Before beginning any type of lesson planning, action research project or other classroom activity, it is necessary that a rationale be established for the process. In establishing this rationale, it is important to determine how this process is related to content and academic standards in addition to community and student need.

The school improvement plan developed as part of Indiana's Public Law 221 process and the North Central Association's accreditation process has concluded that North Newton Jr./Sr. High School students need to improve their writing, critical thinking and problem solving skills. Past events also indicate that students lack cultural understanding. They do not have the ability to look at the world and understand that even though others may do things differently, those differences are influenced by cultural beliefs, which are not wrong, just because they differ from theirs. Our students live in a rural suburban district that is almost entirely Caucasian. Newspapers around the world in addition to The Montel Show and Esquire Magazine have reported that our students lack cultural understanding. Esquire quoted USA Today in the introduction to an article about problems at North Newton and related to "Hip-Hop" dress. They stated that "tensions mounted …when a group of students tried to rally support for the girls (involved in the controversy) when another group organized a Ku Klux Klan gathering" (Carroll, 1994, June). It is important that our students open their eyes to the differences in others and that they learn to accept those differences as part of a changing society. Additionally, Indiana teaching content standards for foreign language standard eight focuses on the ways in which the teacher is to encourage cultural understanding. This standard requires that teachers of foreign languages foster an appreciation of cultural and ethnic diversity. Indiana and national foreign language academic standards also address the need for students to understand the culture and cultural perspective of the target countries.

Through careful evaluation of the methods that are incorporated in the school foreign language classroom, the World Language Content Standards of the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) and The Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) standards, it appears that students would increase learning levels through improvement of specific content standards. In particular, NBTPS standards six (Multiple Paths to Learning), eight (Learning Environment), and eleven (Reflection as Professional Growth) and INTASC standards four (Instructional Strategies), five (Learning Environment) and nine (Reflection).

NBTPS standard six and INTASC standard four states that the teacher should employ a variety of methods in order to reach every student. Over the years of teaching, it is too easy to fall into a set way of doing things. Through the incorporation of NBTPS standard eleven and INTASC standard nine, student learning will increase by the gathering of data on and evaluation of teaching methods. In this manner, the learning environment can be improved to address the learning styles and needs of individual students and to find the most effective means of delivering information.

NBTPS eight and INTASC principle five increase student learning by creating an environment in which students are active learners and in which they use the target language. The learning environment must also be caring, challenging and inclusive. Again, through the combination of these with the reflection standards, it will be possible to evaluate the ways in which changes in the environment effect student learning.

The needs of the students, community and the school will be addressed through this action research project. According to research, through the improvement of personal teaching skills student learning will improve. Student improved awareness of cultural understanding and critical thinking/problem solving skills are life-long skills that will enable them to better evaluate the ways that people react to events and situation.