Thinking about assessment... again!

If you are a teacher, like me, then you have certainly spent countless coffee breaks discussing assessment: either criticizing or praising it, maybe questioning it, or even plain “cursing” it… no matter who we are, what or where we teach: assessment is close to our hearts… in oh so many ways! 

I have personally been working with and looking into this matter for many years, be it as a course supervisor, designing, writing and revising tests, probing into the process; be it as an examiner, participating in the final assessment of someone else’s handiwork, with cold analytical eyes, scrutinizing the final product; or even as a curious mind who wonders what it is that we do: Do we test to teach? Do we teach to test? And moreover, what it is that we should be doing? 

Anyway, back in January, when Isabela Villas Boas shared a blog post by Nick Provenzano with us, I dared ask her if we could dare… Only to discover that she was the one daring us… In his post, Nick recounts how he spent a semester without his traditional testing system, and how he witnessed high levels of commitment, as well of strong evidence of his students’ skills and knowledge through the use of alternative assignments, essays, projects, and different assessment opportunities. 

The discussion was not new to us. We had already been questioning the unquestionable… the effectiveness of our traditional system with our adult students… Why were we able to find students reaching the higher levels – passing test after test, and still not able to use the language? Why were some of our adult students discouraged? How come teachers were feeling frustrated? We decided to turn these difficulties into opportunities for development. The theoretical project had been ready – on paper – for a few months, as Isabella had taken an online program on assessment with Oregon University. All we had to do was “take the leap” and bring it to life. Right now, there are two groups – one Thomas flex 1, and one Prime 1 – being piloted with an alternative assessment system. 

This series of posts is an attempt to share what we are trying to do, inviting you into this experience-experiment, summoning your thoughts and encouraging your input. 

The THOMAS FLEX 1 Experiment: 

In week 3 (of 10), having already worked with most of Unit 1, we wanted to ascertain that the students were able to interact using the following exponents:

• What’s your name? My name is… 
• How are you? I’m…, and you? 
• What’s your telephone number? It’s (numbers 0-9) 
• Nice to meet you/Nice to meet you too. 

The lesson was designed to build on student’s recently acquired abilities, consolidate them, and finally, invite linguistic output that could be assessed. The procedure was the following: 

1. Each pair of students received a dialogue cut up into slips. They were asked to put the slips in a logical sequence to make the dialogue. 
2. With the correct sequence, students were asked to personalize the dialogue, by substituting names and other elements with their own personal information. 
3. Then, the slips were collected and the teacher elicited the dialogue on the board – leaving blanks in which they would complete with their own names, etc. 
4. After that, the students were asked to stand up and cocktail, talking to at least three different classmates, using the dialogue on the board as a model. T observed and monitored the exchanges, cleaning the board when most of the students had performed the dialogue at least once. 
5. Finally, the T called on pairs of students and asked them to perform the dialogue out loud – no model available. As they did so, the teacher filled in an assessment sheet with the following criteria:

• Correct greeting / response to greeting - Yes (2pts.) - Partially (1pt.) - No (0 pt.)
• Asks name correctly - Yes (2pts.) - Partially (1pt.) - No (0 pt.)
• Responds to question about name correctly - Yes (2pts.) - Partially (1pt.) - No (0 pt.)
• Says and responds to “nice to meet you”  - Yes (2pts.) - Partially (1pt.) - No (0 pt.)
• Asks and/or answers about phone number - Yes (2pts.) - Partially (1pt.) - No (0 pt.)

This was the end of their first “Oral Assessment Opportunity”. The plan is to have one of these every week, focusing on different skills-areas such as speaking, writing – in which grammar would be either intrinsically embedded, or clearly stated, and also listening and reading – for we see that one of these students’ main difficulty is understanding input, so that they can formulate their own output. 

Anyway, we are using the media with one sole purpose: hearing your thoughts. Do you have any ideas we can use in this pilot project? Are there any feelings or thoughts you would like to share? Is there anything in your experience that can add to this experiment? Let’s get this chat started… The ball in on your court!

Icebreakers - Ideas for the New School Year

We asked our teachers about their favorite icebreakers for the first class. Everybody agreed that icebreakers are an essential element to bond, to establish an inviting learning environment, to start connecting and getting to know our students. Here´s what CTJ teachers revealed: 

 I really believe in the importance of bonding with the students, so I prefer ice-breakers that involve the exchange of personal information. Two "oldies" that my students always enjoy are: 

The best lie: Write four sentences on the board about you. It can be general information or specific, such as what you did on your last vacation. Among the four sentences, one has to be wrong. Lie as best as you can! Students have to talk in pairs and identify the wrong sentence. Then it's their turn: they write their own sentences, one of them being wrong, and their classmate has to spot the lie. Finally, debrief the activity, asking students who the best liar in each pair was and perhaps to tell you and the group something they learned about their peer.
Numbers in my life: Write a set of numbers on the board: your apartment number, your shoe size, the age you had your first date, the age you lost your first tooth... Be creative! The less obvious the better! Students then have to try to guess what the numbers mean by asking questions (Making this also a nice opportunity to do some needs assessment!) . Then students do the same in pairs. Again, debriefing is always beneficial, for it shows your interest in the students' personal information and students get to know a little about their other classmates, too.

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Lately, I have been using wordle a lot on the first day. 
I show students many key words and ask them to make guesses about how they relate to my life . Depending on the level, I ask students to ask me questions to confirm their guesses. I have them do a word cloud like mine on sheets of paper and interact in pairs. I save their work and use what they wrote to understand who they are, and what they like. I use these sheets as name cards throughout the semester.

I found an interesting pdf with some suggestions that might be worth a try.
http://www.cylc.org/jrnylc/curriculum/pdf/classroomActivities_Facilitation.pdf

I also came across a blog post by one of the teachers in the Electronic Village Online session Neuroscience in Education - http://sasasirk.blogspot.com.br/2013/01/i-feel-you.html

The link takes you to Dan Pink's tip to discovering and nurturing our inner motivation. A simple answer to 2 questions: What's my sentence? (the thing I want to be known for) and...Was I better today than yesterday?http://seltechnology.weebly.com/whats-your-sentence.html

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Simple, sweet and fun.

I like the one we pass sweets around (jelly beans, M & M's) and tell students to help themselves and take some but not eat them yet. Then we tell students that for each piece of candy they have, they are supposed to give a piece of information about them (like favorite color, movie...).


This icebreaker can be adapted to different levels and can be used even if the students know each other (you ask for pieces of information the colleagues don't know yet).

This one is listed on Dani's pdf above, among many nice others!

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During the new teachers' workshop, one of my colleagues did something that I found really intersting: we drew our hands on a piece of paper and wrote five informations about ourselves inside the drawing. Then, the papers were mixed on the floor, and we had to get a hand that wasn't ours and find the owner, by asking him about the informations written. It was really dynamic and it doesn't put the student in the spotlight, which makes them more comfortable to speak.
Victória

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I like to play true or false using slides on the first day of class. 
Each slide has a sentence such as "The teacher is an excellent cook". 
They have to discuss in pairs and come up with a conclusion. Then, when I change the slide, there is a picture of me cooking at home or something like that. The slides begin with simple information (age, favorite soccer team, how long I have been teaching) and get tricky towards the end (what's my opinion about something). This gets them to know a bit about me and usually generates nice conversation topics about movies, books, videogames, music and so on. As soon as we finish this part of the game, we swap roles. I give them some slips and they have to write - and present! - five true/false sentences about themselves. Of course, if you have larger groups, you can cut back on the number of slides/sentences.

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I believe students feel safer and bond better with their teacher when they get to know who we are and a little about our lives, so I usually show a slide with words and numbers that relate to my life and have them guess in groups how they are related to me. Next, I show them a slide only with one of the words or numbers and have them tell the class how they think it is related to my life, ex: "Colombia", then I show a picture related to the word or number, talk a little about it ex:" I was born in Colombia" and tell them to ask me about that topic specifically. Students usually love it and end up asking lots of personal questions, sometimes I ask them questions as well. Be careful though not to overdo it or they may get bothered, choose 6 pieces of information that you would like to share. When they have finished talking about you, ask them to share 6 things about themselves with their groups, then open to the whole class. This activity is not only good to bond with them, but also to get an idea of their speaking skills.

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One of my favorite ice breakers is this one: I hand each student a piece of paper the size of a badge. On the board, I draw a square and in the center, I write my name. On each corner of the square, I write: "my favorite song/band", "my favorite food", "something nice that happened to me last year" and my favorite movie". Students should write their answers to these topics on the corners of their piece of paper and their names in the center. Next, they stick it to themselves (like a badge) and stand up. I play some music and when it stops they start talking to the nearest person about the information in the cards. It's very dynamic and fun. Finally, they sit down and share something interesting or surprising they found out about their peers. Of course the topics can be adapted.

Could you suggest other interesting ones?

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Here are two that I do every semester:
1) Tell students they can ask you anything they want about you. As they ask you the questions, don’t answer them at this point, but write the questions on the board. When you have a good number of questions, tell students that first they have to answer those questions about themselves in pairs. While students work in pairs, write your answers to the questions on the board, but making some of them true and some of them false. When they are done, ask students to report one thing they learned about their partner. Finally, tell students your answers are on the board, but that they have to guess which ones are true and which ones are false.

2) I divide the board into two big columns: YES | NO and I divide the classroom floor into two sides as well with scotch tape. Then I say a few sentences and, for each one, ss have to walk to the "yes" or "no" side of the classroom. For example, if I say "I practice a sport regularly", ss who do that have to move to the "yes" side, and ss who don't do that have to move to the "no" side. Then they have to ask a follow-up question to someone standing next to them. I usually say sentences like "I love to study English", "I was born in Brasilia", "I can play a musical instrument", "I traveled on my last vacation", etc. At the end, each st has to tell the whole class something they learned about a classmate and I take this opportunity to ask more follow-up questions.

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I cannot say I have a favorite one, I usually have a few I like to use depending on the level I am teaching, but one that never fails is the word cloud icebreaker, where I write some words on the board. Some are true and some are false information about me and have the students discuss in pairs or groups to find out which are true and which are false.

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A great icebreaker that I love to do and helps me remember everybody's name is throw the ball and say your name. It only goes in a crescendo of difficulty. Remember, the teacher always starts.
1. Ss stand in circle and throw the ball to anyone in the circle and say their own names. Until everybody in the circle has said his.
2. They throw the ball and say the name of one person whose name they have just learned. They have to memorize who they have thrown it to because they will do it several time around and throw the ball to the same person.
3. As they are throwing the ball around, you introduce a second and a third ball, it becomes a little hectic, they need to shout people's names because they have to be heard over the other two names, which are being shouted out as well. We all have a great laugh, and then you can check how many names they can remember (the ice has been broken).

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I´ve used many of those activities my friends above mentioned. No matter the activity is, it will all depend how open and willing to connect you are. Our students, just like us, have mixed feelings when they come to the first class, a blend of anticipation, excitement and anxiety. So, if you show you care for them, you are ready to be there with them, it is a crucial first connection with your learners. You are connecting emotionally to them, and this is tremendously beneficial to their learning process. 

Well, I´m always willing to give a try to a new icebreaker, a new beginning, so I just came across this wonderful Going to the Moon first-day activity that seems perfect for the group I´m going to teach:
http://expateducator.com/2013/01/28/a-new-school-year-in-the-southern-hemisphere/ . In the same post, there are other interesting ideas to start the school year. 

Throughout the years, CTJ´s Ed Tech Team has been compiling a comprehensive directory of Icebreakers that might suit you and your students. Check them out at:
http://pinterest.com/ctjonline/icebreakers/
http://www.scoop.it/t/warmers-fillers-icebreakers-for-efl-classrooms (Visual collection of ideas for EFL teachers)

http://collablogatorium.blogspot.com/2011/07/icebreakers-not-sleeping-pills.html (Carla Arena's post)

http://ctjconnected.blogspot.com/2010/01/ice-breakers.html (Dani Lyra´s suggestions)

http://tryingoutweb24ed.blogspot.com/p/ice-breakers.html  (Dani Lyra´s suggestions)

http://www.cybraryman.com/icebreakers.html 

Back to School Suggested Activities for young learners - (suggested by Maria da Luz)

Any other suggestions that we might have missed?

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Academic Series - Tuning Up Students Brains' with Lead-Ins

"Years of experience with classroom teaching and more relatively recent research on the stimulation of brain activity indicate a coordinated connection between the eyes, the mind and the body, principally the hands. The experience of sensation related to imagination and thought processes can immediately heighten the experience of learning."

In this special academic series post, Katy Cox, our CTJ educational consultant and former General Academic Coordinator, with years of classroom observation experience, tells us what a lead-in is, its importance to learning and practical ideas for the EFL/ESL classroom.

Other practical ideas for lead-ins to inspire you:

               

               Unit:  Healthy Food

Lead-in props:  two unmarked, closed paper bags, one with a hamburger, the other with fruit that emits a citric or other fruity odor.

Prodecure: after sts enter the classroom, they are invited to smell both bags – without seeing the contents – and say which bag they prefer, and why. The teacher announces that the bag most preferred will be given to a student at the end of the class. The lesson then proceeds with visuals and activities related to the unit topic. Bags are “raffled” randomly to “winners” at the end of the hour.

               Unit: Travel Problems

Lead-in props:  passport, money belt, foreign coins or bills, vaccination form, common medication ( Advil, motion sickness medicine, anti-acid tablets, etc), health insurance card, etc. Each student receives an item and discusses with a partner what importance that item might have on a trip – i.e. you are going to take a trip; how would this item be useful to you? Then go to the second phase: You are in the middle of your trip, and suddenly you don’t have this item; what problems could arise because of this?

Lesson then proceeds with book visuals and related exercises.

               Unit – Good Luck Charms

Lead-in props:  rabbit’s foot, good luck coin, etc; items from various cultures representing talismans which either attract good luck or ward off evil. Students discuss symbolic significance of each item and which aspects of each one might be positive or protective ( i.e. rabbit: agile, fast, prolific in propagation, clever at environmental blending, etc.). The teacher can conduct an auction of the items to see which ones obtain the highest and lowest bids.

Lesson then proceeds with visuals and related exercises.

               Unit -  Sports and Sports equipment

Lead-in props:  blind-fold strips and various kinds of balls (tennis, golf, squash, baseball, etc). Half of the class or groups of three or four blindfold an equal number of students; the teacher gives two or three balls to the blindfolded sts, who pass them among each other, feeling how they are made and of what material. The “seeing” students ask questions about the balls in play. Then the process is reversed, after the first group of balls is identified, and the other students are blindfolded and given a different set of balls. Once all the balls have been identified, the sports which have been mentioned during the “discovery” phase are put into columns on the board in accordance with book indications; this serves as scaffolding for the opening unit page.

Do you have any other suggestions and ideas of lead-ins that worked in your English classes?

Katy Cox

Academic Series - Multiculturalism in the EFL class

We language teachers know that learning a foreign language involves many different aspects. Besides mastering the structure of the language and acquiring the necessary vocabulary to be able to communicate, learners have to be exposed to other features of the language in order to assimilate it in a more holistic manner.

Among the various issues a language program should deal with, the study of culture is a very important one. As Harmer points out,

By the end of the twentieth century, English was already well on its way to becoming a genuine lingua franca, that is a language used widely for communication between people who do not share the same first (or even second) language. (HARMER, 2007, p. 13)

Therefore, teachers should keep in mind that culture and language teaching are intertwined and should not be taught separately, for twenty-first century students need to develop their international communication skills.

Nevertheless, although most teachers know the importance of addressing this topic, they tend to overlook the cultural facets a lesson may bring, and many are the reasons they encounter to justify their choice for not doing so. The most common ones are the lack of time due to the complex school syllabus and their own lack of knowledge of the topic.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yavuzcan/tags/people/ 

Having identified that, we two, as teacher trainers, felt motivated to conduct research on this topic in order to help other teachers become aware of their tasks as purveyors of multiculturalism and also to motivate and encourage them to explore the various cultural aspects present in their lessons.

We then realized that an important question surrounds teachers as they plan their lessons – whose culture should we address? Snow ponders that

As you consider the issue of culture in English language courses, you may tend to think first and foremost of U.S. and British culture, but with a little reflection it is clear that neither of these terms is fully satisfactory as a label for the kind of culture most closely associated with English. (SNOW, 2007, p. 205)

In the globalized culture era, taking multiculturalism into account when planning lessons is imperative. Snow also highlights that

In today’s world, the growing global role of English means that students may need to use English not only for communicating with people from English-speaking countries but also for communicating with people from many other nations and cultures. (SNOW, 2007, p. 211)

With that in mind, the first step to be followed is to spot the cultural themes a lesson may bring. Some lessons present topics in a very overt way, making it easier for teachers to explore them. Moran states that:

… explicit forms of cultural expression, such as perceptions, beliefs, values, and attitudes can be explicitly stated in oral or written form. Therefore, being able to identify any of these themes within a lesson may be the gateway to incorporate cultural subjects into the learning environment. (MORAN, 2001, p. 75)

However, some lessons don’t present evident cultural spots to be explored. That’s when the teacher should analyze them more carefully in order to set a link between the core of the lesson and the globalized world, stressing the importance of addressing and respecting cultural diversity. For instance, any grammar topic can be worked on through examples that contain multicultural information; most listening and reading comprehension tasks can be linked to the students’ personal experiences, as well as to the students’ cultural background; speaking activities can be used as opportunities to demystify stereotypes.

The use of realia

As you can see, various activities can be developed for that purpose. The use of realia, for example, is a great option, for students truly enjoy novelty. A discussion about where such an object comes from, what it’s used for, and how people from different countries would take advantage of it can be a simple but involving activity. Also, as Snow (2007, p. 209) mentions, magazines, newspapers, travel guides, maps, souvenirs are valuable resources that can be used in a variety of ways as a vehicle for allowing students to learn about the cultures of other nations.

Research projects

Another form of tackling culture is through the encouragement of research projects. Having set a link between the lesson topic and culture, the teacher can inspire students to find out more about other countries and their cultures. Students should visit the library, surf the net, and even try to meet foreigners that could share ideas with them. After conducting some research, students should present the results to their classmates or write a report about it. This experience will undoubtedly raise students’ cultural awareness, broadening their understanding of diversity and polishing their international communication skills.

Authentic materials

The printed and visual media are also of a great help when it comes to incorporating culture into the EFL lesson. Besides helping build the reading and listening skills, books, films, and radio broadcasts provide a great deal of cultural knowledge input. Thus, teachers should make use of this rich material to explore both historical and contemporary cultural and social issues.  Pairwork and groupwork activities can be designed to generate discussion about the material studied, always emphasizing the need of respecting diversity.

Critical-incident exercises

The integration of cultural themes into the lesson also plays an important role in the development of intercultural competence. Some activities are proposed by Snow (2007, p. 213) to serve that purpose. He names one of them as critical-incident exercises, which are “useful for encouraging students to be more careful and think more broadly as they interpret the behavior of people from unfamiliar cultural backgrounds.”  Critical-incident exercises consist of two basic parts:

11)    a story in which people of different cultural backgrounds have a communication problem;

22)    a discussion question that invites students to analyze the incident and attempt to arrive at a better understanding of why the problem occurred.

Snow states that

these exercises are a good springboard for discussion of cultural differences, especially differences in beliefs and values. They also help students develop a number of very basic but important intercultural communication skills and habits:

-       They help students become more consciously aware of the processes by which they interpret the behavior of foreigners;

-       They encourage students to pause and think rather than jumping rapidly to conclusions;

-       They help students build the habit of considering a broad variety of possible explanations of behavior that seems strange or problematic rather than stopping with obvious, kneejerk interpretations. (SNOW, 2007, p.213)

These are only a few suggestions on how to make culture themes present in EFL classes. As Brown (2007, p. 133) states, “a language is part of a culture, and a culture is part of a language.”  Once teachers are aware of how much culture surrounds their day-to-day classroom routines, they will be able to come up with a number of ideas on how to culturally enrich their lessons through the use of practical and straightforward activities.

References:

BROWN, H. D. Teaching by Principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy. 3^rd ed. New York: Pearson Education, 2007.

HARMER, J. The Practice of English Language Teaching. 4^th ed. Cambridge: Pearson Longman, 2007.

MORAN, P. R. Teaching Culture: Perspectives in Practice. Boston: Heinle Cengage Learning, 2001.

SNOW, D. From Language Learner to Language Teacher: An introduction to teaching English as a foreign language. 1^st ed. Alexandria: TESOL, 2007.

 

Rethinking Test Reviews - A Digital Twist

Final tests are just around the corner. It is that time of the year that teachers, before starting thinking about their well-deserved vacation, have to focus on how to better review the content for the tests. Though we always feel compelled to try something new and exciting, we are in a period of intense tiredness, so we always go for the simple and easy. And, we, the CTJ Ed Tech Team, feel it is the best approach. However, we´d like to invite you to re-frame your review classes, to think of how you can actively engage students in reinforcing what they´ve been learning, but, mainly, how you can have an exciting grand finale for your students, a memorable time together of practice and interaction. 

Our general approach to reviewing is generally asking our students to do the review handout at home and correct it in class. Or just do the written activity in class. Here´s how you could re-purpose your review class, making students active producers of their own review for the test:

- Use your students´ cellphones:

• Take advantage of notetaking apps. Ask your students to open their notetaking apps and give them an instruction card with what they should add to their note page. Invite them to flip through the lessons and add vocabulary notes, grammar points, writing their own examples to help them remember what they´ve been studying. 
• Ask them to take photos with their cellphones of objects and situations and write sentences to highlight vocabulary or grammar. They can use an app to add the image and the sentences (and trust us, if they have a smartphone, they know how to do it!), or they can use the photos and write their sentences in their notebooks. 
• If you have adult students with Smartphones, ask them to download the app Evernote (http://evernote.com ) before class. With Evernote, the students can open a page, add images, sentences and voice to make their own review. Then they can share a link to their final review page with peers. 
• Students can go through the book and create a short quiz in their cellphone for their peers to answer.

- If you have a set of iPads available:

• You can use the same ideas above we shared for the cellphones
• Use simple book creators apps for students to create their own reviews. After students create it, they can share their review pages with peers and teacher by sending the ebook via email, dropobox, Evenote, as a PDF file.  Here´s an example with the app Book Creator (The Ed Tech Team like it because it is super simple to use it!)

Open publication - Free publishing - More assessment
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vjkjf47iq2wkxj4/Review%20%281%29.pdf 

• In apps like Notability and Penultimate, students can make personalized review pages, recording their voices, adding photos and text to their pages. 
• Students can also open the Pages app to create a page with the main review points
• The Keynote app lets the students produce well-designed reviews that can be shared with peers. One idea is for teachers to give different tasks for different groups of students (some groups are responsible for the vocabulary review, others for the grammar). Once their review is ready, they can plug the iPad to to the projector and present to the whole group. 
• Students can also create a listening quiz for peers. Then, they can exchange iPads, or the teacher can plug the ipad in the classroom loudspeakers and have students answer the audio quiz. (this activity can also be adapted for smartphones) 
• For the younger ones, they can use very simple tools, like Skitch, to write sentences or practice vocabulary. 

- If you have an iPad and a projector in your classroom:

• ask your students to prepare a quiz on a blank sheet of paper, then take a photo of the quiz and project on the board for their classmates to answer the quiz. 
• Take photos around the class to practice certain vocabulary items/expressions/grammar points and do a photo dictation by projecting the images on the board. 

- If you have a computer and a projector in your classroom:

• Here is a nice way to review vocabulary with intermediate and advanced groups using the laptop and the projector in the classroom. It requires no preparation, all you have to do is open a Word document to type in the vocabulary words that need to be reviewed

>> Divide class into 2 teams. Explain that the teams are going to play against each other.One member of the team (at a time) should sit at the front of the classroom with the back facing the board. This way, that student will not see what is going to appear on the projection on the board. The teacher then should type in a vocabulary word. The only student who doesn`t see it is the one sitting at the front. The group , then, should explain the vocabulary so that the student sitting on the chair can guess it. Explain that the group has 3 chances to give an explanation (in other words, up to 3 different students in the group can raise their hands and explain the vocabulary using their own words). The group gets the point if the vocabulary word is guessed correctly.  

Tip: the students can be given the power to choose the vocabulary words used in the game if you assign each team a unit in the book. This way they can pick the words they want to test the opponent team. If you decide to play the game this way, then have them choose the words beforehand.

Remember that the most important aspect of spicing up your review class with digital tools is to make your students active participants in the review activity, in which they are producers of content. By doing that, you are helping them to personalize learning, organize their strategies for learning, and truly understand how they can become autonomous, self-directed learners. 

Remember, however, to keep track of time for students' tasks so that all the main points are reviewed. Also, the paper review is always an important focused practice. Thus,  assign it previously as homework, and be sure to check the main points with students or  let them check their answers with the answer key. Students need a tangible learning object for extra practice to feel safer and more confident when taking the test. So make sure they have either a handout or a digital page, or even better, both!

You might also want to check what teacher Dani Lyra has done with her students to review for the test:

http://tryingoutweb24ed.blogspot.com.br/2012/11/interactive-reviews-2-phrasal-verbs.html
http://tryingoutweb24ed.blogspot.com.br/2012/11/when-assessment-meets-mlearning-phrasal.html

Any other tips or ideas that you´ve tried in your English classroom?

The Ed Tech Team

Vini Lemos, Sílvia Caldas, Carla Arena and Fábio Ferreira

An Alternative to Oral Tests?

Inspired by Isabela’s post on assessment and learning outcomes, I started looking for alternatives to oral assessment and came across this interesting idea on Mr. Negrete’s  EFL Blog. Mr Negrete’s students created videos in English, which were then put up for voting. The students whose video received the most votes would be exempt from the oral part of the midterm examination. If the aim of the oral assessment is indeed to verify whether students have attained the subject matter, then I believe this was a successful project.

One way this form of assessment could be adapted to our EFL teaching reality would be to have students produce either videos or audio podcasts, in which they would use the target language. Even though the product would serve for assessment, I believe one of the main benefits would be all the rehearsing students would go through before handing in a final project, versus the one-chance-only they would have in an oral exam setting, not to mention the reduction in students’ stress and anxiety that usually come with tests.

Some considerations for such a final project:

• Students must know it is a graded exercise (the oral test grade!) and how they will be assessed; rubrics should be clear for students.
• There must be defined tasks; that is, students must know what needs to be present in the final product;
• Students must have the option of taking the oral test if they choose to;
• The teacher must guide students throughout the project, offering orientation and guidance; there must be dates when subproducts are presented, so that any changes can be made before the final product is put up for grading.

A simple example, considering a teacher who wants to test students’ ability to describe people, would be to have them record a game of Guess who?, testing not only describing people but also asking questions. Another variety would be to have students have a telephone conversation, in which one of the students needs to write down a message and deliver it to a person he/she does not know, be it in a party or in a meeting room, with the description and directions given by the other student.

Aligning learning outcomes, instructional strategies and assessment – an example using mLearning and Digital Images by Vinícius Lemos

In the October 2012 special issue of the ELT Journal – The Janus Papers – Stephen Stoynoff looks back at the changes in language assessment and analyzes the transitions under way. With the emerging dominance of a sociocultural paradigm in which learning is seen as a developmental, socially-constructed, interactive, and reflective process, classroom-based assessment will (pp. 527-528):

- integrate the teacher fully into the assessment process including planning assessment, evaluating performance, and making decisions based on the results of assessment

 - be conducted by and under the direction of the learners' teacher (as opposed to an  external   assessor); 

- yield multiple samples of learner performance that are collected over time and by means of multiple assessment procedures and activities; 

- be applied and adapted to meet the teaching and learning objectives of different classes and students;

-  integrate learners into the assessment process and utilize self- and peer-assessment in addition to teacher-assessment of learning; 

- foster opportunities for learners to engage in self-initiated enquiry; 

- offer learners immediate and constructive feedback; 

- monitor, evaluate, and modify procedures to optimize teaching and learning.

Likewise, the National Capital Learning Resource Center (2004) enumerates the following distinguishing features of alternative assessment:

1) Are built around topics or issues of interest to the students;

2) replicate real-world communication contexts and situations;

3) involve multi-stage tasks and real problems that require creative use of language rather than simple repetition;

4) require learners to produce a quality product or performance;

5) include evaluation criteria and standards which are known to the student;

6) involve interaction between assessor (instructor, peers, self) and person assessed;

7) allow for self-evaluation and self-correction as they proceed.

Hence, there’s been a growing interest in integrating classroom teaching, learning, and assessment. According to the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence, Carnegie Mellon University, assessments, learning objectives, and instructional strategies need to be aligned so that they reinforce one another, as the image below shows.

Jon Mueller has a frequently updated webiste entitled Authentic Assessment Toolbox  that not only provides solid theoretical background on authentic assessment, but also offers a variety of tools in which the assessments are perfectly aligned with the learning objectives and the instructional activities. Cecília Lemos has also written inspiring posts on alternative asssessment in her popular blog Box of Chocolates.


Burger (2008) proposes the use of Outcomes-Based Education (OBE), in which the first step in planning teaching is identifying the learning outcomes; these outcomes then determine the teaching and assessment that follow so that the learning can be easily assessed via performance. Aligning learning objectives and instructional activities is not hard at all. The difficult part of the triangle is the assessment part, especially when it comes to oral performance.

How can the teacher possibly assess every student’s performance on an oral task designed to assess the attainment of a learning outcome that was developed by way of perfectly aligned instructional activities? 

How can learners be integrated into the assessment process?


 I’m going to propose an example based on an earlier post on this blog by my colleague Vinicius Lemos – mLearning and Digital images. What he describes in his post is an instructional strategy resulting from previous strategies in which students were taught the clothing vocabulary and the present continuous to talk about what one is wearing. I will attempt here to close the triangle above by spelling out the learning objectives that are implicit in the task and suggest a way of assessing students’ resulting performance.


  Learning outcome 1: Given a specific event, students will select and photograph the appropriate pieces of clothing to wear and describe their picture to their classmates using the present continuous and the correct indefinite article before each piece of clothing.

  Learning outcome 2: Given a picture with pieces of clothing that suggest a specific event, students will be able to ask questions using “Are you going to…” and vocabulary to talk about specific events.


 I suggest having students work in pairs rather than in groups to perform the activity, according to the outcomes above: Student A shows and describes his picture using the required language; student B asks questions to guess the event. Then they switch roles.

 Students can practice this exchange with two or three different pairs, as the teacher walks around and monitors their performance. The third or fourth time around, they are asked to record their exchanges, using their smartphones or, if available, the computer lab or a set of iPads. After they finish, they listen to their performance and engage in self-assessment of their part of the recording, according to a can-do checklist that can contain items such as:

 - I can name all the pieces of clothing. 
 - I can use the correct article for pieces of clothing in the singular starting with a vowel or consonant sound and no article for plural. 
- I can describe what I’m wearing using the present continuous. 
- I can name events such as school, work, picnic, wedding, etc. 
- I can ask questions about where a person is going based on their outfit. 
 - I can produce the language described above in a natural way, without too much hesitation or many long pauses to think. 


They judge their performance and if they think it needs improvement, they can record the conversation again, making the necessary adjustments. Then they send the recording to the teacher, who will use rubrics to assess students’ attainment of the two outcomes above. The teacher’s rubrics need to be similar to the students’, but should contain at least three levels of performance with appropriate descriptions.

Suppose each unit in the language program’s assessment cycle consists of five learning outcomes. Then each outcome can be worth 20 points. If the teacher conducts these types of assessments right after the instructional strategy, in such a way that the strategy is the assessment and vice-versa, at the end the student will have a grade on a 0-100 scale for oral performance.


Who needs a midterm or end-of-term oral test after that?


 The proposed assessment system here is in keeping with Stoyoff's (2012) list of characteristics of contemporary classroom-based assessment: it integrates the teacher fully into the process; it is conducted by the teacher; it can be one of a variety of samples of learnt performance collected over time, using multiple procedures; it meets the learning objectives, it integrates learners into the assessment process; it offers immediate and constructive feedback; and it allows the teacher to monitor, evaluate, and modify procedures to optimize teaching and learning.


 References:

Burger, M. (2008). The alignment of teaching, learning and assessment in English home language grade 10 in District 9, Johannesburg (Dissertation). University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa.

 
 
National Capital Language Resource Center (NCLRC). (2004) Assessing learning: Alternative assessment. In The essentials of language teaching. Retrieved from http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/assessing/alternative.htm

Stoynoff, S. (2012). Looking backward and forward at classroom-based language assessment. In ELT Journal, V. 66/4 – Special Issue: The Janurs Papers, pp. 523-532.

This post is cross-posted in my blog http://isabelavillasboas.wordpress.com/
If you want to read more about assessment and other TEFL issues, pay me a visit there.