Hurry, Hurry, Step Right Up!
One definition of “The Real World Curriculum” is the most practical one of all:

What is my class going to be about today?

We have divided the entire world into 5 categories (Themes)
💡, 🌳 & 💻: Science, Nature & Technology
🎭 & 📰: Society & Culture
🏥 & 🤗: Health & Social Services
🎓 & 📪: Education & Government
💰 & 🔨: Economy & Employment

Each Theme is divided into 100 Topics. You can see them on the Wheel of the World, below. Spin the Wheel for a Random Topic.

Once you have a Topic, you can define learning objectives, activities, content, and materials within that Topic. We call this a Module. Generally, you’ll work with a Module for 4 or 5 Sessions/Classes. If you’re doing a Practicum, the first stage of the Apprenticeship, we will usually support you with the elements of the Module – your primary job at Stage1 is to look for materials and deliver activities that help the Learner reach the objectives.

You can also work with your Learner to select a Topic if you don’t want to be random. In some cases, such as business or academic English, you may stay with a particular Topic for weeks or months.

Keep in mind that the Topics are guidelines. It can feel overwhelming to think that you have to “teach” Mathematics in English – fortunately, that’s not how it works! Think of it as you are practicing the English of Mathematics. Your Module could be as simple as “Ordinal Numbers” or “Reading Equations”.

There are nearly unlimited Modules that can be defined within each Topic.

The purpose of this approach is to spark your creativity and imagination, not to limit you. However–you will need to stay focused in order to repeat language in a context.

1. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Physics
2. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Chemistry
3. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Engineering
4. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Automobile
5. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Astronomy
6. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Animals
7. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Mathematics
8. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Geology
9. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Computer Skills
10. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Internet
11. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Social Media
12. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Insects
13. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Oceans & Seas
14. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Plants
15. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Weather
16. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Apps
17. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Mobile Tech
18. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Parks & Natural Areas
19. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Rivers
20. 💡, 🌳 & 💻: Anatomy & Physiology
21. 🎭 & 📰: Movies
22. 🎭 & 📰: Theater
23. 🎭 & 📰: TV Shows
24. 🎭 & 📰: Literature
25. 🎭 & 📰: Radio & Podcasts
26. 🎭 & 📰: US Culture
27. 🎭 & 📰: Local Culture
28. 🎭 & 📰: World Cultures
29. 🎭 & 📰: US Geography
30. 🎭 & 📰: Local Geography
31. 🎭 & 📰: World Geography
32. 🎭 & 📰: News
33. 🎭 & 📰: Fashion
34. 🎭 & 📰: History
35. 🎭 & 📰: Music
36. 🎭 & 📰: Visual Arts
37. 🎭 & 📰: Games
38. 🎭 & 📰: A Day In The Life
39. 🎭 & 📰: Friends & Family
40. 🎭 & 📰: Religion
41. 🏥 & 🤗: Hospitals & Clinics
42. 🏥 & 🤗: Nutrition
43. 🏥 & 🤗: Chronic Disease
44. 🏥 & 🤗: Exercise & Fitness
45. 🏥 & 🤗: Aging
46. 🏥 & 🤗: Child Development
47. 🏥 & 🤗: Mental Health
48. 🏥 & 🤗: In the Kitchen
49. 🏥 & 🤗: End of Life
50. 🏥 & 🤗: Violence
51. 🏥 & 🤗: Birth
52. 🏥 & 🤗: Houselessness
53. 🏥 & 🤗: Poverty
54. 🏥 & 🤗: Insurance
55. 🏥 & 🤗: Non Profits
56. 🏥 & 🤗: Child Care
57. 🏥 & 🤗: Food Insecurity
58. 🏥 & 🤗: Disability
59. 🏥 & 🤗: Addiction
60. 🏥 & 🤗: Social Determinants of Health
61. 🎓 & 📪: K-12
62. 🎓 & 📪: Special Education
63. 🎓 & 📪: Colleges & Universities
64. 🎓 & 📪: Community Colleges
65. 🎓 & 📪: Vocational Education
66. 🎓 & 📪: Adult Basic Education
67. 🎓 & 📪: Race, Colonization & Ethnicity
68. 🎓 & 📪: Citizenship Test
69. 🎓 & 📪: Post Office
70. 🎓 & 📪: Executive Branch
71. 🎓 & 📪: Congress
72. 🎓 & 📪: Supreme Court
73. 🎓 & 📪: We The People
74. 🎓 & 📪: Local Governments
75. 🎓 & 📪: Law Enforcement
76. 🎓 & 📪: Legal System
77. 🎓 & 📪: Immigration Policy
78. 🎓 & 📪: NASA
79. 🎓 & 📪: Armed Forces
80. 🎓 & 📪: Census
81. 💰 & 🔨: Work Ethic
82. 💰 & 🔨: Careers
83. 💰 & 🔨: Resumes & Applications
84. 💰 & 🔨: At the Bank
85. 💰 & 🔨: Credit Cards & Loans
86. 💰 & 🔨: The Stock Market
87. 💰 & 🔨: Personal Budget
88. 💰 & 🔨: Starting a Business
89. 💰 & 🔨: Grants
90. 💰 & 🔨: Contracts
91. 💰 & 🔨: Labor Law
92. 💰 & 🔨: Job Safety
93. 💰 & 🔨: Buying a House
94. 💰 & 🔨: Renters Rights
95. 💰 & 🔨: Home Repair
96. 💰 & 🔨: Taxes
97. 💰 & 🔨: Transportation
98. 💰 & 🔨: Agriculture
99. 💰 & 🔨: Industrial Revolution
100. 💰 & 🔨: Family Leave

Sometimes, Doing it Well is Better Than Doing it Right

Imagine that you ask a physicist how to turn on the television, and they say to you:

“Standard TVs use an interlacing technique when painting the screen. In this technique, the screen is painted 60 times per second but only half of the lines are painted per frame. The beam paints every other line as it moves down the screen — for example, every odd-numbered line. Then, the next time it moves down the screen it paints the even-numbered lines, alternating back and forth between even-numbered and odd-numbered lines on each pass. The entire screen, in two passes, is painted 30 times every second. The alternative to interlacing is called progressive scanning, which paints every line on the screen 60 times per second. Most computer monitors use progressive scanning because it significantly reduces flicker.”
–How Stuff Works – How Television Works

This is certainly very interesting, but more information than you want to know. You want to know how to turn on the TV, not how the TV works.

This mighty be one reason why we have such haphazard success in language skills development in the US and throughout the world – we’re spending too much time explaining how language works, instead of practicing how it’s used in specific situations.

And you know what: This applies to any language. It applies to teaching languages. It applies to any skill.

A language is not just a system of rules – people use language to do things with other people. It’s a social skill – like dancing: you have to practice the steps until they become natural.

People-Places-Things’ praxis is that language skills are cultural skills – very specific and precise cultural skills.

You’ll hear people say “Learn the Language” – but there really isn’t one language; plus, it’s changing all the time.

As a result, language teachers will say “you should learn it *the right way*.” When we say that, what we usually mean is that learning a language for academic purposes is the correct way to learn it.

This is sometimes called a “prescriptive” approach. You are trying to teach the world as it “should” be. The good part of this – the answers are black and white. The challenge is, the world is messy and complicated. Every day is shades of grey. And when you try to teach the way the world should be, you somehow never arrive at the way the world is.

There are benefits to the prescriptive approach! Sometimes you can get a better understanding of the whole picture when you clear away the messiness of everyday life. Focusing on the details sometimes gets blurry with so many things that don’t work the way they’re supposed to.

A “descriptive” approach tries to teach you to navigate the world as it is. It’s functional. It starts from where you are right now:

• Helping a Customer
• Putting Gas in Your Car
• Ordering From a Menu
• Using Public Transit
• Baking a Pie
• Sorting Your Recycling
• Making an Appointment
• Leaving a Voice Mail Message
• Telling a Doctor What’s Wrong
• Using a Coupon
• Enrolling Your Children At School
• Applying for a Loan
• Making Small Talk
• Choosing a Cell Phone Plan
• Going To The Emergency Room
• Paying Your Electric Bill

And a million other things that you have to do.  Our  approach prioritizes capability and competence over pure understanding. We start from where you are at, practicing the language & cultural skills that are important to you right now – we hope you’ll learn “The Language” someday – but at least, if you don’t, you’ll still know how to bake a pie.

People-Places-Things creates real-world curricula for intercultural competence. We have ready-made curricula and several training programs for common applications:

Language & Life Skills Curriculum

We’ve taken the entire world and turned it into a bunch of language (and culture) lessons. Our signature curriculum for community-based classroom settings turns the real world into bite-sized pieces, exploring the vocabulary, behaviors, themes and concepts that surface in particular contexts. We currently have 21 modules in use with dozens more planned. (Beta Version – English)

The Cultural Navigation Certificate

This is a complete basic cultural competence program for non-native English speakers who want to go from cultural outsider to cultural insider – or at least pass well enough for the job interview. The Cultural Navigation Certificate takes about 1 year to complete, and can be customized to fit specific needs, timelines and locales. It uses the Language & Life Skills Curriculum as a foundation and supplements it with practical skills development outside the classroom. (In Development for Portland, Oregon – English)

Cultural Orientation Certificate

This program is designed for newcomers, especially immigrants/refugees who are connected to an organization that prepares new arrivals to adjust to their new home. Where the Cultural Navigation Certificate is a program for developing confidence and competence, the Cultural Orientation Certificate is really just taking a look good look around. A survey. Recon. A scavenger hunt of everyday life. It’s intended to be completed in 90 days or less, but can be done in 30 days without much trouble. If the newcomer speaks relatively good English, they can do it alone, though they might run into trouble a few times. For the adventurous, that’s part of the learning process. (In Development for Portland, Or – English)

Individual Training Plans

Let’s face it: If you went to Paris, wouldn’t you want to have your own personal tour guide who would not only show you all the local tricks, but also handle all the confusing situations and explain them to you, and teach you some slang, too? That’s kind of what we’re doing here. Newcomers and those outside the cultural mainstream have varying needs, goals, and resources at their disposal. A Culture Coach does an assessment, with an interpreter if necessary, and makes a plan (usually around 6 months) for how they can best reach their goals. The Coach may be an English teacher, but she might not be – she will, however, be able to refer her clients to other resources in the community (including language tutors and classes). (Beta Version of ITP Assessment available in English and Spanish).

Custom Curricula

When you need robust skills development or deep practical understanding for the English Language Learners you’re working with, People-Places-Things can create a customized curriculum for your organizational context. From the Food Handlers Test to the Citizenship Test; from the Department of Motor Vehicles to the Banquets Department; From Launching your Business to Customer Service Skills – we look at the world with the eye of an anthropologist, and prioritize the social skills and content areas that need to be mastered to be successful. We can also develop and implement the program for your community.