Eric continues:
Has anyone ever tried #2 above? (see previous article.) I started it today and I love it! After the TCI cycle/process, I put up the story we’ve been working on and the kids have 5 minutes to translate as much as possible. They are not graded. I’m looking for quantity as in a speedwrite. I then read the correct translation, kids cross out errors, and then count up the number of words accurately translated. Since I’m teaching beginners, accuracy doesn’t mean perfection. Each student is his/her own judge and I tell them that if the meaning is the same, then they should count it. In other words, “hablo” could be counted as “I talk, I talked, I am talking, I was talking, etc.” But “blanco” can’t be counted if they wrote “black.” My initial observation is that the kids find these great confidence builders. They see that they can read and many kids can get way more than they can when it’s a speedwrite. Duh 🙂 Not to mention that telling kids of this type of (ungraded) assessment before class made them pay so much more attention. They truly signaled (stomped) every time they didn’t know a word. The speed translates have some great info on how the kids are processing structure! I may like this even more than the speedwrite, especially when beginners aren’t ready to write.
#3 above (see previous article)is now one of my bailout moves. Like a dictation, there is complete silence, because everyone is taking notes as I read in L2. Good way to take advantage of the last minutes of a period.
I too would like to know how to select and/or write the listening & reading passages. I’m thinking of using readings from the Student Handbook of readings from Blaine’s LICT or writing similar stories that include the high-frequency structures.