With the advent of comprehension based instruction, the assessment scene MUST go through some changes. We are faced now with kids who are being trained in such a different way (which when done properly is very fine) that we must come up with a fine way to assess them.
Here in DPS we have started that work and Diana has responded to Kelly (articles published here a few days ago) in a general way about how we assess our CI kids in DPS. She included some rubrics. But nobody knows what assessing CI kids will look like ten years from now. I am sure that the development of the assessment piece for CI kids will be slow and messy, just as the instructional changes associated with CI have been slow and messy over the past twenty years. So with Kelly’s question comes the need to put on our mud boots and start sloughing through the now nascent CI assessment piece.
Eric already has his boots on. He has written some things that we all should read. He sent them to me last week because he got that 504 glitch that wouldn’t allow him to post his thoughts as a comment but I put them here because they are important. I don’t think he meant this to be some kind of definitive statement. Rather, he invites us to just think deeper into the subject Kelly brought up last week about how to assess CI kids.
So I have divided Eric’s ideas on CI assessment into three articles that follow this one over the next three days. They are important because they get the ball rolling on this discussion, which will never end in the same way that our development and refinement of what TPRS/CI is will never end.
If you want to do some background meeting because you missed the big thread from last week, here are the articles that started this discussion:
https://benslavic.com/blog/april-test-prep/
https://benslavic.com/blog/april-test-prep-2/
Eric shares:
CI-friendly common assessments is key to change in our data-obsessed reality. Everywhere there are nervous and fearful teachers who would like to teach with CI or are already teaching with CI, but have to teach for 1950’s tests.
The flawed tests and poor testing and scoring procedures have muddied all the FL research. Claims that any method work depend on what you are measuring and how you are measuring the gains. Of course, there is also the question of how well the gains are retained over the long-term. I want tests that measure fluency. I define fluency as the ability to comprehensibly and spontaneously express oneself without hesitation nor difficulty.
In April Test Prep 2, I gave an example of what Chris is saying: success on a proficiency test should not depend on knowing a specific list of words and grammar rules. Rather, do they know what they know. The ACTFL OPI tries to do this by personalizing the conversation during the interview, not using pre-planned questions.
Language by nature is going to be hard to grade. I agree that we can’t accurately assess output in beginners. The Feb 2014 Language Educator was all about assessment. I’ve only read some of the articles so far. Anyone have any knowledge/experience with AAPPL? $20 for the whole test or you can buy just individual sections for less. I’d have to try and collect that money from students if I were ever to give this test. I like that the rating divides Novice Mid into 2 levels and Intermediate Mid into 3 levels. These assessments, like the ACTFL proficiency tests, seem based around thematic topics.
http://aappl.actfl.org