World Languages
Midland ISD Instructional Framework
Vision
Midland ISD empowers all students to become lifelong language learners who communicate with confidence and cultural understanding. Every student has the opportunity to connect with other cultures, build empathy and global awareness, develop real-world communication skills in more than one language, and gain cognitive, academic, and social advantages through bilingualism and biliteracy—ultimately becoming confident, capable multilingual citizens ready to thrive in a diverse and interconnected world.
Beliefs
We believe all students can acquire a second language and thrive as global citizens through meaningful, purposeful communication. Language learning strengthens skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, and literacy, which transfer across all content areas. Culture and communication are at the core of language development and help students connect with the world beyond the classroom. Our work is guided by the TEKS for Languages Other Than English and the ACTFL World-Readiness Standards, which organize language learning around the three modes of communication: interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational.
In order to achieve our communicative goals, the Midland ISD World Language program is committed to the following core practices:
- Target Language Instruction & Comprehensibility
We believe students should be immersed in a language-rich environment by using the target language at least 90% of the time in order to best acquire the language. Students and teachers speak, listen, read, write, view, and create in the target language 90% or more during classroom time: comprehensible input, contexts, and interactions are all crucial components teachers must consider. This is achieved by ensuring comprehensible input through visual supports, gestures, and varied contexts , with teachers consistently checking for understanding and using the target language for classroom routines. We believe that incorporating cognates and high-frequency phrases supports novice learners , and that students should respond to and follow directions in the target language with minimal translation. This practice fosters an authentic, language-rich environment essential for acquisition, allowing students to develop real-world communication skills.
- Contextualized Grammar & Vocabulary for Meaningful Communication
Grammar and vocabulary are most effectively learned in meaningful, real-world contexts—such as storytelling, class discussions, and planning tasks—rather than through isolated drills. Language acquisition is driven by consistent exposure to comprehensible, purposeful input, not just memorizing rules. Instruction should prioritize meaning before form, encouraging students to take risks and communicate, even when their language is imperfect.Teachers support this by embedding essential structures and high-frequency vocabulary into communicative tasks, using visuals, gestures, and sentence stems. They also teach students strategies like how to express ideas when they don’t know the exact word or phrase. Corrective feedback focuses on improving communication and message clarity, rather than grammar perfection, to build confidence and fluency.
- Designing Communicative Tasks
We believe that learning experiences and assessments should be intentionally designed around the three modes of communication (interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational) to reflect how language is used in real life. We believe this includes structured pair/group tasks for real-time conversations, and creating organized messages for an audience. These tasks should utilize scaffolds like sentence stems and visuals. We believe that tasks should always have clear, real-world purposes. This ensures balanced language development and prepares students to use the language in meaningful, real-world contexts, connecting with other cultures and building global awareness.
- Proficiency-Based Assessments & Feedback for Language Progression
Student learning is best measured through real-world tasks aligned to ACTFL proficiency benchmarks across all communication modes. Instruction should align with these targets, and students should regularly reflect, self-assess, and monitor their progress. Feedback focuses on message clarity and communicative success, not perfection.
- Planning with Backward Design with Culturally Integrated Authentic Resources
We believe that effective instruction begins with clear goals and real-world outcomes. Using the Backward Design Model, teachers align learning to performance goals. Authentic resources—like music, media, and articles—should be integrated to deepen cultural understanding, promote comparisons, and support meaningful communication beyond the classroom.
