Planning, Curriculum Alignment, and Integration of Language and Content
What this domain tests
This domain examines how you plan French Immersion units that align to curriculum outcomes and integrate language and content. Expect questions on backward design, content and language objectives, subject-area integration, and alignment with PEI curriculum documents.
Core rules and concepts
- Backward design: identify desired results (curriculum outcomes), determine acceptable evidence (assessments), then plan learning experiences. This ensures alignment from outcome to assessment to instruction.
- Content and language objectives: every immersion lesson should have both. A science lesson on plant growth has a content objective (explain conditions for growth) and a language objective (use pousser, racines, lumière, humidité in oral explanations). Language objectives name the function (describe, compare, explain) and the forms or vocabulary needed.
- Integration models: content-based instruction and CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) integrate language and subject matter. The 4Cs framework (content, communication, cognition, culture) helps plan balanced units.
- Curriculum alignment: in PEI, French Immersion programs follow provincial curricula for subjects, with French as the language of instruction and English Language Arts outcomes addressed in English. Align units to specific outcomes and cross-curricular competencies.
- Planning for language growth: sequence language functions and structures across a unit; recycle vocabulary; build in opportunities for all four modes (listening, speaking, reading, writing).
Worked example
Unit: Grade 4 social studies on communities. Content outcome: describe features of a local community. Language objective: students use place vocabulary and prepositions of location (à côté de, près de, au centre de) to describe a map. Assessment: students create and present a labeled community map. Reasoning: the language objective names the function (describing location) and forms (prepositions); the task requires both content knowledge and French output; the rubric assesses both. The plan recycles vocabulary across lessons and includes listening (a description of a community), speaking (presentation), reading (informational text), and writing (labels and captions).
Traps that cost marks
- Writing only content objectives and hoping language develops incidentally.
- Planning activities first and fitting outcomes afterward.
- Language objectives that are vague ("learn vocabulary") rather than naming function and forms.
- Ignoring English Language Arts outcomes in an immersion program.
- Failing to align assessment with the stated outcome.