My grade book is just a little place to drop a few numbers in from time to time. The numbers describe the easy little quizzes we take at the end of class sometimes and some of the other easy activities that kids enjoy doing in class.
I also put in numbers to rate the kids’ bedrock foundational skill that is absolutely required and without which language cannot be acquired – the (reciprocal participatory) interpersonal skill. Those numbers are usually pretty high, because the kids like to listen to French and find out what is going to happen.
My grade book used to be a jungle. I spent lots of time working in it when I could have been doing other things. How odd that I did that! Nobody cared. It was like I was playing an elaborate game of “Gotcha!” with the kids to impress some vague someone.
My kids felt uncomfortable when I did that and so did I. Playing “Grading Gotcha!” sucked. I did it for a long time, almost thirty years. But now my grade book is just a simple little drop box for some easily collected numbers that convey the successes my students have when they come to my class.
It is also a discipline tool of the highest order: if a child chooses NOT to do the most important thing a person can do to learn a language, which is to interact/negotiate meaning with a person – me – who speaks the language in order to find out what it means, then I use the gradebook and specifically jGR to school the kid in what they must do to acquire the language.
That is because it is my job to school the kid because I am the teacher and I cannot allow the kid to choose to pass on doing the most important thing a person can do to learn the language in my classroom which is to consciously choose to figure out what I am saying and to do it in a cheerful and human and honoring way so that my classroom works.
I look forward to seeing my students now, every day. They know I mean business and that they must behave in a certain way or they will fail my class. But there is no bad vibe about that. They know that I like them.