Diana Noonan, in her response to Kelly Williams’ question about CI assessment earlier this week, gives a general overview of how we currently assess our CI trained kids in Denver Public Schools:
Hi Kelly,
We currently have 3 versions of our Spanish, French, Italian level 1-2 test and 2 versions of 3-4 (still in pilot stages). Our tests have 4 parts – listening, reading, speaking and writing:
Listening – narratives, dialogues, stories with multiple choice Q/A. Since we are testing for listening only and not reading in this section the questions and answers are in English. Level 1/2 – 30 questions in level 1-2. Longer narratives with 15 questions for the 3-4 test. Some narratives have 2-3 questions.
Reading – 1 – 3 paragraph length text. 30 questions in level 1-2. Q/A in English. Longer narratives with 15 questions for the 3-4 test.
Writing – prompt with pictures that tell a story. Students are given 20 minutes to write about what they see in the form of a story with a beginning, middle and end. We use a rubric adapted from ‘somewhere’ (I don’t remember). I have attached our rubric. [ed. note: see below]
Speaking – prompt is a cartoon-like 3 picture strips with 3-4 pictures. We give the student a choice about which strip they want to talk about. I’ve attached the rubric. It takes about 2 minutes per student if organized correctly. However! We are thinking of not administering the speaking next year. We don’t really like the rubric or the structure of our speaking test, feeling that teachers would be better doing a PBA for the final presentational speaking score. Many of those are available through Jefferson County Public Schools in Kentucky. I have attached a rubric for them as well. [ed. note: see below]
Overall, we are quite pleased with the most recent versions of our assessments which have been written, re-rewritten, revised, edited again and again over the course of the last 6 years. I am sorry that I can’t just give them to you…
I hope this helps. I would be more than happy to speak with you if you have further questions. (Please tell everyone on Ben’s Blog that…unlike the Wizard of Oz…I really do exist!)
Best,
Diana
Diana Noonan
World Languages Coordinator
Denver Public Schools
789 Sherman St. Denver 80203
Diana_noonan@dpsk12.org
720.423.3295
Here are links to the rubrics Diana attached in her response to Kelly:
DPS writing_rubric_2013-14
DPS WL Speaking Rubric 2012
DPS PBA_Rubric_color