Table Of Content8 Assessment Tips
Easy to Implement Ideas for Thematic Units
Eugenia Porello
The first step in creating a • How am I going to prepare the students to perform well in
Thematic Unit is the creation these assessments?Whenplanning out yourlessons, try to
of appropriate assessment useteachingstrategiesthatarecommunicative, student-cen
tools. Before starting to de tered, and as real-to-life as possible. Make it apoint to use
velop your lesson plans for authentic products such as songs, legends, stories directly
the unit, ask yourself the fol from the culture rather than textbook materials
lowing questions:
What do I want my students Heie is a key rule:
to be able to do? (When set
tingyourgoals, think interms Be sure to teach in the
of real communication like same way that you will assess
greeting other people appropriately, introducing yourself, your students. Your assess
ordering food or giving instructions) ment should correlate with
your everyday lesson plans.
• Whatlanguagearetheygoingtoneedtouse?Thinkin terms For instance if your project
of functional chunks of language (Curtain & Dahlberg, involves the creation of a
2004, p. 37) and specific vocabulary dialogue, the students should
see dialogues (puppets, vid
Functional Chunks of Language eos, heritage speakers), prac
tice their own impromptu
“me Ilanio (my name is. ..)
dialogues with different scenarios and evaluate their own
“me gusto (I like...) performance based on the rubric. If students waste a lot of
energy to adapt to the test itself, the assessment becomes an
“Creo que no.”(1 don’t think so.) obstacle rather than a tool for measuring progress.
Specific Vocabulary
un cuarlo’’(a room) Your assessment (created or
modified) must:
“la piscina’’ (the swimming pool)
• Reflecttheobjectivestargeted
“cru:ar”(to exchange greetings) in your thematic unit. (Make
4
N your stu(lents aware of those
objectives atthebeginning of
the unit)
After setting your commi • Feature deliberately planned
nication and language goals tasks that are real-to-life,
you will need to figure out: intrinsically motivating and
meaningful to you and the
• How will I be able to tell ii students
the students met the objec • Have clearly stated and measurableexpectations defined in
tives? Whendesigningyour arubric, written in student-friendly language. (This rubric
assessments, create tasks, must be available to students before starting the project)
exercises and projects that
“force” them to use those • Provide a realistic time frame for completion that is flex
languagefunctions thatyou ible but controlled
had in mind.
Images©2005Jupiter(mages.com
22 1 eanhin I anuaes VOLUMEXII,NUMBERI FALL2006
_________________
• Include all the necessary forms and paper trail to track friendly and descriptive.
student work.
• The best rubric is not guaranteed to be child proof. Your
• Display avariety ofsamples by fellow studentstoillustrate students may hone in on those unsuspected grey areas in
the spectrum ofproject quality from greatto poor. your rubric, giving them exciting new grounds to chal
• Appeal to a variety of intelligences and sometimes offer lenge a grade. Don’t despair! Smile, be fair, learn from
different options for the output. your mistakes and edit the gray area out of the rubric for
next time.
Rubrics are a “must have”
when evaluating performanc Make it Measurable
es. Well-designed rubrics are
useful because they... Instead of Use
Set clear expectations and excellent extensive and appropriate
prevent misunderstandings of vocabulary
the “you-didn’t-say-that-was-
important” variety. Students beautiful colorful, clear and clean
know exactly what to do and
great performance good eye contact
how they will be scored.
Take the mystery out of the fantastic delivery evidence of rehearsal, script
grade. not read
• Provide an excellent tool to guide the growth of student good communication used communication strategies
skills to maintain conversation
• Allow forfeedbackfrom the teacher and other students on a:
skill strengths and weaknesses
There are many types of Here are a few suggestions to
rubrics: holistic, analytical, smooth the implementation.
graded and longitudinal. You
Presenttheprojecttoyourstu
can find online tools to help
dents with a complete packet
you create them. But, it willnot
that includes the description
be long before you will realize
of the project, the rubric, the
these simple rubrics truths:
timeframeand supportmate
• The ACTFL performance rial. Students can stay better
guidelines (ACTFL, 1998) organized when they have an
individualfolderforthe dura
take the guesswork out of
whatisanappropriatelevel of tion ofthe task.
performance to expect from ‘ • Discussthe objectives,expec
our learners. tations and time frame with your students.
• Creating and modifying rubrics is time consuming. Never • Consider appropriate options when forming groups. For
underestimate the amountofeffortrequired tomakeagood example, students submit a list of the three partners they
rubric. Haveitcritiquedbycolleagues: makesure you wrote prefer. This can be a learning experience if students tell
it in language students can understand; express every item why they think they could work well with such people in
in measurable terms; and think aboutoutlierperformances the target language
such as those by heritage speakers. • Set in motion all the checks and balances that will allow
• You can always improve a rubric. Each time you use a you to keep everyone honest, speaking the target language
rubric, you will find ways to make it more measurable, and on task.
FALL2006. VOLUMEXU,NuMBER1 . Learning Languages 23
Online Resources for this Issue
• Setmeasurable deadlines. They can be 3 minutes or3 days
long and may be worth a percentage ofthe final grade. The VirtualAssessmentCenter
• Take a few minutes to set up your room for presentations. hosted by the CenterforAdvanced
Create areas forthe stage, the audience and a“grading sta Research on LanguageAcquisition
tion” with all the necessary tools (rubrics, forms, student (www.carla.com/assessmentNAC/)
lists, highlighters, grade book.) offers an excellentoverview ofassess
• Duringtheperformances, theotherstudents shouldprovide ment. Itanswers essential questions
anonymous feedbacktotheperformers. Make sureyoutrain like “Why assess?” and “What am I
them to be honest and positive about this first. Students assessing?”
can do this orally or in written form to keep everyone ac
countable. For language control you will needto provide a
wordbankto help themexpress theiropinions in thetarget CenterforApplied Linguistics
language. (www.cal.org) offers information about
oral proficiencytesting forearly lan
guage learners.Also available are the
Before rushing on to the Foreign LanguageTest Database and
next big project, closure can the CALdigests.
solidify the lessons learned.
The class can reflect on what
they learned and where to go The Consortium forAssessing
from here. Performance Standards (www.
fienj.org/caps/) offersfree assess
Students can provide sugges
ment tasks for download centered
tions for improving the task
around themes and the three modes
and rubric.
ofcommunication. Each thematically
Student can share techniques organized assessment includes the
that they learning from each task and rubrics. See opposite page
other’s performance forthe article.
• They can share their products with other classes, other
schools, parents, on DVD with students from other coun
tries. American Council on the Teaching
of Foreign Languages (www.aCtfl.
org) TheACTFLperformance guide
lines mentioned in several articles are
References
available in the publications section of
ACTFL. (1998). In Swender E. & Duncan G (Eds.), ACTFL Performance theweb site. The Executive Summary
Guidelines for K-12 Learners. Yonkers, NY. ofthe ofthe National Standards for
Curtain, H., & Dahlberg, C. (2004). Languages and Children: Making Foreign Language Learning is also
the Match (3rd ed). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. (Original work available online.
published 1988)
Eugenia Porello was born in Córdoba, CenterforApplied Second Lan
Argentina. She is an artist and ateacher. guage Studies atthe University of
After graduating as a teacher of English Oregon. Visit http://caslsuoregon.edu!
from the National University of COrdoba
andtakingherfirststepsintothelanguage for more information on the NOELLA
classroom, her relentless drive to sketch testing. This attractive site includes
everything around continued to grow articles and resources to support
and develop. She now teaches eighth teachers and “proficiency-based tools
grade students in the Princeton Regional
Schools. She has a Master’s Degree in for lifelong language learning and
Applied Spanish at The College of New teaching.” See article on page 18
Jersey. She is also co-authoring her first
bookontheuseoflegendsasavehicleto
teach Spanish.
24 LearnincLanguaces • VOLUMEXII,NUMBER1 . FALL2006
