Not Just Another Activity: Making Can-Do Statements Do the Work, presented by Beckie Bray Rankin (07 Apr 2026)

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Explore how the NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements can guide the design of level-appropriate tasks that develop authentic communication. By identifying unit-level target performance partnered with meaningful contexts, create lessons with pathways towards more functions, longer texts, and higher accuracy across contexts.

In backwards design, it’s easy to focus on the topic as a driving factor of how we assess students and therefore elicit language structures that are not level-appropriate. For example, many Novice learners engage in a food unit and are asked to write a paragraph critique in the past tense, even though their appropriate performance level is characterized by simple phrases in the present. By identifying the target performance along with the meaningful context, task elicitation develops proficiency based on the indicators, practicing and building the function, accuracy, content, and/or text type. We’ll examine sample tasks in each mode aligned with benchmarks to plan high-leverage pathways towards increased
performance.

After participating in this webinar:

Participants can identify the next area of focus for language development in their course based on the Performance Descriptors.
Participants can align, adapt, and/or create spiraling tasks aligning to target proficiency levels.
Participants can match meaningful contexts to the tasks for authentic curriculum design.

Beckie Bray Rankin’s passion for teaching French evolved from a love of travel, music, food, and new ideas. Now teaching and running exchanges at the HS level in Lexington, MA, she focuses not only on instilling lifelong learning into her students, but also embedding social justice and francophone culture at the core of the curriculum. Professionally, she serves on several organizational boards and, personally, she loves to sail and dance.

Active RIFLA members will gain 1 PLU for participating in this webinar.

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Not Just Another Activity: Making Can-Do Statements Do the Work, presented by Beckie Bray Rankin (07 Apr 2026)