe end of the day, it's most
common and most appropriate tohave at the end of a level one
course in high school, novicemids. So that's what we're
(02:41):
talking about today. If you'rein the middle school level, it
will take you almost twice theamount of time to get through
the same amount of material thata level one course will get. So
if you have something like an a,like a French one A and A French
1b course, like your studentswill be novice mid by the end of
(03:03):
your French 1b course, or likein the second year of you
working with them, that's prettycommon. If you are a fairly
confident practitioner ofproficiency oriented
instruction, you can get themthere faster, for sure, but your
your middle schoolers willprobably hit novice mid like at
(03:24):
the end of a second year withyou in elementary it's
definitely a different realm.
It's not my area of expertise,but it is a different realm. And
I you know those programs don'tsee their students as often, but
it's all about seat time. It'sall about how often you see your
students. So I hope that thosetime frames, and you know,
(03:45):
talking about like years timeframes, will help you with that
as well, but I'm going to deferto an elementary expert on that
one. That's not my area ofexpertise, but let's get into
what your novice mid learnerswill be able to do, and for my
elementary teachers that willprobably help you to see where
that where they will where theywill fall on your spectrum of
what your classes look like,because those levels are
(04:07):
different, right? Like you labelyour classes more like fourth
grade French, fifth gradeChinese, sixth grade Russian,
that kind of thing. So let's getinto this. Here. We left off
with novice low and what itlooks like to kind of transition
to novice mid. Here's whatactful In 2024 says is one of
the most important things aboutnovice mid. And you know, as a
(04:28):
disclaimer, this is completecopyright of actful, and we are
just using this to make surethat you have high quality
programs that are based off ofthese performance indicators for
you to teach better, createbetter programs. Support your
people, better, all that goodstuff. So coming from ACT full,
this is what we've got withnovice mid. With novice mid, the
(04:50):
thing that I pulled out that wasthe most important for me. And
of course, you can find theseperformance these new
performance indicators from 2024linked below in the show. Show
notes as well, to refer to thatthe most important thing for
novice mid is the the jump thatyou'll see from novice load to
novice mid is that they're ableto start handling some social
(05:11):
interactions and some socialtasks. Now they're not going to
be crazy social tasks. They'recertainly going to be basic
social communication, and theywill be using what actful likes
to call stock phrases, which isreally, really helpful. It's
that exactly what we talkedabout in the previous episode of
that ready. I call it ready togo packaged phrases. So students
(05:33):
are this is a nice way toremember that students at this
level, even at novice mid theyare not making their own
language that is not in thebrain of a novice mid learner.
They are recycling. They aretaking anything pre packaged and
they are putting it back out inthe world. That is what they
have available to them. So themore that you can give them
(05:53):
those, you know, those frozenburritos, that they can just pop
in the microwave and just go,go, go for lunch. They are not
ready to create. They're notready to cook at all. You need
to give them those, those frozenburritos, those pre packaged
phrases, so if you give them acouple good frozen burritos,
they'll be ready to use them inthe appropriate situation. For
sure, there's going to be a lotof mess ups, though. There's
(06:15):
going to be a lot of slip ups.
There's going to be some kind ofsocio cultural understanding of
a little bit of interplay.
They'll be able to do, you know,basic turn taking. They'll be
able to, quote, unquote, readthe room, which is my own
phrase, but not much more thanthat, they will, they will have
a basic understanding ofcultural awareness, but just
(06:36):
enough for them to survive. Theywill not be thriving at this
stage. They will also be relyingheavily on their partner for
communication, meaning that theyneed you as the language parent
in order to get anything done,in order to make any kind of
communicative progress, whichmeans for you as the teacher,
(06:58):
something important to noteabout your novice mid students.
And again, this is many of yourstudents that are at the end of
your of your insert languagehere, your German one program,
or in middle school at the endof your like year two German
program. These students,whenever you put them in
partners together, they stillneed a lot of scaffolding, and
(07:22):
they would benefit a great dealanytime that you could sit down
and have conversations and dointerpersonal activities with
them, because they're not goingto be able to get any cues from
their partner right, becauseboth of them are on the same
level, so they're going to playto each other's level, and Those
conversations are going to berough, really, really rough.
(07:43):
They will be able to kind ofbounce off one idea off each
other, but that will be it. Somethings that they can do in just
concrete terms, for your novicemids to know where they're at is
they will be very familiar withfamiliar questions about
everyday topics. So if you areworking with anything about
daily routines, places theyoften go, immediate interests,
(08:05):
school or family life or theirfriends, they will be ready to
answer. The answer will not benative, like the answer will be
rote. It will be disjointed, andit will have hesitation to it,
and they may even rely on somelists at some points in order to
get the job done, but they willbe able to answer you as long as
(08:28):
it's language they've seenbefore. This is not the era of
them. You know, working throughnew contexts, they will struggle
with interpersonalcommunication, but if you give
them simple and rehearsedquestions about everyday life
and environment, and if youallow them to have time and
pauses, they can, they can dosome things with it for sure,
(08:51):
and they're gonna, they're gonnamimic you, mimic you, mimic you.
That is the mark of a novicemyth. Now, of course, if you
give them simple language thatthey can read, they'll do
beautifully with that. Novicemids are at the point where
they're like, Okay, I'm ready toabsorb language. They're still
very spongy. So especially ifyou're working with the high
(09:12):
frequency side of life, like Ihave here, the proficiency
guidelines for apple here forfor speaking, and they're for
novices, they're they're quiteskilled with high frequency
words and highly rehearsedexpressions. So give them those
high frequency words, the highfrequency structures, they'll be
able to navigate them very well,especially in immediate tenses.
(09:38):
You're talking about presenttense or like, immediate future
or like just happened past, theycan do that. And it has to be,
you know, just for a few subjectpronouns, I certainly found that
the ones that you use the mostin class, like I did this, you
did this, she did this, they canhandle that. But as soon as you
start getting into we or they ory'all, that's. Things get weird
(10:00):
for them. So remember that part,especially when you start to
move into other tenses with thenovice mitts. You don't need to
shy away from it, but they aregonna get tripped up by you
using plurals for sure. Andsomething important to note as
well for our novices is thatwhen it comes to presentational
mode, is be patient. There aremany students who might be in
(10:24):
novice mid in their heads, butbecause they're still in a new
language environment, will notbe able to display that. Also, I
would say something important tokeep in mind at this stage is
that there's so much going on.
Oh my god. Like you know what itis, in a level one class,
there's so much newness, there'sso much going on, that your
(10:45):
students may be able to do farmore than they think they can,
and there's a huge confidencebarrier. So you may think that
your students are at novice lowwhen and they may think that
they're at novice low, butwhat's really happening is that
they are terrified. They areterrified to make a mistake in
front of you and their peers. Soremember that Be compassionate
(11:09):
when it comes to being in a newenvironment and trying to speak
a new language in front ofsomebody. It's terrifying, even
if you know what you're doing. Imean, it happened to me while I
was in Austin just a few weeksago. I mean, I speak Spanish,
and you still get that like inyour throat of like, Man, I hope
I don't make a mistake. Soremember and be compassionate
for what it feels like to be astudent, even though you know
(11:32):
that they know it and you knowthat they can do it, keep in
mind how they are feeling,because that will definitely
impact how you perceive whatthey're able to do. Okay, so
that is what we've got fornovice mid. And I'm really
excited to get into novice high,because y'all this is where you
(11:53):
know world language teachersspend the most time. So get
ready for novice high. I willsee you for that episode. Bye,
for now. Bye.
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