Hi Ben,
I was asked about assessment by my beginning teacher supervisor/coach. He suggested having students write and apply 3 or four language structures about the story. Then take data how many students “Got it” and how many “didn’t.” Below is my email response.
Hi Chris,
I had the long weekend to contemplate the role of assessment in a foreign language classroom and its implications for instruction. The reading I have done has lead me to develop principles in the processes of instruction. Though there are a many decisions that I may take in a class, they attempt to align with research of second language acquisition.
To clarify, the role of assessment in a lesson should be mostly if not entirely formative. Summative assessments in the world language classroom can only provide a window into the progress of how students are doing at a given time. Unfortunately, it does little to guide instruction. This is due to the strong research we have that acquiring, as opposed to memorizing a language, is a subconscious process. When I teach with stories, the messages must be compelling enough that it looks like a movie in the heads of students. Forcing them to apply it right away in a narrative will most certainly lead to many failures. This is because they are first starting to understand the messages. After they understand, they need to hear it more and more. Incidentally, staying in the target language, in this case French, will ultimately lead them to acquire more and more vocabulary that is high frequency.
Summatively, I can only see that students can develop a writing portfolio in which fluency is measured. Students are given ten minutes to write a story but The point is to write the most words. I have done this only a few times because instead of having them write, I have them listen and read the stories. This leads to greater gains because without the input, students will not be able to perform as well. An analogy is that a pig does not gain weigh on the scale, it gets fatter in the pen. When students apply vocabulary in writing, it varies wildly because the subconscious part of the brain is doing the heavy work. Amazingly, this also means that students are still learning while they sleep because the brain needs to process the information. Students’ individual brains acquire different words and not necessarily those that we “hammered on” in class. Testing for certain words will certainly discourage students because the brain still needs to process the language. More importantly, it is not their fault. It is said by second language researcher and university professor at Michigan State, Bill Van Patten, that the rate of acquisition is unique to every language learner.
Though it maybe cliché to say that “my subject matter is different.” I hope you understand that it is important to my students that they demonstrate “what they do know” instead of putting them in a position of “what they cannot do.” The focus on individual words or vocab lists will ultimately lead to memorization and cramming. To my knowledge, students at my school do it well. That said, I would like to discuss what assessments can look like for my students.