Episode 156: Planning With Purpose — A Conversation with Dr. Diane Neubauer & Dr. Reed Riggs Artwork

Growing With Proficiency The Podcast

Welcome to Growing With Proficiency: The Podcast! Are you a World Language teacher who is looking for ideas, strategies, activities, and inspiration to create a World Language class where you and your students enjoy using the language to learn about the world and each other? Do you want to transform your class into an acquisition-driven instruction space where you intentionally provide a ton of comprehensible input?

If you are, you're in the right place.

Let's start this journey together. Head over to IG, and send me a DM @claudiamelliott to let me know what topics you would like me to cover in an upcoming episode.Join my free Facebook community, Growing With C. Also, check out my blog to start discovering some of these ideas and strategies at growingwithproficiency.com

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Growing With Proficiency The Podcast

Episode 156: Planning With Purpose — A Conversation with Dr. Diane Neubauer & Dr. Reed Riggs

July 31, 2025 • Claudia Elliott, World Language educator

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Planning for acquisition isn’t about perfection—it’s about intention. In this powerful episode, I sit down with Dr. Diane Neubauer and Dr. Reed Riggs for one of the most meaningful conversations I’ve ever had about lesson planning in the world language classroom.

We explore what it means to plan with purpose—centering curiosity, communication, and student connection instead of rigid structures or vocabulary lists.

✨ Key takeaways:

Why essential questions can guide your unit better than word banks
How to stay flexible with language goals (because students don’t always know what we think they know)
The power of interpretive communication—why listening and reading matter just as much (or more!) than speaking
How routines and student responses can lead the way
Why language is the vehicle, not the destination

Whether you’re new to acquisition-driven instruction or looking to refine your approach, this episode will inspire and ground your planning process.

🛠️ Mentioned in the episode:

Neubauer, D. (2022). Chinese Language Instruction with Novice Learners: Target Language Topic Development, Engagement, and Comprehension in Online and Hybrid Classrooms: The University of Iowa.

Jacknick, C. M. (2021). Multimodal participation and engagement: Social interaction in the classroom. Edinburgh University Press.

Hiver, P., Al-Hoorie, A. H., & Mercer, S. (2020). Student engagement in the language classroom. Multilingual Matters.

Diane’s YouTube channel

Diane’s Language teaching blog

New eBook: Comprehension-based Chinese, published by Cheng & Tsui

Reed’s Blog: http://www.reedriggs.com/#/

Conversations About Language: https://conversationsaboutlanguage.buzzsprout.com/

More Resources:

🌐 Connect with Claudia: