TASK #3

Do all students have a capacity to learn?

I believe that “all students can learn but not all at the same day, the same way” I have read this somewhere but can’t remember who said it. I believe strongly in that statement and think that all the students including the special needs students have an equal chance to learn and comprehend the material. I also believe that the teachers are facilitators; they should design lessons, and come up with lessons that suit the learning styles of their students. Each lesson should touch down on the multiple intelligences to better reach out to all kinds of learners.

What shapes this capacity?
There are so many factors that contribute to shaping the students’ learning capacity. To me it all starts at home, before the teachers’ contribution comes in the situation at home is very essential, whether the student lives with his family or in a foster home, whether the one parent with whom he/she spent the week end remembered to help with homework or signed the “fieldtrip” slip, or whether someone makes sure that the student gets enough sleep and have breakfast before coming to school., and whether the student took his or her medication before leaving home. Then comes the skilful teacher who fosters a safe and encouraging learning environment, a teacher who can engage and challenge the students, a teacher who plans lessons lesson with his students in mind, a teachers who makes the students feel that he cares about them individually. It is so funny that while I am writing this the “are you smarter that a fifth grader” sho came on and I am looking at these kids and wondering about what makes them so special that they are entertaining millions of people? What was offered accessible to them and not to my students in my title one school?

How much influence do you have upon this capacity?

As far as dealing with the home problem I can’t really do much about it. Nut I do what I can in easing some of those problems by being understanding and supportive. From my position as world language I am trying to positively impact their learning capacity and improve their performance and provide them with language tools that will allow to become world citizens, and think of themselves as part of a global community of learners. I also try to challenge my students by designing units that promote higher thinking questions. But I am limited because of the nature of the subject. I also try to reinforce what students are learning in their first language using their second language, by working with a content based language neutral framework

How do these assumptions about learning shape our instruction?

Well I don’t have the magic stick to turn a low achieving student to a genius, I know that I can touch and change their lives with what knowledge I can offer them and more importantly is how I offer it to them, and how I help them use what they have learned. Loading students with meaningless information or dictating the learning instead of facilitating it will only serve the testing purpose, and by the following year they will remember little none of it.

My Domain:
I am picking the first domain: Planning and preparation

I am adding this video to say that every one can learn/trained

TASK # 2

Curriculum is what guides the learning and the teaching. Most of the time it is mandated by the state and the school districts. The curriculum should have a set of goals, standards and assessment tools. It also tells the teachers what to teach, how to teach and when to teach. The curriculum also can be used as a tool to promote higher and deeper thinking and also should motivates and get the students engaged in learning. Our role as educators is to try and change the things in the curriculum that are not working or to try to use them in a different way than what’s prescribed. We should also make the curriculum as user friendly as possible and open the door to creativity. We also should connect the curriculum with everyday life to make meaningful to students. My students who are between 5 and 11 years are not at all interested in knowing about some parts of the French history but by putting in games and songs I will get excited about learning it. We should be the facilitators of the learning and not only the men and women.


Well I am going to sound just like Janna. As world language teachers I have to say we had no curriculum we were “left behind”J. With the appointment of a new world language specialist, we started seeing a lot of good changes, and one of them is the designing of a framework which is also a state pilot program that is generating a lot of interest from districts nationally. This is the work of 10 certified elementary world language teachers. This framework is language free, and that what’s beautiful about it. Each one of us knows what unit to each and when to start and end each unit, each one has the option of choosing from a whole range of activities while the goals and the standards are the same. We also created an online resource center where we all share the most successful strategies and activities. I have the full freedom in teaching what best suits my students. I compare the freedom and the control I have over what I teach now with the rigid curriculum I was forced to obey to back in Morocco. Therefore gaining even partial control can make the learning/teaching a fun and beneficial experience.



As I stated previously having a framework well thought and designed to promote language proficiency, global cultural awareness. With the framework putting me on track all I have left is to design activities that will guarantee maximum fun and mastery of what I want to teach. Our framework is so hands on and so culturally connected so while students are learning the language they are also enjoying learning about the cultural similarities between francophone countries and the United States have the flexibility to link worldwide events and changes to my lessons and broaden my students’ horizons in an effort to make them world citizens. I was happy to see that world language teaching was mentioned by Wiggins and McTighe.

TASK #1

Curriculum is a set of goals to reach, has standards and objectives and contains what students should know or learn when they are a certain point of their schooling. And it is usually dictated upon teachers, and teachers have little or no room to go around it. As I grow up in morocco the curriculum was the priority of each Education secretary since the departure of the French. But little was done about they changed the covers and the tittles, but the content was conflicting as it could be, a curriculum designed for French students was made to be universal and that caused so many problems. And for years and years teachers haven’t stopped complaining about the rigidity of the curriculum but at the same never changed a word of it or taught any differently. I remember when the teachers were so terrified by the unannounced visits of the district’s supervisors, and the first thing they asked for is “are you aligned with the curriculum?” “Show me lesson plans for the last week” and all that the supervisor did is go through the paperwork and make sure that teacher is teaching what he is supposed to, and he never paid attention to the quality of instructions. The quantity was there all of the time but the quality may be not. The curriculum and the stress of following it by the word was the teachers’ nightmare most of the time.

From my position as a world language teacher I would say that I am grateful to even have any type of curriculum, and the reason why I said so is because for the 4 years that I worked as bilingual teacher, during that time I had little or no guidance from our previous world language expert. I was “left behind”. I use to spend my sad Sunday afternoons wondering about what I will teach for the next week and usually my plans lacked coherence and long term goals. I was taking it one week at the time. And it all changed when I was sent to France as part of a summer academy where I was exposed to unit design and backward design, and since then things had bee so different for me. As a world language I see that the interdisciplinary approach is what fits me because it presents a holistic approach to teaching languages as my students will be engaged and I will be reinforcing what they are leering in their regular classrooms since it is content based curriculum. The curriculum that we are working on developing in Jefferson County gives us more room for designing creativities that meet the needs of our students, and also designed to have the teacher as a facilitator and not a dictator. Honestly with this model I plan the lesson and watch the students conduct it. And as wigging said as educators our job” is to help students play the game and not play the game for them”.

I do agree with wiggings's idea as whole. We need a new look at the curriculum, a curriculum that fosters teaching students how to think instead of loading with information that they are not able to understand or process, a curriculum that gets the students engaged and makes them feel that they own what they learned, instead of feeling that they owe it to the teachers, a curriculum that teaches the students how to search for information instead of finding it for them. And I can see the importance of such a curriculum when I look back at how I was taught and how now I am teaching. I see the difference between memorizing and exploring. I see the difference between a disconnected curriculum and a coherent one. The 21st century learners need a curriculum that is geared towards the use of technology and less memorization and none- meaningful teaching.

Welcome to my First ever Blog

Hello everyone, My name is Karim Zami, I was born in Casablanca Morocco. I graduated with a Bachelor's degree in History and Geography, I worked in a catholic school for 4 years as a French teacher. I had the chance to see several countries, learn about the different cultures and study the different behaviors. My focus has always been on similarities more than differences. My travels ended me in California then in Kentucky where I have been living for the last 6 years, and working as a French teacher with the JCPS. I teach at the elementary level grades k-fifth. I really enjoy my what I do, but there are days I just want to stay home J. Teacher a world language can be very challenging, especially when you have to come up with your own teaching materials……..for the last three years we have been working on building a content based curriculum for world languages which is related to Kentucky and the world language core content. I am excited about this class because it relates directly to what I am doing with this program. I am hoping to share some of what we have experienced while building our curriculum.