Overview

Brief Summary of Unit (including curricular context and unit goals:

In this unit, students will be encouraged to venture beyond the four wall of the classroom to practice using the target language, and, thus, develop both the skills of an autonomous learner and the inspiration of a life-long language learner. Students will conduct an interview of a native speaker in the local or global community who works in a profession of personal interest, thus enhancing their personal enjoyment of learning, and moving toward being life-long learners! While using the target language beyond the classroom, the student will also aim to surface new cultural understandings and note any changes in their own perspectives toward the culture.

Established Goals:

ACTFL Standard: Communities: Participate in Multilingual Communities at Home and Around the World

Essential Questions:

Understandings:

Students will understand that …

• Why use a foreign language beyond the four walls of the classroom?
• What does it mean to be a life-long learner? How does autonomy relate to the idea of being a life-long learner?
• Is there anything inherently joyful about learning a language? Why do you want to learn a foreign language?

• Becoming an autonomous learner involves using the target language beyond the four walls of the classroom and engaging with native speakers in the local and global community.
• Becoming a life-long autonomous language learner involves discovering personal joy and enriching one’s life through local and global use of target language, including engaging with native speakers of that language.
  
  

What key knowledge and skills will students acquire as a result of this unit?

Students will know …

• Standard interview format and technique for developing thoughtful interview questions
• Appropriate rapport and mannerisms for conducting formal interviews

Students will be able to …

• Network within the local or global community to arrange an interview with a native speaker within a profession of student interest

Performance Tasks:

• Interview of a Professional: The student will create and perform an interview conducted in the target language with a professional of personal interest to the student within the local or global community. The student will practice strategies learned for developing interview questions as well as proper interview etiquette for conducting the interview.
• Interview Analysis/Reflection: The student will analyze the interview and reflect on what they learned about the culture of the target language, as well as any cultural biases of their own that had changed throughout the interview process.

Other Evidence:

• A journal reflection in the target language on how the student chose to focus on the chosen profession for the interview. The student should note how engaging with this profession in the target language may enhance their language learning experience.
• Publication of Work: The student will publish his/her final reflective essay on his/her blog (already created a the beginning of the year). In small groups, students will peer review each others work posted on their blogs.

Student Self Assessment and Reflection:

Students will self-assess their development and performance of an interview with a professional and review this self-assessment with the FL teacher afterwards.

• W: Why study [language]? What are motivations to study [language]? What motivates you to study [language]? Students journal their response in the target language.
• H: The teacher leads a class discussion on reasons to study a foreign language and the class language specifically. The teacher moves the discussion toward the question: “Can engaging with the local and global community in the target language impact one’s desire or motivation to learn that language? Why?”
• T: Each student brainstorms native speakers in the local or global community whom he/she would want to interview about the native speaker’s professional career. Students share their ideas and discuss them in their small groups.