Using the New Curriculum Map

**New iteration of the Curriculum Map as the Universal Language Curriculum (ULC) Updated 2.4.18**

For many teachers, the New Curriculum Map is just what they need to to articulate what it means to teach for language acquisition. For others, it isn’t structured enough, and falls short of what they’re accustomed to using. Surprisingly, a few even consider this curriculum format TOO restrictive with its high frequency words and suggested structures and topics. If you are in the first two camps, this post will help you see the big picture of how simple it is to teach without a grammar syllabus and instead focus on high frequency vocabulary, just like the Sample CI Schedule for the Year:

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Sample CI Schedule: The Year

**Use this schedule with the Universal Language Curriculum (ULC) Updated 2.4.18**
**Read a post on the Week & Day Updated 12.9.17**

A major reason to ditch what you’ve been doing (or what others expect language learning to look like), and teach with CI is for the flexibility in planning. In fact, the longer I teach with CI, the less I plan, and the better the results. This is probably the least intuitive concept as an educator, especially for anyone still green from their teacher training that included an obsession over Wiggins and McTighe’s Understanding by Design, the push for posted objectives, a need for required lesson plans tied to Bloom’s, etc.

I’ve written 13 blog posts and a summary about what should be considered and/or put in place in your classroom in order to continue teaching with CI. Here’s a perspective on a full year of teaching that might help you see the big picture of how simple it is to actually make this happen:

The Day **Added 12.9.17**
– Routines
– Reading
– Students
– Stories

The Week
– Telling/Asking stories, then reading them
– Learning details about students
– 1-3 unannounced “open-book” Quick Quizzes

The Month
– 1-2 unannounced, no notes, 5-10min Fluency Writes

The Grading Term
– Students self-assess Rubric (but check these to see if they’re being too hard on themselves)

The bulk of “planning” then becomes varying how you tell/ask stories (e.g. One Word Image, TPRS, MovieTalk, Magic Tricks, etc.), what you do with them (e.g. Choral Translation, Airplane Translation, Read and Discuss, Running Dictation, Draw-Write-Pass, OWATS, etc.), and how you’ll learn more about each other (e.g. ask students for a new batch of  questions to use during La Persona Especial/Discipulus Illustris, etc.).