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Assessment Question
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37 thoughts on “Assessment Question”
Hey Ryan!
Sorry for the quick response, but my take is that if the student is playing the game with you, not disrupting the class, and has good attendance, then that student should get an A. We know that it takes a couple of years of FL class to get to a place where students can feel comfortable giving much output, like, in full sentences. If most of your students are like this (attentive, present, play the game) and most of your students are getting an A, then perhaps that doesn’t look good to your admin?
Does that make sense?
Ryan my short answer for now is ditto on what Sean said.
Ditto!
Ryan,
I have a couple questions:
First, what level(s) are you teaching?
Second, Why do you care if students speak in complete sentences?
I know that sounds silly, but if we support the research then we know that output is a byproduct of the acquisition process and therefore does not accurately demonstrate their global proficiency, nor their “ability” in class. Most of my students do not respond in complete sentences in English to questions they are asked by their friends IN ENGLISH. And to piggy back on to what Sean just said, I feel like the point of ISR is to have kids play the game, because we know kids who lean into the conversation are more likely to acquire language. I also think that your evaluation system values different things than you are telling your students IMHO. If ISR is 65%, interpretive is 30% and presentational is 5%, then your system does not value a students to make complete statements, instead it values students making real contributions to the conversation, actively listening to understand, and a very small amount for actually outputting proficient language. I am not trying to tell you how to run your class or how to set up your gradebook, but it seems that if something is worth 65% of your grade, then why tell a student this: “I told him that in the end all the formative assessment scores (Interpersonal) wouldn’t matter if he could show above proficiency on the final — and that his final grade would change.”? This makes it seem like that is not what matters most and that all that matters is where they end up? I think what I am trying to get at is that proficiency in the language is always the goal, but the means by which we achieve proficiency is through the acquisition process, which means through CI. Just my thoughts….
Ryan can you expand on this:
… if he could show above proficiency on the final….
So according to the mGR or jGR, how does one assess (using either a Can Do or Percentages) a student? In other words, what do you guys consider the difference between an 85% and 95% or on a standard (Can Do) scale — say a a difference between a 3 and a 4?
I totally get the “focus on the student, not the grade”, but I also realize that NOT everyone deserves the same grade just because they showed up and “played the game”. Our students are millennials – many of them feel like they deserve an “A” just for showing up. I don’t know how your schools are, but there are several that come to me bearing the “I’ve had 4.0 since birth and I can’t get a 3.8”. These are words from several of my students. They feel that anything below a 93% if basically failing; that their future will be ruined. Yes, I know this a GRADE thing, but unfortunately this is the educational system we work in. I didn’t create it, but I try to assess language fairly and in my opinion: just because a kids shows up and regurgitates the language doesn’t mean the kid deserves a star on his/her forehead. Unfortunately, there has to be an assessment of where all students are…and not every student is at the same level. If a student is speaking English but still contributes to a Invisible story tell AND another student contributes but ALL in Spanish, does the 1st student deserve the same evaluation/assessment as the 2nd?
Sorry….just completely frustrated with keeping a balance between the language acquisition (I totally understand the process) and assessment (required by my admin). When I lived in Spain, I was my own critic; there wasn’t anyone to assess me. However, in our education system, admin want to see HOW you assess.
I appreciate the comments, but basically it sounds like to me (quoting Sean): “if the student is playing the game with you, not disrupting the class, and has good attendance, then that student should get an A.” Everyone gets As right? Coming from an assessment-side of things (not that I am wholeheartedly on that side, but I see the value in it) it just seems like an inflation/nerfing of grades. When parents want to know why their kids can’t speak too much Spanish but they’re getting As, I can happily respond, “They’re trying.” (And yes…I understand that everyone learns at a different speed, but that doesn’t solve the assessment side of things clearly).
Again…apologies. I was hoping for better guidance. I still feel torn between both worlds.
Thanks all.
In my opinion, and this may be too radical for some, they ALL deserve an A if they can show up and play the game. I see myself teaching them more like social and interpersonal (ISR, duh Tina) skills, going to the library for Story Hour and going to the Little Theatre for Group Improv lessons. WE CAN ALL DO IT BECAUSE WE ALL SPEAK L1.
Ryan I think a possible solution for you would be to move away from percentages. Now I don’t mean literally. But in my gradebook (dept. Wide common) I have all assignments valued out of 5. And I evaluate kids on how well they complete each task. They either get an A (5) a C (3) or an F (1). There really is no difference in level between an A and a B. So your writing is a little nicer than mine? Don’t we both complete the task? I also don’t have any D’s or F’s and all the C’s are because of isr. And isr is only worth 40% again dept wide. I understand you want to evaluate fairly but that does not need to be directly tied to language performance. I don’t use rubrics anymore. All assignments are a 5 3 1. I assess my kids constantly but their evaluation is based on who is putting in the most work. Acquisition processes exist outside of our awareness and after largely beyond our control. I believe you need to work to educate your administrator to understand that language is not subject matter and cannot be either explicitly taught or learned. How can we base evaluation of children on something we know to be beyond their control? You know what is right for you and your kids in your room so no matter what make sure that you believe it’s what’s best.
Thanks Russ. Your words have helped me. If I had it my way…yeah, sure, like Joe Dziedzic, I wouldn’t grade at all. I would teach just to see the language grow within the student. BUT…I am held accountable to assess them and SHOW my admin what they can do. That means I need to give scores in the district’s eye. I’m just trying to see how you others assess fairly. Thanks again.
You can still SHOW admin what they do without punishing or rewarding (same thing) students with grades. You can give scores according to the ISR but I would use it as a reflection piece and have students set goals. This way you set them up to up their game with interpersonal skills. Reflecting is important because they themselves figure out what they are going to do to raise their score.
And sorry about the snarky responses from me, Ryan. I do think that mGR and quick quizzes are sufficient to quiet the powers that be, but I understand what you are asking and I am glad you are moving forward with this. Just read anything Russ Albright in Portland writes, I am learning. He gets it. And I am very happy with the responses from the group. There are no experts and it’s just us solving problems together.
“I am using Scott Benedict’s assessment idea that allows a student to change his/her overall grade at the end of the semester by demonstrating proficiency with the overall summative final.”
I heartily disagree with this. Why do it? It makes the grade the focus. The only way, in my opinion, that we can get these kids involved is to get them to forget that they are being graded. Only then can they show up as authentic human beings in our classes. Grades have always ruined and continue to ruin this work. I know you have to grade, but it looks as if the idea that the kid really earned an 89% is valid. It is not valid. Numbers are not valid when measuring things that cannot really be measured (language, art, response to art, etc.). Our quantification of this divine thing called human interaction is full of hubris.
And our quantification of this divine gift of language. It is, as one of my students recently wrote, “Lit!”
T
Haha. Tina that word “lit” is all over my school. We used to use it in the early 2000s to mean intoxicated. Though, now I i think it’s just cool.
.. I told the aforementioned student that he needs to demonstrate his use of the language during our Invisibles. I told him that he needs to demonstrate the use of the language with complete sentences/phrases…
If I were that student I would immediately have an affective filter up about four feet above my head, and I would immediately shut down. He is not ready to demonstrate his use of language. Asking that kid to do that is cruel. I would apologize to him and do what Sean said:
…my take is that if the student is playing the game with you, not disrupting the class, and has good attendance, then that student should get an A….
When will these kids ever get a teacher to cut them a break? Offer them a class where it’s not all about behavioral jousting with the teacher and testing? My idea of comprehensible input work and esp. with the Invisibles is that they have fun creating characters and watching them go through zany events, with no awareness of anything but having fun and focusing on meaning. And then over a few years we watch them, because they are not being judged like they are everywhere else in their young worlds, and we see unimagined gains in the language, magical, impossible gains, and all the gains happened as a result of their being focused on meaning, not on their own behaviors in class.
“… and we see unimagined gains in the language, magical, impossible gains, and all the gains happened as a result of their being focused on meaning, not on their own behaviors in class.”
Yes! The other day in one of my first year classes, I was finally able to throw in a subjunctive in a sentence. In French they are rare. Of course it was a student response. With the Invisibles we tear up that grammar syllabus. Now we must tear the walls of human barriers that are grading and assessments.
Steven you are so right, we have torn up the grammar syllabus. It is still haunting the CI world through wordlists and backwards panning – why? Why target words when we could be just simply communicating? Is not holding a daily class discussion or storytelling session with students who do not understand doodley-squat without our hand-holding them, is that not enough? Is it not enough to exercise the skills of captivating students’ attention using few words, and looking them in the eyes instead of at the back walls like so many teachers do, and gesturing, drawing and all the rest?
I had a recent realization. If we work from high frequency word lists (which I thought was the bees’ knees for a long time, the best compromise, to put three structures on the board and try to say them as much as possible while spinning a yarn to the kids) then we are basically doing a grammar-patterning exercise on “tener” or “tendre” in which we are providing massed reps of all the different conjugations of those verbs. It is more like the audio lingual method which is what Beniko told me in Agen. I will never forget that moment; light bulbs went OFF.
…the student this morning says that he needs more time to respond…
Well then listen to him.
Better yet, tell him he need not respond at all. Can’t you just grade him on mGR and maybe quick quizzes? That was always plenty of data for me. And then watch what happens many months from now, if you can keep him and not send him to a dinosaur. What do you think will happen? … That is correct, he will be a star student, and, because you chose to treat him in a way that pays little heed to the data collection machine, thus faking it out, enrollment in your program will explode. Why? Because kids aren’t stupid and know when the teacher honors THEM and not the SYSTEM.
Com’on, Ryan. Go apologize to that kid. What the hell does 89% mean, anyway?
For me, with all due respect, Scott Benedict’s model or rationale for grading is not what’s on my menu in my classes.
In short, do less work. If you have students taking finals to show output or proficiency that is more work on YOU.
Keep your percentages. Note what students CAN do on a seating chart when we are teaching your classes according to mGR/jGR. Note when students are SPONTANEOUSLY speaking, responding chorally with others, doing the gestures with you, tracking your messages.
Remember that this output, original thought in the language, takes a long time! I always tell my students that I was silent for 3 months in France after 7 years of formal study! Your social students will speak first and not monitor themselves well but the quiet ones will write the best. Lastly, the rate of acquisition is different for everyone.
I have a few students who have a B in my class. Unfortunately, there are no B+s in my class. I have optional homework that will raise their grades plus when students come to see me I review with them mGR. If they are doing it, then I raise their grade for the week. What is important is that they track your messages that’s it. The subconscious brain will take care of the rest.
Steven: Question: What is your definition of SPONTANEOUSLY speaking? Give me an example in English of a question and answer that your students have done?
Thanks
Spontaneously speaking — Genuine output of original meaning is used in my class with statements more than questions.
Example:
Teacher: “And Class, Santa’s Helper and the Grinch stole all the presents”
Student 1: “That’s sad!”
Teacher: “Excellent! Class [rejoinder sign goes up from student], one, two, three!”
Everone: “Excellent!”
Student 1 said “that’s sad” and thus made meaning in the story. It was not rehearsed, it was not memorized because it was in a context of storyasking. It was not ” please recite your story”. This level 1 student did well but I would not grade this person higher because output (original meaning) will eventually come with everyone.
The rejoinder cards are used in my class for respond without speaking. There is language in their heads (tons of it) but saying it out loud for the whole class to hear can be scary for kids. So I have them raise a card when appropriate. This keeps the affective filter low, I say it for them with a cue of “1,2,3” then we all say it together. There are multiple cards.
The student who raised the “excellent” card is tracking my statements. They get the SAME grade as the kid who spoke because both, to me, have communicated in class spontaneously. There is “mental representation” as BVP puts it, in their heads and they are expressing it. So many students do this because they do it for pleasure not for a grade. My superstars are both a mix of high academic achievers AND those with many Fs in their other classes. Our classes are equalizers.
Ryan please apologize for the rather cavalier attitude some of us are sharing about assessment. We went through a major change as a group on that topic and it was kind of gnarly – that was within the last year – and the result has been that here we think less in terms of grades than we do in terms of just reaching the kids. You can’t really have both in a real way. I personally feel that grades pull down, drag down in the most serious way, what the kids can do. So what I ended up doing was lying through my teeth to the administration, who don’t have a clue anyway. I know that the less we grade our kids, the more they learn. The old idea that we need to give tests in order to keep them “interested” is just not true when we base our instruction on comprehensible input. Who can resist a good story? When a kid knows that there is a grade coming at the end of a good story, does it help them pay more attention? No, it ruins the story for them. Our poor children. How they suffer over grades! Teachers must change now. Look what we’ve done to our children. Grading kids/ranking them does not speed up or aid in any way their acquisition. It slows it down.
YES the less we grade the more they learn. Our classes are unique; they Just bringing them along in a story is enough. They want to feel the pressure is off. In my seventh period class, the other day a student said, “This is the only class where I feel relaxed.” My visit to Lincoln made me want to help these poor kids more. The less pressure they feel, the better. It is so cruel to grade them at all. Some schools do not assign grades. One example is Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA Another is the Metropolitan Learning Center in Portland, OR.
Right. I remember Alisa wrote here recently that the most time consuming part of her job since doing TCI some years ago has been finding ways to communicate, validate, substantiate her teaching to admin and parents (or maybe just admin). The most time consuming and draining part of her job.
I’m afraid, Ryan, that we all have different admin with different personalities and different expectations. I think many would agree that it’s the worst part of our job: grading kids how are admin wants us to grade them. And if your admin are bullheaded, perhaps it’s just best to leave that school.
Oh, and if all your students are present everyday and don’t disrupt, sounds like you have both a great rapport with them and they all value school. Any job openings there? LOL
Most are present, and they are super-attentive. It’s not exactly paradise though…but the situation with admin is getting much better. I went to Lincoln on Tuesday and I think admin is also happy that we are reading leveled books (which I always do in the second term but they wanted to see EVERYTHING EVERY DAY apparently from the first months of school…qué estúpido!) and that I made portfolios and that they hve a chance to speak (ALSO something we have begun recently…WHEN THEY HAVE ENOUGH LANGUAGE TO EVEN GIVE IT A TRY!) She is coming back to do my final observation in December and I think she will see more of what she wants…
In job related news, I would LOVE to have you in PPS. Seems like we are always looking for Spanish teachers…I will ask around!!
Sean, come to CALI! I could actually afford a house near Fresno and my wife is at home with the kids! The forest is 2 hours away and San Francisco is 2.5 hours away! Don’t we all wish we could teach in a TCI/TPRS academy?
Oh Tina and Steven, you guys warm my heart! I would love to teach near or with either one of you! I was actually directing that statement to Ryan, though. I don’t know, I thought I’d share some perspective that I think it’s a rare school environment where you don’t have the struggle of convincing students that school has value and the struggle of helping students develop the good habits of coming every day and being alert in class everyday. Or maybe this all speaks to the great divide in our country.
But Ryan, my reflection on being fair in assessments with the students that I’ve had the pleasure to teach in marginalized communities in Chicago is not penalizing students for not being able to write much or speak much, whether the students have IEPs or not. (Many of the students I’ve taught without IEPs would certainly have IEPs if they were students in affluent schools.)
I think of one student, Dayvon, who was a quite kid. He didn’t socialize much with anyone in school. He kept to himself. It was a Spanish 1 class that met everyday for 80 minutes. While it was really only my first year teaching CI, and I could have done much more to be comprehensible AND compelling, his eyes were always on me. His attention was always on me. I felt from him a kind of empathy for the effort I put in. When I wasn’t teaching the best I could I felt a kind of forgiveness from him through his eyes and the slight curls going up on his lips. He gave that kind of attentiveness to his peers when they came up to the front of the class to serve as the focus of discussion.
During 10 minute QuickWrites, Dayvon wrote not much more than a handful of simple sentences. During a couple of QuickSpeaks, I don’t think he produced much more than some combinations of words.
In reflecting on this, and thinking about if I had Dayvon in my class today, a couple of years later, I would do a better job at encouraging him to speak more during choral responses, a better job at playfully directing a little TPR, directing a peer to interact with Dayvon, I would do a better job of scaffolding questions to get verbal responses from him.
I’m pretty sure I gave Dayvon an A for his interpersonal communication skills. This in a school environment where engaging students and helping them sustain focus on instruction was a shared struggle. My admin greatly appreciated my ability to engage and sustain students’ focus. They were impressed by my ability to do so in Spanish. It was my first full year of CI teaching, so that felt good. I knew I had much room for growth.
Anyways, Ryan… I think Steven’s example of spontaneous output is great. On my interpersonal comm skills rubric, on a 1-10 scale, I have at 10 a criteria that states, “Verbally responds automatically to all input.” You could have at 9, “Verbally responds automatically to some input.” At 8, “Starting to respond automatically to input.” Also at 8 you would have, “Always responds chorally” and “Always answers either/or questions.” Just some ideas.
I’d love to know what you come up with!
This discussion also leaves me thinking about rubrics for interpretive communication skills. I understand activities like Quick Quizzes, Fill-in-the-blanks, questions to readings, Listen and Draw, Essential Sentences, Storyboards, etc., fall under interpretive skills, right? Have there been rubrics put together for interpretive comm skills?
Have a wonderful weekend all!
Ben,
Did you mean to say, “Please apologize”?
Ryan wrote the following:
One student came to me this morning in a tizzy because he is currently receiving a 89% overall. He feels like his grade is in jeopardy and it’s still early in the 2nd quarter. I am using Scott Benedict’s assessment idea that allows a student to change his/her overall grade at the end of the semester by demonstrating proficiency with the overall summative final; in this case it will be a Written/Oral Interpersonal (this will be in January). If a student obtains a greater summative assessment % than his/her current grade then the grade is raised to match the summative score.
and
I totally get the “focus on the student, not the grade”, but I also realize that NOT everyone deserves the same grade just because they showed up and “played the game”.
Ryan,
The first paragraph I am quoting shows that, despite what you have said or emphasized in class, your student still sees this as being about the grade. It is, as you noted elsewhere, an indictment of the entire educational system that this is so. Students do not focus on learning; students do not care about content; students have been punished by the reward of grades to the point that their innate curiosity has been stifled in the school setting. Outside of school, many of those same students will put forth great effort with intense interest to learn about something that excites them.
In an attempt to get students away from this mindset, I tell my students: “Concentrate on learning German, and the grade will take care of itself.” Then I do everything I can to reinforce that statement.
The second paragraph I quote takes us into the realm of the purpose and role of grades and grading. I studied the history of grades and grading, and it is quite instructive. Here are some interesting tidbits for you:
– Until the late 1700s to early 1800s, no letter grades were given. Students received a narrative report about what proficiency/knowledge they demonstrated in the subject matter and in what areas they were deficient.
– When “letter grades” were introduced, there was great variety in their expression. Most often, there were between three and nine categories, and these went by various names: Optimi, Second Optimi, Inferiores, Pejores (Yale); Passed with Distinction, Passed, Failed (Harvard); Passed, Conditioned, Absent (U of Michigan) – are just three examples.
– The first school with records of true letter grades was Mount Holyoke, and the letters were A, B, C, D, and E (later changed to F).
– Percentages needed to pass were quite divergent: Mount Holyoke required 74% to pass in 1898; Harvard required 40% to pass in 1877
– Even today, Oxford University’s cut-off for passing its final exam is 30/100. (N.B.: Under the English university system, students do not generally have meaningful “grades” throughout their university career. They receive narrative feedback from their “tutors” for whom they “read”.)
– On the GRE physics exam, 50/100 will place you ahead of approximately 70% of those who take the test, but in most classrooms that score will be failure.
– In the early 1900s there was a movement away from the 100-point scale to scales with broader categories: Excellent, Average, Failing; Excellent, Good, Average, Poor, Failing, A-B-C-D-F.
– The 100-point scale did not come into common use until the 1950s with the rise of computers, and its spread has coincided with the spread of computers. It was designed by computer programmers to meet the needs of computer programmers.
– When first instituted, the average grade was 50/100, and anything outside the 25-75 range was extremely rare. So, originally, 50/100 was a C. (N.B.: In my current system, 41-60% is a C, so I am perfectly aligned with historical percentages. The secret, though, is that I am simply subverting the grade book.)
– Point, percentage, and letter grades do not provide students with washback or feedback on their work.
– The “standard” grading scale purports to distinguish among 60 degrees of failure but only 40 degrees of success. REALLY?! First of all, this places the emphasis on failure, not on success. Second of all, is anyone truly capable of that degree of precision? According to Guskey, 100-point scales “distort the precision, objectivity, and reliability of grades”.
– There is no pedagogical or educational reason for a 100-point scale. In fact, it is less precise than a 5-point scale.
On that last point, you may be asking yourself “How can that be?” It is because we don’t give 100-item tests most of the time. On a 20-item test, the statistical margin of error for showing what someone has truly learned is plus or minus 2 items for a 20% error, or up to two letter grades. Statistical error makes it far more likely that a student will be “misclassified as performing at the 85-percent level when his true achievement is at the 90-percent level” than of being mistaken for Average when his performance is Excellent. (Gusky) (On a 3 or 5-point scale: Excellent, (Good), Average, (Poor), Failing)
Guskey, Thomas R. “The Case Against Percentage Grades” in Educational Leadership.
September 2013, vol. 71 num. 1, pp. 68-72.
http://www.be.wednet.edu/cms/lib2/WA01001601/Centricity/Domain/18/SBG/EL13%20Perce
ntage%20Grades.pdf
There are many more issues with standard and standardized grading, but for me, just these points demonstrate how arbitrary and even counterproductive the current grading system is.
I will send Ben my “A Short History of Grades” to go in the Primers section so everyone can have the whole thing. Right now, though, I’m going to go have a look around Boston.
Thanks for the grading insight, Robert. You’re well versed in the study of assessments. I’m definitely going to pass this one on when our school goes through it’s standards & essentials grading phase. I have learned about some of those items that you mentioned, but not all of it.
And…I rightly agree that traditional grading as it stands has plagued students. They only look at the number rather than what they are actually learning. Really, I’m trying to find a happy balance between both worlds: let the kids learn and be content with acquiring the language, but also give fair assessments that can demonstrate proficiency at the student’s level. That’s all I was looking for when I wrote to Ben.
Ryan, I hope you aren’t feeling like any of the comments attacked you. We all wrestle with what school administrations ask of us, what people think of as “we’ve always done it that way” (even though a study of the history of grades shows that we have not always done it this way), and the constraints of a grade book vs. getting students to focus on what is truly important and providing them with what we know they need to acquire a language.
I hope you reach a position that works for you and your students and are able to defend that against those who, without thought, expect something else.
I also sense that I was a little harsh with Ryan. Only he knows his situation. We need our jobs. That said, I do feel that there is a way to fool the adminz and honor our students’ needs to be honored as more important than the gradebook.
Related: https://benslavic.com/blog/?s=this+is+your+grade+book
I did not think you were going to Boston, Robert. Hope to see you there tomorrow.
Hey Robert don’t forget to send the history of grading thing. I really want that in the Primers. And you may want to pitch it as a booklet to Caryn Knight at the Teacher’s Discovery table there in Boston. Tell her we work together and pick up the Big CI Book off their table at ACTFL and say, “Ben wrote some of this and I wrote the other half.” Just sayin’, your voice has influenced everything I ever thought about CI. Wear a t-shirt saying, “I’m Robert Harrell” around the conference. People in our group attending will stop you and buy you a beer!
Speaking of assessment, I recently received this comment,
“Also, surprise quizzes have their benefit, however there should be announced quizzes/tests which give students an opportunity to show what they know and can apply the material in a variety of contexts.”
Obvious here, in my mind at least, is the conflict between “the announced quiz” and “showing what they know…in a variety of contexts.” It is the surprise quiz that show what a student knows. The announced show what they crammed and do NOT know.
This just goes to show what we are up against, not just TPRS/CI teachers, but all educators who want to gauge students’ current understanding/production in order to decide where they need to be tomorrow.
Since I don’t give grades in elementary, my question for y’all is a bit different but still in the Assessment Arena. It turns out that many schools/districts use a normed assessment like the SOPA or the STAMP to see how their WL students are doing over time. These test makers make lots of claims (like all test makers do) about the usefulness of the test results – helping guide instruction, show student strengths and weaknesses, blah, blah, blah$.
Besides the fact that said tests don’t really align with the research (they submerge the Ss in ‘real-life’ language situations that are above their level of acquisition/proficiency), and many employ all 4 language skills even for novices (video-recorded oral interviews – so painful to watch!), I want to know whether anyone on this PLC can write to me about their experiences using such ‘normed’ languages tests with novices. If no one else here is interested I totally get it – we’ll take the poisonous discussion off of the PLC! Please send me your reflections of specific canned assessments if given in preK-5th grade. ELLOPA, SOPA and STAMP or AAPPL are the ones I’m most interested in.
I have written here about my district’s fling with the SOPA, and my absolute rejection of it as inappropriate for an elementary CI -based program. (Our instruction is based on input; but the SOPA is built on an oral interview (output) plus other dumb ‘activities’ including lotsa discreet vocab with a filter igniter!) I think the folks at the Center for Applied Linguistics learned a lot from us when they came to town!
It served the district’s purposes, though – to have kosher looking data showing that our outcomes have improved with onset of CI instruction – but at the expense of the volunteerkids’/test-takers’ nerves. They were trying so hard to please me and make us look good, even though they didn’t know how to say “under the bookshelf” and other classroom directions and terminology.
Please contact me if you have used a canned assessment and are willing to write up a reflection about it – what were the plusses, if any? How (if so) was the assessment useful? Shortcomings?
I want to address the perceived need for WL proficiency data and some schools/districts’ reliance on these tool$ (for a project I’m working on – plus our district needs to use or create better cornerstone/other WL assessments that reflect progress over time for our evaluations).
Thanks in advance!