Designing World Language Curriculum for Intercultural Communicative Competence - (Bloomsbury Guidebooks for Language Teachers) by Jennifer Eddy

Book Synopsis

This book creatively redefines how teacher educators and faculty in secondary and post-secondary language education can become designers with intercultural education in mind. The author aligns theoretical frameworks with practical features for revising the modern language curriculum via themes and novel tasks that transfer language learning from classroom to community, developing communicative competence for mediation and learner autonomy along the way.
For novice and experienced instructors alike, this book empowers them to:
- design curriculum from transferable concepts that are worthy of understanding and have value within the culture(s) and to the learner;
- develop assessments that ask the learner to solve problems, and create products that transfer concepts or address needs of various audiences that they will encounter in community, life, and work;
- direct language learners through a spiral, articulated program that supports academic, career and personal goals.

Pedagogical features include a glossary of key terms, research-to-practice boxes, scaffolded design tasks, reflection questions and template samples representing language exemplars from the following languages and cultures: Arabic, Chinese, Èdè Yorùbá, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Ladino, Nahuatl, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Te Reo Maori and Urdu. The accompanying online resources offer blank templates, PowerPoints and guides for designing bespoke curricula with key performance assessments.

Review Quotes

"Jennifer Eddy's highly original book provides teachers on both sides of the Atlantic with a design framework and a rich array of creative tasks with which, individually and collaboratively, to bridge the all too frequent gap between language learning and communicative language use that engages with real-world cultural issues." --David Little, Professor, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

"Examines how language teachers can design an innovative and intercultural curriculum, whilst making language and culture become alive through performance assessment tasks. The book provides a plethora of creative and bespoke examples for transfer in the classroom and beyond, allowing students to truly engage in deeper learning and understanding with the language and culture they are studying. The book is full of practical examples that are very easily accessible." --Fotini Diamantidaki, Associate Professor of Languages Education and Applied Linguistics, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, UK

"A must-read for any practitioner wishing to implement a curriculum based on Byram's ICC model. Extensively researched and grounded in best practices, Eddy takes teachers beyond the basics to help them design meaningful activities addressing ever-relevant issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice in manageable and impactful ways." --Gay Rawson, Professor and Chair of the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Concordia College, USA

"Until now, ICC has largely been addressed as a theoretical issue with isolated examples of its applications in the classroom. This book provides teachers around the world both the theory and a detailed conversation on how to tailor our curricula by incorporating intercultural themes and activities." --Nolvia Ana Cortez Román, Ph.D. Professor Foreign Languages Department Universidad de Sonora. Mexico

"Jennifer Eddy's book provides a real tool for Languages teachers to become true curriculum designers and embrace the opportunity to plan authentic tasks with a real purpose and which are relevant and bespoke to individual schools and learners.
The quality of the structure, highly-researched but accessible content, the very many practical and clear examples in the book and on the companion website makes understanding and following the process not only very clear but also extremely enriching.
The in-depth explanations behind the rationale and how to use the various parts of the framework enables International Languages practitioners to put into practice what they have always believed in but not always been able to achieve." --Stephanie Ellis-Williams, Head of International Languages Faculty in the Secondary Sector, North Wales, UK

"If you are looking to revitalize your language classroom or purchases books for a year-long department book study, I cannot recommend Designing World Language Curriculum enough [...]. The book is filled with examples and useful templates for ALL languages - from Spanish to Te Reo Maori to Korean. The accompanying online resources offer blank templates, slides, and guides for designing curriculum that will fit any and every language-learning classroom." --Dr Veronica Trapani, Associate Director for Content, World Languages Newsletter, Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction

"A critical resource for all language educators who aim to engage learners in relevant, interesting, and meaningful lessons. The book seamlessly merges the theoretical foundations of language acquisition and world language teacher practice [...] by placing educators at the core - guiding them through sequenced learning activities thereby mirroring what we do with our own learners when in the classroom. This book is exceptional. For teachers, it offers detailed examples that can be used immediately in the classroom or to generate ideas as they move forward as teacher architects. For teacher educators, it models best practices-connecting the elements of Understanding by Design, learner proficiency, Can-do statements, and standards for language learning." --Kelly Moser, Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator, Mississippi State University, USA

About the Author