Standards-based curricula apply language skills to the world beyond the classroom. Students are expected to use their skills to communicate directly, through print, or electronically, with target language speakers in their local or global community. Standards-based curricula assist students in making meaningful comparisons. In contrast with approaches that address grammar and culture in isolation, students make meaningful comparisons among the patterns of language systems and cultures. Students present information, concepts, and ideas to an audience of listeners or readers on a variety of topics.
Students reinforce and further their knowledge of other disciplines through the foreign language.
Students acquire information and recognize the distinctive viewpoints that are only available through the foreign language and its cultures. Students demonstrate understanding of the concept of culture through comparisons of the cultures studied and their own. Students use the language both within and beyond the school setting. The National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project is a collaborative effort of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, American Association of Teachers of French, American Association of Teachers of German, and the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese. A Teacher's Guide .