I have had the pleasure of teaching at many of the IEPs in my local area, as well as
three wonderful university IEP programs. In each place, traditional textbooks were used dividing the four modalities into individual classes—listening and speaking, reading, writing, and grammar—to varying degrees of success. I thought, and had certainly been taught in my
undergraduate and master’s classes, that this was the best and only effective way to teach the skills necessary for students to gain proficiency in English. Little did I know that my narrow curricular view was about to be dramatically expanded.
When I was hired at an IEP in my area that told me their curriculum was a bit unique, I
was working on my master’s in ESL curricular design at the time and was instantly fascinated
with the flexible and modular curriculum they were describing. Since then, I have continued
teaching at the university level, and often find myself wanting to reach for the Native English
Modular Curriculum and its thorough yet clear explanations and practices.
I cannot say with enough fervency how well suited the Native English Modular
Curriculum is for the 21st century ESL student. The flexibility of starting at the beginning of any of the units and not being behind their classmates is incredible and still amazes me; I’ve seen it working over and over with my own eyes. Each unit is full of scaffolded practices that guide students without exceeding their zones of proximal development, while simultaneously pushing them to stretch and grow into the next proficiency level. The embedded transferable “soft skills” enable students to transition smoothly into a professional or higher education setting. The integration of the four modalities into a singular class creates an environment of naturalistic language acquisition while maintaining the interactivity and production of communicative language teaching activities. The Native English Modular Curriculum truly can benefit and help ESL students at any age, proficiency level, or situation around the world.
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