Benoit Le Devedec, September 2014
Challenges and Successes in Development of
Curriculum, Standards, and Assessments
What is the French Heritage
Language Program?
Who are our students?
Initial Challenges and difficulties
Strategies and Results
Limits and Current Needs
¤  An education program of FACE (French American Cultural
Exchange), a nonprofit organization working in partnership
with the French Embassy in the United States
¤  Provides free French classes to students of French heritage
background in underserved public schools and community
centers
¤  Currently serves 12 sites for 350 students K-12 in New York City
¤  Inspired the creation of similar partner programs in Florida,
Maine, and Massachusetts, serving an additional 250 students
Who are the French Heritage
Speakers in the US?
¤  Students raised in an environment where French is
spoken at home or in family background
¤  Students with sometimes little formal education and
varying proficiency in French
¤  Students who may already be fluent in English
¤  Students with strong ties to their French language and
cultures
Where are they from? 4 Different cultural backgrounds
2%
3%
2%
1%
1%
1% 1%
1%
3%
5%
Haiti
Guinea
37%
5%
6%
Senegal
Ivory Coast
6%
Burkina Faso
10%
20%
Togo
Mali
French not always the 1st language
What was your first language? I learned both French and another language at the same =me 41% French 17% Another language 42% French as one of many languages
What languages other than English are spoken in your home? Wolof 7% Arabic 5% Bambara 9% Creole 26% French 40% Fulani 13% Initial Challenges: Students
¤  High School level
¤  1st generation immigrants
¤  one common language but different cultural backgrounds
¤  Different levels of proficiency in the language. Cases of
interrupted formal education and illiteracy
¤  Different needs and expectations. Some wanted to recover
their French, others wanted to maintain it and some wanted
to improve their proficiency in the language
¤  English Language Learners integrating the US school system
and society
¤  Elementary School level
¤  Born and raised in the United States
¤  1st language is English with French sometimes still spoken at
home
¤  Little to no formal education in French
Initial Challenges: schools and instruction
¤  Schools
¤  Different levels of interest and commitment
¤  Afterschool programming
¤  Wanted French class to support students’ literacy and be
relevant to their other needs at school
¤  Instruction
¤  Difficulty to identify and hire available qualified/certified
teachers, especially for afterschool instruction
¤  No existing or adequate resources to teach French as a
heritage language
¤  No curriculum standards, assessment goals and objectives
for the class
¤  Inherent challenges of afterschool instruction
Global Strategy
¤  Look for successful heritage language program models
¤  Conduct a survey towards students to better understand
their needs and motivation
¤  Create incentive for students, schools, and communities
¤  Develop hands-on assessment and curriculum material
¤  Adapt material to existing standards, train teachers, and
share best practices
¤  Seek constant feedback from school, students, teachers,
and communities
Is it important to you that you con9nue to learn and use French? 97.8% yes 0.0% 2.2% no not sure Is it important to your family that you con9nue to speak and learn French? 93.5% yes 2.2% 4.3% no I don't know Assessment strategies
¤  Placement test
¤  Language background test + standardized French language
proficiency test
¤  Exit test
¤  Continuous task-based assessment and portfolio
¤  SAT and AP French examinations
¤  Program evaluation
¤  Online Survey
¤  Class attendance and school feedback
¤  Private and public investment into program
Curriculum strategy
¤  Adopt common curriculum for all classes
¤  Project-based thematic units with flexible goals and
differentiated pedagogy (Individual Portfolio)
¤  Use oral skills to develop literacy and academic language
¤  Integrate elements of other subjects content areas
¤  Be compatible with state standards
¤  Update curriculum regularly according to experience in the
classroom and feedback from students, schools, and
communities
¤  Use curriculum to develop teacher’s training
¤  Provides initial training and year-long support to teachers
¤  Allows teachers to play an integral part in curriculum
development
¤  Provide expertise to support other local initiatives
¤  Curriculum is made freely available on website
¤  Can be adapted to regional needs and standards
Limits and current needs
¤  Research confronting language biographical information
with language proficiency results would help better identify
specific French heritage learners’ needs
¤  A data tracking system designed to monitor student
progress in two languages would
¤  significantly improve identification of individual student
strengths and weaknesses and show correlation patterns
between language skills in French reacquisition and English
acquisition
¤  allow for more effective targeted differentiated instruction
¤  provide for multiple analysis platforms to improve teacher’s
professional development and student’s progress
Visit our website and download resources
at facecouncil.org/fhlp