Project Proficiency For All Levels: It’s Not Just AP

Are you wondering how to prepare students for the project component in the revised AP World Language and Culture exams? Or maybe you don’t teach AP but understand the importance of backward design. Meaningful, proficiency-driven projects are not just for AP—they can support authentic communication and proficiency growth at every level.

In this interactive two-hour virtual workshop, participants will explore how proficiency-based projects can be integrated into world language classrooms from novice to advanced levels. Through examples, collaboration, and practical strategies, attendees will discover ways to support interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational communication while increasing student engagement and real-world language use.

Participants will gain insight into the new AP project component and leave with adaptable project ideas, planning tools, and assessment strategies that can be implemented immediately in their own classrooms.

Tanya Stevenson is a German teacher at Morris Knolls High School. She has taught German for ~20 years in the Scotch Plains-Fanwood and Morris Hills Regional School Districts. Tanya is also currently Principal of the German Language School of Union County, and has served in other roles such as instructional coach and supervisor. Tanya has her MA and Ph.D. Candidacy in the field of Germanics, with a focus on literature and art history. She spent two years on scholarship in Salzburg, Austria, where she assisted a curator with an art history course and assisted undergraduate students with literary interpretation. 

Tanya’s passion for language lies in the ability to communicate with others through a different lens, changing one’s perspective of the world. Raised by a mother whose first language was German, she understood from an early age that bilingualism meant being able to communicate with family who couldn’t speak English as well. From the start of teaching middle school, it was Tanya’s priority to simulate authentic communication in the classroom since she “didn’t win the lottery yet” to take all of her students to Europe herself. It is her mission to bring excitement into the classroom for students when acquiring a second language, driving them to continue learning beyond high school.

Tanya has presented at conferences such as FLENJ, NECTFL, and NJASCD. She especially enjoys the topics of curriculum development, personalized learning, and student engagement. Tanya resides with her husband in Rockaway Township and has three children, two dogs, and two cats. She enjoys serving FLENJ, the organization that contributed to her fundamental start as a World Language teacher 26 years ago.