Welcome Aboard the Magic School Bus Journeys!

Fostering  the Connections standard and meaningful language learning experiences in advanced language classes in higher education through content-theme-based projects

Inspired by the eponymous Magic School Bus (children’s book series by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen), my students and I embark on adventures on various content-theme-based projects. As students journey on our exciting “field trips,” they explore and learn by doing hands-on tasks that focus on real-world applications.

Thanks to the PDL opportunity, I am delighted to design and share interdisciplinary content–language projects that can serve as models, guidance, and inspiration for language educators to design learning experiences, promoting both content and language learning. My work during the PDL focused on projects as a way to unify and create curricular connections and cohesion, which are difficult without more content courses in the department. This digital repository of content-theme-based project modules will benefit the following three significant aspects:

• Language Colleagues: guidance to design content-based learning experiences
• Learners: opportunities to engage with their target cultures, speakers, and various discipline areas in meaningful and tangible ways
• Advanced-level Curriculum: integration of language and interdisciplinary content

I hope this site can provide language educators and content area–study scholars with the opportunity to share and discuss means for devising a coherent curriculum that can promote both content and language learning.

“I’m sure that it will be highly important not just at Yale but for the profession at large. Your modules clearly align with ACTFL practices in a deep, complex, and meaningful way, and do so to a greater extent than any “typical” textbook that I have ever seen; They relate to the ACTFL Connections standard, as well as content-based learning. Congratulations!” —Maria Carreira(Professor of Spanish at California State University, Long Beach/ Former Co-Director of the National Heritage Language Resource Center (NHLRC) at UCLA)

Language courses, particularly at the advanced level, are generally textbook-driven and separated from the content track. Language-content integration can bridge the gap between language courses and content courses. Maxim (2014) stressed that language and content need to be integrated across the curriculum at all levels and that content-based projects promote such integration and adopt an essential role in helping language learners transition smoothly from language learning to content learning.

Language textbooks should correspond to learners’ needs and reflect the language uses they will make (Cunningsworth, 1995); however, no commercial textbook will ever be a perfect fit for a language program (Richards, 2001). Language textbooks can be a helpful reference resource for teaching and learning, but they have limitations when providing learners with sufficient, authentic language contexts and applications. Paper-based textbooks are especially limited in reflecting the current emphasis on real-world language use and digital communication in the 21st century. Therefore, content-theme-based projects, integrated into a language curriculum, can be beneficial as they are highly relevant, authentic, and rich learning experiences.

“Dr. Lee-Smith’s proposed work has the potential to make a significant and meaningful impact on Korean language programs in higher education. Designing the type of experiences, she describes requires careful orchestration of content, technology and pedagogy, which she has demonstrably done in her own classes. Creating a resource like the one she proposes, which captures the pedagogical knowledge she has developed in past years, would be extremely helpful for Korean language programs beyond Yale University and has much potential to become a source for inspiration for her colleagues in her own and other institutions.”—Julio C. Rodriguez (Director of the National Foreign Language Resource Center (NFLRC)/ Director of the Center for Language & Technology at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa)

Language learners must feel deeply connected to how they use the language and what material they learn in this post-textbook era to respond appropriately to this shift. Therefore, language teaching practice, content, and curricula must be aligned. To bridge the language–content division and design, an advanced-level curriculum “should consist of a series of complementary or linked courses that holistically incorporate content and cross-cultural reflection” (Modern Language Association [MLA] Ad Hoc Committee on Foreign Languages, 2007, p. 5). However, achieving this mission statement’s goals can pose a challenging task for language practitioners, programs, and departments in higher education institutions.

Building a diverse and integrated advanced language curriculum is one of the important gateways to building a foundation for the area studies. This timely research project will address curriculum designs that enable language learners to connect with other disciplines and acquire information and diverse perspectives to develop transcultural and translingual competence and use the language to function beyond communication in academic and career-related contexts.

The fundamental learning goals of the magic school bus journeys are based on the Multiliteracies and the Standards  frameworks. (Cope, Bill, and Mary Kalantzis, eds. Multiliteracies: Literacy. Learning and the Design of Social Futures. London: Routledge, 2000;The National Standards Collaborative Board, 2015.)

Multiliteracies	Standards 5 C’s
Experiencing Students learn through experiencing immersion in texts, tasks, and social situations— Expressing thoughts, reactions, opinions, and feelings about cultural products (e.g., stories, artifacts, and characters) practices (e.g., behaviors, expectations, relationships, and lessons), and perspectives (e.g., thoughts, beliefs, values, and morals).	Communication Interpersonal Communication: Learners can interact and negotiate meaning conversations to share information, reactions, feelings, and opinions. Interpretive Communication: Learners can understand, interpret, and analyze what is heard, read, or viewed in multimodal texts (spoken, written, visual, gestural, aural, spatial, or tactile) on a variety of topics. Presentational Communication: Learners can present information, concepts, and ideas to inform, explain, persuade, and narrate on a variety of topics using multimodal meaning-making and adapting to various audiences of listeners, readers, or viewers.
Conceptualizing Students learn through conceptualizing how language forms, conventions, organization, and other features of texts work to convey meaning (e.g., interpreting texts, practicing linguistic skills and knowledge, and explicit learning about textual features —vocabulary, grammar, expressions— and genres to help learners participate more fully in the communication).	Cultures: Relating cultural products and practices to perspectives Learners can interact with cultural competence and understanding.
Critical Thinking Students learn through analyzing with critical thinking by connecting the content of various modes of content texts to social, cultural, and historical contexts. Questioning the meaning, importance, and consequences of textual content (e.g., critically reflecting on textual content and its relationship to student’s own culture, perspectives, and learning).	Connections: Making connections and inquiring information and diverse perspectives Learners can connect with other disciplines and can acquire information and diverse perspectives to use the language to function in academic and career- related situations.
Creative Application Students learn through applying what they have learned to meaningful real-world contexts (e.g., using new knowledge, skills, and understandings to produce various meaning-making in creative ways).	Comparisons: Language and culture comparisons Learners can develop insight into the nature of language and culture to interact with cultural competence.
	Communities: School and beyond— global world and lifelong learning Learners can communicate and interact with cultural competence to participate in multilingual communities at home and around the world.