We all know that when push come to shove we still have to give assessments in our classes. It's not always a bad thing that we have to do this and there are some key techniques and characteristics of these assessments that can help to make sure all students feel degrees of success in the language. The first, and most important one, is the use of performance assessments. This means creating real-life tasks where students need to use the language to communicate. These can be done in the interpretive, interpersonal and presentational modes to help provide a clearer method for communicating. And the best way to assess these is to avoid the practice of taking points off for certain errors but instead using a rubric to globally assess students' competencies in the different areas you're looking at. When you're writing those tasks, it can be a bit challenging so here are a few tips to help you in your planning. What do I want them to be able to do? Actually say this out loud or write this. It's important that that is clear to you and to your students. If you want them to be able to have a debate about the pros and cons of social media, state that as your goal. It shouldn't be a secret to you or to them. What mode of communication works best for this goal? Based on your goals, you can figure out what mode of communication fits what you're doing. If they're debating, you want them having an interpersonal assessment. If they're explaining, a presentational assessment would be a better fit. And if they're finding information, they should be doing an interpretive assessment. With output assessments, there are times that both are viable options and you have to weigh out what is most important to you in that moment. What is my scenario? Kids can't just talk for no reason or write about randomness. You have to have a clear scenario. Why are they having a conversation? What are they going to learn from that conversation? How are they going to use that information? What are they writing about? Who are they writing to? Why are they reading an article or watching a video? What context do they have? These are all questions to ask yourself to be able to write out a scenario. Based on the answers, you can use your creativity or Leslie Grahn's SCRAP page on her website to write out a performance task where students know why they are communicating. What will students do during the task? This is where you figure out the smaller details of the assessment. What kind of things will they be writing about? What should they be doing throughout the conversation? I write these as separate bullet points so it's clear to kids what to expect and it provides them with an outline of what to do. Now for the difference when planning novice high and intermediate low tasks. Sometimes the difference between these two proficiency/performance levels is small but when thinking about the tasks we want to be sure that we are making tasks that are level appropriate for our students. See this page to discuss the difference between the two sub-levels. Interpretive Mode: Novice High:
Novice High:
Novice High:
Above are examples of novice high and intermediate low interpretive, interpersonal and presentational tasks. All of those are performance tasks because they're asking students to do something with the language. You see elements of the different sub-levels when you see an interpersonal asking to just jump into a conversation in comparison to starting, maintaining and ending. Or when a novice high is providing information and an intermediate low is now raising awareness about something.
Through these guidelines and examples it's my hope that designing assessments for these two sub-levels can be a bit easier. The difference between the two is rather difficult to distinguish on it's own but when you look at the MA State Frameworks you get a better idea of how they differ and how you can be sure your work is more level appropriate. These slides and explanations are from a 2022 presentation for MAFLA's Winter Workshop.
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