Unlock with PatreonThe Problem with CI
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Question for the Group
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10 thoughts on “Question for the Group”
I would ask the questions in English.
I do both. I write the questions in Spanish. I make them TRANSLATE the question, and then write an answer in Spanish, in a complete sentence (and yes I always model what a complete sentence looks like, and I tell them “a complete sentence is meaningful on it own. So if you write “sí,” or “Juan,” or “trabajaron,” those don’t make sense on their own, but if you write “Sí, Juan y Julia trabajaron,” that makes sense onnits own.
A) It is not hard to make questions where they have to demo comprehension.
For example, your Spanish passage reads “Al escuchar que Pancho no tenía novia, Margarita se puso feliz.” (On hearing that Pancho had no GF, M became happy).
Your question could be “cuando escuchó que Pancho no tenía novia, ¿estuvo triste?”
This way, they have to understand the meanings of all the words, and they cannot look for a one-word key. But these are hard to design.
B) Even better is Hosler’s cunning strategy of using assessment to deliver more c.i. My level 1 final assessment is, they have 10-12 written extended versions of stories asked in class. There are two Spanish questions per story, and they have to translate the question, copy an answer from text, and translate that. The aim, again, is not assessment as much as deluvering more comprehensible input.
Chris
Thank you Chris these are great suggestions I’m definitely going to work on implementing these!
“If I write them in English, they can’t just hunt for matching words but they don’t show me understanding of the question words.”
– If you use question word posters, there’s no need to prove understanding of what’s already in the room, right?
“I was considering asking questions in English but requiring students to answer them in Spanish using complete sentences. What would the group say?”
– Do you generally ask for one word answers (yes/no, true/false)? If so, this forces language out of students, which doesn’t match what goes on in class. They might not be ready for that.
I hadn’t considered Thank you! Don’t want to require more than their used to
For my midterm exam, I wrote the questions in Spanish but had them answer in English. This way I knew they understood what I was asking but I also knew that they understood what they were wtiting in their answers. It worked well and I will do the same on the final.
Keri, that’s true when they get questions correct. If they answer incorrectly, however, how do you know whether they misunderstood the question, or the content?
In another post, I believe Laurie Clarq mentions the negative effects of assessing reading comprehension. All of these concerns would be avoided, how different the exams would be! I could only dream.
Good point! That I don’t know!
Some of the issues brought up about comprehension questions are reasons that I just had them translate into English on the exams I gave this spring. I resisted doing it that way initially because of the pressure to use the TL… but really, how else do we really, really check for their understanding of a passage? It was a great way to check. Then again – if you need multiple choice answers for fast grading, I don’t think translation will give you that.
…then again – if you need multiple choice answers for fast grading, I don’t think translation will give you that….
I don’t think anyone in our group still does that.
I agree that translation is a great way to assess on a final. First it takes a long time for them to sit there and translate. Then I just read it and assign a grade using a ten point rubric (that I don’t even know the location of in my computer anymore but nobody has asked for it yet). Like if the kid translates 75% of the passage, which they read from the book to guarantee my minimum effort, I give them a 7 or 8. All my grading is based on a basic premise that I have always had since I started teaching to honor the child, to remember how hard it is for them, and to not play games with them to try to trick them on finals.
Then another portion of the test is to answer, in the normal Quick Quiz way, ten or maybe twenty questions about a story that we did during the so-called “review” class before the exam. I might turn the story done during the review period into a reading for the exam and so have two translations sections on the test. If the goal is to get through the exam period quietly, and if I can do so by giving them lots of CI in the form of listening and reading, that’s what I do.
So an exam I give might follow the following sequence:
Review Period – make a story
Exam Period – review story, project the story from the review period using ROA to discuss it, give quiz written during the review pd. by the Quiz Writer, have them translate into L1 either the story or a passage from the book we were most recently reading or both, depending on how much time we need to fill, which I want to fill with as much CI as possible.
Lots of input, the time goes by with them working quietly, we get to have a little fun when we make the story and discuss the reading. Kind of a win-win because the admins think it’s rigorous (my definition of rigor in a school setting – to fool admins into thinking that I am a strong taskmaster on final exams – is one that I learned over a very long period of time: it’s when the kids are kept quiet. “Man! Did you hear Slavic’s room during the entire exam period? Pin drip silence except when he was speaking to them in French! That is good testing, man! He had them working the whole time!”). Quiet means good in schools.