This presentation examines how the ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) proficiency guidelines, particularly, the Oral Proficiency Interview tenets can be useful in the syllabus development, and how they can help define the objectives of the course. In particular, it discusses how a backward design model to teaching the language leads students to attain the desired proficiency level. The backward design model was first introduced by Wiggins and McTighe (1998), in which the desired outcomes are determined first and then proceed “backward” to identify the required tasks in order to attain the set desired outcomes. In other words, contrary to the common practice now, the material should not be determined subjectively by the professor based on their own comfort zone or preference, but rather, identified after an objective survey on what the end desired outcomes are. There are three stages in backward design: 1) Identifying the desired results, 2) determining the acceptable evidence, and 3) planning the learning experiences and instruction. These and other relevant topics are explored in this paper.