ASSESSING YOUNG LEARNERS Sophie loannou-Georgiou & Pavlos PavlouContents The authors and series editor 1 Foreword 2 Introduction 3 How to use this book 19 Activity Age Level Time — Page (minutes) 1 _ Language portfolios 23 Whatis a portfolio 23 Why portfolios? 23 Guidelines for using portfolios 24 Portfolio ideas 29 2 Listening 34 2.1. Whatare they doing? 6and above Beginners 15-20 35 2.2 Clothes 6and above Beginners 15 37 2.3. Inthe classroom 6andabove Beginners 10 38 2.4 Fruitfool 8andabove Elementary 10 39 2.5 Crazy weather 10and above Elementary 10 41 3 Speaking 43 3.1 Getting to know you 6andabove Beginners 15 44 3.2 Hickory dickory dock 6and above Beginners week 46 3.3 Monster differences 8andabove Beginners 20 49 3.4 Lookatmy room Bandabove Elementary 15-20 52 3.5 Who's got my shopping? 10and above Elementary 15-20 53 3.6 They’re the best 8andabove Elementary 10 55 4 Reading 58 4.1 Problems at the zoo 6and above Beginners 10 58 4.2 Zinky’shome 6and above Beginners 10 594.3 Messages on the fridge 6andabove Beginners 10 62 44 Grandma’s garden 8andabove Elementary 15 63 4.5 Acartoon strip 8andabove Elementary 20-30 64 4.6 Atthezoo 10andabove Pre-intermediate 10 66 5S Writing 68 5.1 What’s missing? 6andabove Beginners 10-15 68 5.2 Introduce yourself, 6andabove Beginners 10 70 5.3 My favourite programme Sandabove Elementary 15-20 71 5.4 Lostand found Sandabove Elementary 20 1% 5.5 Petneeds home Sand above Elementary 15-20 76 5.6 Writing about people 10andabove Pre-intermediate 20-25 78 6 Integrated skills 80 6.1 Endangered species 6andabove Beginners 120+ 80 6.2 Amini-play 8andabove Elementary 80+ 86 6.3 Favourite songs and musicians 10 andabove Pre-intermediate 100+ 93 7 Grammar 99 7.1 Colour the picture 6andabove Beginners 10 100 7.2 Like-Idon’t like 8andabove Beginners 20 101 7.3 Families 8andabove Beginners 20 103 7.4 Wego together! 8andabove Elementary 10 105 8 — Self-assessment 106 8.1 Attitudes towards English lessons All All 10 107 8.2 Activity likes and dislikes All All 5 109 8.3 Apicture of achievement All All 110 8.4 Tortoise race All All 15 112 8.5 Language skills 10andabove All 10 114 8.6 Coursebook-based self-assessment All All 10-15 116 8.7 Journal writing All All 5-10 118 8.8 Speaking task performance Bandabove Elementaryand 5 120 above 9 Learning how to learn 122 9.1 Usinga dictionary to locate words 8andabove Beginners 10 1239.2 Guess the word 8and above Elementary 15 125 9.3 The princess and the dragon Sand above Elementary 15 126 9.4 Taboo! 10and above Pre-intermediate 20 128 9.5 | Mycomputer’s gone crazy! 10andabove Pre-intermediate 10 131 10 Record keeping and reporting 133 10.1 Termvsemester report 134 10.2 Term report with emphasis on attitudes 135 10.3 Class progress chart 135 10.4 Report focusing on an individual skill: speaking 136 10.5 Child-oriented report A: Happy flowers 138 10.6 Child-oriented report B: Athletes on the podium 140 10.7 Course-specific progress report 140 10.8 Class observation 141 10.9 Speaking task report 143, 10.10 Writing task report 144 Photocopiable worksheets 145 Further reading 184 Index 185The authors and series editor Sophie Ioannou-Georgiou trained as a primary school teacher and then went on to specialize in the teaching of English as a Foreign Language. She studied for a Postgraduate Diploma in ‘TEFL and then for an MA in TEFL at the University of Reading. She has taught EFL at a variety of levels and institutions and has also worked for the Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture as part of a team to produce a series of textbooks for the teaching of EFL at Cyprus State Primary Schools. Until recently she worked as a teacher trainer and dealt with the in-service training of primary school teachers at the Cyprus Pedagogical Institute. She is currently studying for a PhD at the University of Nottingham. Pavlos Paviou is an applied linguist, teacher trainer, and language teacher. He received his education at the University of Vienna, Austria, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, USA (MA in Applied Linguistics and German) and at Georgetown University (PhD in Applied Linguistics). He has taught linguistics, English for Academic Purposes, and English, French, German, and Greek as a Foreign Language at al levels at various colleges and language schools in Cyprus. Since 1997 he has been working at the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Cyprus where he teaches EFL methodology, language testing, and sociolinguistics. He also participates in the pre-service training for English teachers organized by the Cyprus Pedagogical Institute. Alan Maley worked for The British Council from 1962 to 1988, serving as English Language Officer in Yugoslavia, Ghana, Italy, France, and China, and as Regional Representative in South India (Madras). From 1988 to 1993 he was Director-General of the Bell Educational Trust, Cambridge. From 1993 to 1998 he was Senior Fellow in the Department of English Language and Literature of the National University of Singapore. He is currently a freelance consultant and Director of the graduate programme at Assumption University, Bangkok. Among his publications are Literature, in this series, Beyond Words, Sounds Interesting, Sounds Intriguing, Words, Variations on a Theme, and Drama Techniques in Language Learning (all with Alan Duff), The Mind’s Eye (with Francoise Grellet and Alan Duff), Learning to Listen and Poem into Poem (with Sandra Moulding), Short and Sweet, and The English Teacher’sVoice.Foreword Itis generally accepted that we teach young learners differently from older ones. A whole range of entertaining, motivating, creative, and above all, physically engaging activities has been developed in recent years, to keep pace with the growth in demand for materials to teach this special group of learners. However, when it comes to assessing the progress of young learners, we often find ourselves driven back on testing materials which are more appropriate for use with older learners. This book will therefore be particularly welcome as it attempts to link assessment with instruction. If teaching is focused on physically engaging, creative, entertaining activities, then these should also be the focus of any assessment which is carried out. Teaching and assessment thus become congruent, not inconsistent. ‘The book advocates the active involvement of children in their own assessment. A number of suggestions are made for doing this. These include the use of language portfolios, which constitute a running record of the child’s progress in consultation with the child; structured assessment activities/tasks, where ‘normal’ activities are given an assessment focus; projects; self-assessment; peer assessment; learner-developed assessment tasks; and observation/conferencing. There is even a place for more traditional tests in this scheme. Itis important to emphasize this wide range of assessment tools, since it gives the teacher flexibility to take account of learner/group differences, and the ability to decide on more or less formal/consultative modes of assessment to suit each case. It should be stressed that, although the forms of assessment closely mirror the forms of teaching, they have a clearly defined, distinct focus. The aims, criteria, and measurable results mark assessment off from ‘normal’ teaching activities. This book therefore satisfies the justifiable desire on the part of parents, schools, and other authorities for evidence that learning has taken place. But, above all, it can contribute to the children’s sense of pride in their achievement, and thus motivate them to make further progress. Alan MaleyIntroduction This book proposes ways of assessing children learning English asa second or foreign language and provides ideas for classroom-based assessment. Although some of the assessment activities may also be relevant to external exams such as the UCLES Young Learners Exams, the main concern of this book is to provide assessment closely related to the learning process. By this we mean that the purpose of the assessment ideas outlined here is to serve teaching and learning by providing feedback to you and the children, encouraging a positive classroom atmosphere, and promoting and maintaining strong motivation for learning English, Who is this book for? Young learners ‘The assessment tasks and techniques in this book are aimed at primary and early secondary school children aged six to twelve Jearning English as a second or foreign language. Children in this age group can sometimes be negatively affected by assessment techniques used for older learners. What this book suggests is an approach more suited to the needs of 6-12 year olds. Children vary in maturity, learning experiences, and overall background. Consequently, the techniques we recommend may be suitable for the target age group in one context, but not for the same age group in another context. Your role as the teacher is very important, since only you can judge whether a technique is suitable for your class or not. An assessment activity pitched at the children’s evel may be very motivating for them, whereas one designed for a different level can be quite damaging. Most of the assessment techniques in this book suggest a number of possible variations, ‘enabling you to choose the variation best suited to your class. Teachers This book will be useful to both experienced teachers and new teachers who: —teach young children and want help on how to assess them —do not want the curriculum to be dictated by the syllabus of external exams —want to have a say in how their children are assessed —want child-friendly, classroom-based assessmentINTRODUCTION — question whether traditional assessment methods are suitable for their pupils and want to try alternative methods of assessment ~are studying assessment methods at college, university, or teacher training college. Itis also for teacher-trainers who want to recommend appropriate assessment approaches for use with children. Evaluation, assessment, and testing ‘The terms evaluation, assessment, and testing are often confused and used interchangeably. They do not, however, mean the same thing. Testing is just one part of assessment. Assessment and evaluation are more general, more global processes. Evaluation Evaluation is the process of gathering information in order to determine the extent to which a language programme meets its goals, Relevant information can be teachers’ and parents’ opinions, textbook quality, exam results, and children’s attitudes. Some of the tools of the evaluation process are tests, questionnaires, textbook analysis, and observation. Assessment ‘This is a general term which includes all methods used to gather information about children’s knowledge, ability, understanding, attitudes, and motivation. Assessment can be carried out through a number of instruments (for example, tests, self-assessment), and can be formal or informal, Testing ‘Testing is one of the procedures that can be used to assess a child’s performance. A test has a certain objective, for example, to see to what extent a child understands a written text. The test then checks whether the child has achieved this objective. Testing uses tasks or exercises and assigns marks or grades based on quantifiable results. Teaching and assessment Asa teacher, you are accountable for children’s progress first to the children themselves, also to the parents, the head teacher, the school authorities, and others. Consequently, you need evidence of the children’s progress. Resorting to traditional tests, although they are widely accepted and generally considered objective, is not the ideal solution for children. Children are different from other groups of learners. Traditional tests can have negative effects on their self-INTRODUCTION 5 esteem, motivation, and overall attitudes towards learning and the target language. ‘The recognition that children have special needs has led to the development of effective teaching methodologies that take into account children’s creativity and their love of play, songs, rhymes, activity, and role play. These methodologies also recognize children’s limitations in terms of their short attention span, their cognitive development, and their specific areas of interest. As these methodologies have been introduced into classroom teaching, classrooms have become more learner-centred and child-friendly. Assessment, on the other hand, although an integral part of teaching that should reflect and complement the methodologies used in class, has not developed in the same way. This problem has long been recognized but only recently addressed. Some teachers resort to external exams under pressure of accountability, tailoring their lessons to train their children for the chosen exam. In so doing, they often miss out on methodologies appropriate to children. ‘This book responds to the need to assess children appropriately. ‘The assessment tools we advocate are based on communicative language learning, task-based learning, appropriateness for children, authenticity, learner training, learner autonomy, and critical reflection. The assessment tasks we suggest are closely linked to the classroom practices used today with children. The children will therefore be familiar with the format of the assessment tasks, so they don’t see them as something different or alien, and the tasks do not create anxiety or other negative feelings. On the contrary, they can encourage positive attitudes in that they may be seen as a fan thing to do, Why assess young children? Assessment may at first sound threatening and not suited to a child’s nature, but it is a necessary part of teaching and learning. ‘Assessment can serve the following purposes: \ To monitor and aid children’s progress A teacher needs to be constantly aware of what the children know, what difficulties they are experiencing, and how best to help them. On the basis of assessment outcomes you are able to give individualized help to each child, To provide children with evidence of their progress and enhance motivation Assessment results give children tangible evidence of their progress. Learning a language is a long process, Achieving short-term goals (for example, knowing the colours, being able to tell the time) canINTRODUCTION boost children’s motivation and encourage them to persist in their efforts. Assessment can also help children to focus on areas that need more work before they can achieve a short-term goal. Becoming aware of the progress expected of them within a given time-frame can motivate children, as they see themselves getting closer to their goal. ‘This makes them try harder to achieve their goal. When they have positive assessment results before them, they feel their efforts are worthwhile. This encourages them to keep on trying. This is why it is so important to pitch assessment activities to the children’s level. To encourage weaker children, it may sometimes even be a good idea to give them an easier test. To monitor your performance and plan future work The information you get from assessment can help you to evaluate your own work, to find out how effective you have been and how successful your chosen methodology or materials were. You are then able to plan, modifying aspects of your teaching (books, materials, methodology, etc.) as necessary, and develop techniques and methods for responding to the children’s individual needs. To provide information for parents, colleagues, and school authorities Many other people, besides the children and the teacher, need to be kept informed on the children’s progress. Parents, for example, need to know whether their children’s efforts and the school’s/teacher’s language programme are yielding satisfactory results. Colleagues benefit when assessment results are kept by the school and passed on to future class teachers. This gives them a profile of each child’s strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, the teachers themselves know that they will often be judged by the school on the basis of the learners’ results among other things. Assessment results are then seen as evidence of the teacher’s teaching effectiveness. What do we assess? ‘The following skills and attitudes should be assessed: Skills development Although language often involves the use of all four skills in an integrated way, in assessment we may want to consider each skill separately, so that we can examine the children’s progress and/or detect problems in that particular skill. This can sometimes be difficult because assessing one skill often requires the use ofINTRODUCTION 7 another. In such cases you need to ensure that your main focus is on the skill you are assessing. Listening is an active skill that includes the use of many sub-skills such as predicting content, inferring meaning ftom content, listening for gist, and listening for detailed information. Children are able to use the basic sub-skills in their own language. Some of these sub-skills, such as inferring meaning and predicting content, should also be practised in the foreign language class. Training children to do this gives them a head start in their learning career. Assessment should, therefore, check progress in a variety of listening sub-skills. Speaking also consists of anumber of elements such as pronunciation, intonation, and turn-taking, But the overall aim of speaking is to achieve oral communication, i.e. to be able to convey messages. When assessing children, the emphasis should be on their communicative ability in basic functions such as asking questions or introducing themselves. Reading involves various sub-skills similar to the ones in listening: reading for detail (intensive reading), reading for gist (skimming), reading for specific information (scanning), predicting content, and inferring meaning from content and context. Again it is important to help children to develop these sub-skills. They are helpful as learning strategies which will, in turn, make for successful reading and thus increase children’s exposure to the target language. ‘Therefore reading sub-skills should be regularly assessed. Writing is considered the most difficult language skill, since it includes so many other elements such as handwriting, spelling, syntax, grammar, paragraphing, ideas, etc. For this age group the most important writing skills are mastering the Roman alphabet, copying, handwriting, spelling, and basic sentence formation. Integrated skills Assessing skills separately may be justified for assessment purposes but often it does not reflect real-life language use. All language skills are integrated in real life and rarely used in isolation. For this reason, they should also be assessed integratively. Assessing integrated skills allows for techniques that simulate real- life situations and monitor the children’s ability to cope in situations where they have to draw on more than one language skill. Learning how to learn In today’s fast-changing world, children have to be trained to use a variety of learning skills and to discover the most effective ones for them. This will help them to become autonomous learners and to deal with the constant need to acquire new knowledge. Skills such as using a dictionary, the Internet or other resources, checking and reflecting on their own learning, reviewing their work, and organizing their learning will maximize the results of theINTRODUCTION children’s efforts. They should, therefore, also be assessed in these skills. Assessing learning-how-to-learn skills is important since it will help children realize the importance of such skills, and also help them to develop useful learning habits and influence the rest of their learning career. Attitudes Fostering positive attitudes in childhood should be a priority, since this is the best time to form strong positive attitudes towards learning, the target language, and the target culture. Negative attitudes formed at this stage are hard to change in the future. Attitude assessment can be done during conferencing (short, private conversations with the children) or through questionnaires and observation. Although it is not possible to award objective marks for attitudes, motivation, pleasure in learning, and interest in the target culture, you can create profiles of individual children, describing their attitudes, and compile reports for parents, colleagues, and school authorities. Most importantly, assessment of attitudes will enable you to intervene if a child expresses over- negative feelings. Behavioural and social skills ‘Teachers, regardless of their individual subjects, are above all charged with the education and development of the child as a whole person. Becoming a good team member, being polite, being sensitive to others’ feelings and appreciative of their efforts are some of the qualities all subject teachers should promote and assess. How do we assess children? Children usually do not choose to learn a foreign language. The decision is made for them either by their parents or by the school authorities. They are still too young to recognize the usefulness of a foreign language. Therefore they need other reasons to motivate them and to keep them learning. A friendly environment can offer such motivations. You can make learning as enjoyable as possible through drawing, games, songs, puzzles, and drama. Nevertheless, your hard work in establishing a motivating atmosphere and positive attitudes towards learning English can be severely damaged when it comes time for assessment. To avoid this, we propose that you carry out assessment in a way that protects the positive atmosphere and attitudes towards English and learning in general. Some of the methods we propose are: structured assessment activities/tasks, take-home assessment tasks, portfolio assessment, and other methods discussed below. We believe these methods not only preserve but also enhance the positive learning atmosphere in a classroom.INTRODUCTION 9 In presenting the assessment methods which follow, we have discussed each one separately for reasons of clarity and practicality. ‘They are, however, interrelated. The use of portfolios as an assessment tool is a method that includes all the others. A portfolio creates a complete picture of a child’s achievement by collating information obtained through tests, projects, and conferencing notes. Projects, on the other hand, can involve structured assessment tasks, self- and peer-assessment, as well as observation notes. Classroom assessment that generates useful information for teaching and learning will naturally involve the use of more than one of the following methods of assessment. Portfolio assessment A language portfolio is a collection of samples of work produced by the child over a period of time. These samples can include written work, drawings, projects, a record of books read, recordings (audio or video), test results, self-assessment records, and teacher and parent comments. The children are ultimately responsible for their portfolio. The choice of what goes into the portfolios is based on specific criteria agreed on by you and the children together. Keeping a portfolio is an ongoing process which includes selection of work samples, portfolio review, withdrawal of samples, deciding on new additions, etc. A portfolio is useful to you when you are carrying out your assessment or profiling, because it offers you a more complete picture of a child’s work and development than any other assessment technique. It is also important to parents, future teachers, and school authorities because it gives them a complete picture of what the child is able to do and enables them to see the child’s progress over the year. Primarily, however, the portfolio should be for the children themselves. This is especially true of young learners, for whom the portfolio can be an exciting project and the showcase for their new-found knowledge and ability. Structured assessment activities/tasks Structured assessment activities are tasks organized by the teacher in order to assess knowledge, skills (including communication skills), and attitudes, as well as the ability to apply these to new situations. These activities/tasks can be constructed in such a way that they reflect sound teaching principles such as creating authentic, child- centred activities. Activities particularly suitable for children are ones in which they demonstrate understanding by doing. Activities such as drawing, miming, cutting and pasting, pointing, touching, etc. are particularly useful for assessing receptive skills, since they do not require verbal performance. Drawing activities, for example, allow children to respond toa question or solve a task, thus demonstrating their understanding10 INTRODUCTION and awareness of the language without having to use verbal communication. For younger or shy children who may need a silent period before starting to use the language and for weaker children who may be lacking in productive skills, this can be an effective way of allowing them to demonstrate their abilities. Projects Projects are especially suitable for assessing mixed-ability groups. ‘You can assign or avoid assigning specific tasks according to the children’s particular abilities. Moreover, projects lend themselves to integrating language skills and promoting student creativity. Projects can, however, be more demanding in terms of organization and assessment because they involve assessing both group work and individual contribution to the group. For advice and ideas, see Projects with Young Learners in this series. Self-assessment Self-assessment is extremely important in that it promotes invaluable learning skills such as monitoring one’s own progress, reflecting on one’s abilities and learning styles, and setting personal goals. It also gives children an insight into the assessment criteria used by others, Furthermore, the children benefit from feeling that they have a say in their assessment. This gives them a certain sense of empowerment. Children are able to use basic criteria to assess themselves but they may need more guidance and time than older learners. Expect children to take a long time before they are able to use self- assessment effectively — be patient and persistent! It is important that you recognize the amount of time and guidance the children will need before becoming familiar with each task type. Some of the most widely used self-assessment methods are: portfolios, questionnaires, conferencing, graphic representations, and dialogue journals. They can all be used with children, even if the process has to be carried out initially in the mother tongue. Peer-assessment Learning and assessment can be more fun when it is done with friends. Peer-assessment can positively influence the classroom atmosphere because children learn to respect and accept each other through assessing each other’s work. Peer-assessment fosters the feeling that the classroom is a community working towards the same goal. Over time, this sense of community carries over into other classroom activities as well. It minimizes the negative aspects of competition and encourages trust among children. The children also discover that they can learn from their peers, not just from their teacher, and gain further insight and responsibility in applying assessment criteria.INTRODUCTION n Asis the case with self-assessment, children may take some time before they can carry out peer-assessment effectively. Some children may continue to be self-centred and immature, but repeated practice of peer-assessment, objective assessment criteria, and the presence of a teacher who is fair and appreciative of the children’s efforts, will eventually lead to the resolution of most personality/maturity problems. Traditional tests ‘There are certain advantages to using traditional tests such as multiple-choice questions, true-false statements, and cloze-tests. ‘They are objective, easy to mark, and easy to prepare. Nevertheless, the traditional testing philosophy is not an ideal approach for children. Children see tests as intimidating and stressful. Furthermore, we should bear in mind that traditional tests do not tell us much about what children can actually do. All they usually give the children as feedback is a grade or mark. Any information on children’s progress derived from traditional tests should usually be complemented with information gathered through other assessment techniques. Learner-developed assessment tasks Children can contribute to the content of an assessment task or actually create a task of their own. Discussion of task content with the teacher helps to encourage responsibility and maturity, because the children have to think about what they are supposed to know and have to set appropriate performance criteria. ‘When children are involved in preparing the assessment task or parts of the task themselves, the assessment procedure becomes even more personalized and less threatening. The children may make materials to be included in the task, write questions from which you select a sample, write questions for others to answer, or write sentences or paragraphs to be used as reading comprehension assessment tasks, Take-home tasks A take-home task is one that children can complete at home after discussion with you. The children are given a deadline to meet. Such tasks are usually integrative (e.g. projects) and have a number of advantages. They are particularly suitable for mixed-ability classes, because the children have the freedom to choose how to go about completing their task, how much time to spend on it, when to work onit, and what level of performance they perceive as satisfactory in the light of their own abilities. Take-home assessment tasks also foster autonomous learning, since the children assume responsibility for completing the task on their own, disciplining themselves, setting their own deadlines, deciding12 INTRODUCTION how much time they need to complete the task, and ensuring the completion, quality, and return of the task to the teacher. All of these steps go hand-in-hand with learning-how-to-learn skills. Observation ‘You observe your children every single lesson and make dozens of judgements every day. Are the children following the instructions? Is Costas performing the task correctly? Is José bored? Alll these considerations are a continuous assessment of the children’s behaviour, attitudes, and performance. However, these observations are not usually systematically recorded and so cannot be used for assessment purposes. ‘To record observations systematically, try to make short notes soon after the lesson and, keep them on file; or you can use checklists (see 10.8), and tick them during or after the lesson. Even organized in this way, observations are very subjective and should be used in combination with other assessment methods. Conferencing By conferencing we mean informal and friendly chats you have with the children, during which they should feel comfortable enough to express themselves freely. Conferencing may be carried out either ona one-to-one basis or in small groups of four or five children. In rare cases you may have the luxury of being able to take the children to another room for conferencing. More often, your only option is to do your conferencing while the rest of the class is engaged in written or other work. Conferencing can take place at the beginning of the course, when a new child joins the class, at the end of a specific unit, during portfolio reviews, before an important exam, or when there is a specific problem to deal with. You can also use conferencing to assess speaking skills, in which case you do it in the target language and use appropriate activities. It is particularly suitable for assessing attitudes, learning styles, and extensive reading. You can also use it in portfolio assessment and to complete or check information you have gathered through observation or other methods. If you are using conferencing as a means of assessing attitudes or skills other than speaking, we recommend you do it in the children’s mother tongue when the children’s ability in English is limited. Itmight be helpful to give children some questions to think about beforehand, e.g. What do you think is your best piece of rvork? Iffinding time for conferences is very difficult, you could perhaps consider a written conference where children fill in an evaluation sheet or questionnaire and you comment on it.INTRODUCTION 1B Is this assessment? Ifyou have been using traditional tests, you may understandably be questioning the suitability of the proposed tasks as assessment tools. Understandably, because the tasks represent a different approach to assessment and probably look much more like classroom activities. However, itis our firm belief that assessment tasks for classroom- based assessment should reflect teaching practices. Despite their resemblance to classroom activities, the proposed assessment methods are different from teaching activities in the following ways: Aims Assessment tasks aim to check children’s language-learning progress. You do them in order to assess the children’s progress, not to teach or practise language. The assessment tasks are therefore constructed in such a way that the area to be assessed is clearly defined and isolated from other areas. If, for example, our aim is to assess reading, children will not be required to write; if our aim is to assess listening, the children will not be asked to produce spoken or written language. Measurable results Assessment tasks produce measurable evidence of each individual child’s language development. After you have carried out an assessment task you will know exactly what each child can or cannot do in terms of the predetermined aims of the activity. (For example, you will know that Evi can say the colours. Nacia can recognize the numbers 1-10.) Assessment criteria Each assessment task specifies a set of criteria defining what the children should be able to do in order to demonstrate their grasp of the particular area assessed. The assessment criteria are expressed as actions through which the children demonstrate their ability/development. Children’s predisposition towards the activity When older children know they are going to be assessed, they will usually prepare beforehand, do their best during the assessment, and take more notice of post-assessment feedback. These behaviours are noticeably different from the children’s usual behaviour in the classroom. Timing Assessment tasks are set at specific times during the learning process, usually at the end of a unit, or after presentation and practice of specific language items or skills, so that you can check the children’s learning. They can also be used diagnostically when you want to find out what the children already know. Children’s participation Children have to take part in assessment tasks, whereas you may allow children not to participate in regular class activities or accept the fact that some children are not very active contributors. Many classroom activities give you an overview of the performance and abilities of the class as a whole and possibly detailed insight into the performance and ability of asmall number of children. An assessment task, however, should give you information on the performance and ability of every child in the class. Record keepingflearner profiling Children’s performance in an assessment task is recorded and kept on file. Additions or notes. relevant to the children’s performance in the assessment task can also be used when writing their profile. This helps you to be organized and well informed about each individual child, and allows you to report back to all the interested parties fully and confidently. How to give feedback Assessment iis not complete as soon as you collect the children’s work, Offering feedback is an integral part of the assessment process and should follow as soon as possible after the assessment task is carried out. The longer we delay giving feedback, the less meaningful it becomes and the less impact it has on the children. Feedback can be given in a variety of ways: individually to each child, to groups of children, or to the whole class. It can also be given in the form of self-correction or peer-feedback. Feedback helps children to discover their strengths and weaknesses, motivates them, and helps them to persist in their learning. A number or a letter grade cannot do this for weaker children, the ones most in need of encouragement and motivation. One of the best ways to give feedback is through conferencing with the children, when you discuss the results of the assessment. If face-to-face conferencing is not possible, then you can respond to the children’s journal entries. Or you can give written feedback in the form of short comments, and follow it up with a brief chat. Peer-feedback can be important to children because it comes from their friends. Train the children to appreciate peer-feedback and to give feedback constructively. If there is a friendly and supportive atmosphere in class, the whole class can sometimes offer feedback to one child. Itis important in these circumstances that all the children agree and take turns to have their work discussed by the others. Marking schemes ‘Marking schemes are a way of indicating the level to which a learner has achieved the aims of the assessment task. This book uses the following marking schemes: ~ discrete-point marking schemes ~ speaking marking schemes writing marking schemes.INTRODUCTION 15 Discrete-point marking schemes ‘This type of marking scheme is used for activities that have clear- cut, objective answers. You can allocate a specific number of points to each assessment item and, depending on the number of items, you can decide whether to allocate marks out of 100, 20, 10, etc. When you allocate points, decide what you consider important and what you are trying to assess. If, for example, you are assessing reading comprehension, you should not give marks for grammatical accuracy. Rather, you should reward responses that indicate comprehension. If you are assessing writing and you think that clear handwriting is also important, you can award points for clear handwriting. ‘The way you allocate points indicates what you thinks important for the children’s development and success in language learning. Share this with the children. It is not only fair, but good practice, to tell the children how they will be assessed and how you allocate points. This information helps the children to prepare for the task more effectively. Insight into your assessment criteria will also help to guide them towards developing their own criteria on what is important for successful language learning. Discrete-point marking schemes are usually associated with a number ora mark. Although marking or grading an assessment task with a number may be easy and fast, it does not give you, the children, or the parents any real information. What have the children ‘been assessed in? What can they do now? If you are going to use marks, it is better if the number or mark is accompanied by a comment (usually in the mother tongue) addressing the individual performance of each child. There is an example on the next page. If children cannot read at all (not even in their mother tongue), consider commenting on their work during short one-to-one conversations. Speaking and writing marking schemes ‘The speaking and writing assessment tasks in this book use the marking schemes for speaking and writing outlined in Chapter 10, ‘Record keeping and reporting’. The format serves two purposes: = Itis more practical and less time-consuming to fill in a report at the same time as you are actually marking the outcome of an assessment activity. —Ithelps you to make sure you use the same criteria you applied during assessment when reporting children’s progress.16 INTRODUCTION 1 Assessing recognition of animal names (reading): 9-10 Very good. You can read the names of all the animals we learnt. 6-8 Good. You can read the names of animals well! 345 Good but you You can read the names of some of could do even better. the animals. What about the rest? 0-2 Tryharder! You can try harder to learn to read You can do it! the names of the animals. Would you like that? Can I help you? 2 Assessing copying skills (writing mechanics): 9-10 Very good You can copy words very well! 6-8 Good. You can copy words well! 3-5 Good but you could You copied most of the words do even better. well! Did you need more time? 0-2 Tryharder! Good try! Be careful to spot the differences You can do it! between the letters hand n, g and q. Assessment of group work Children usually enjoy working and learning in groups, and group assessment may feel much safer than individual exposure. Group assessment is also suitable for mixed-ability classes, because it allows children to help and be helped by their peers. In that respect group work also provides opportunities for assessment of valuable social skills such as co-operation. Nonetheless, group work poses challenges for assessment. How do you assess the group as a whole without ignoring the contribution of the individual? How do you balance the work of the individual against that of the group? It is important to assess the group as a whole, otherwise why assign and assess group work anyway? On the other hand you cannot ignore the work of the child who may or may not have contributed to the group in an adequate manner. Our suggestion is to assess both the group and the individual and to document your assessment on a single report, so as to emphasize the value of both. The sample report on page 18 provides the means of assessing the group as a whole on issues such as completion of the task, use of the target language, and co-operative behaviour. You can also assess and report on how successfully the task was completed. ‘This is reflected in the categories ‘Completed the task successfully” and ‘Carried out his/her task successfully’. Although this may seem like just another general category, the achievement itself changes each time because it refers to the different aims of different tasks. If, for example, the task is an oralINTRODUCTION 7 presentation, a role play, or the creation of a poster, the different objectives of each task will be reflected in this category. To clarify this, you may add to your file or staple on to each child’s report the name of the task and its particular aim. ‘The section on the individual child’s work begins with identifying what his/her individual responsibilities and contributions were. Once you have recorded the child’s responsibilities, you can assess how well they were carried out, and you can assess the child’s performance in terms of use of the target language, contribution to the group, and co-operation, To fill in the form, put a mark on the line between ‘Yes’ and No” to show how well you think this aspect has been carried out. For example: helped the group Yes___J No Assessment of group work can also take the form of self- or peer assessment. If you decide to use these forms of assessment, again you could use the sample report. In the case of peer-assessment the gaps are filled in the same way. If you choose to use it for self- assessment, you would need to make minor changes such as ‘My group’, ‘My contribution’, ‘I carried out my task successfully’, ete. Finally, you may decide to choose a combination of peer-, teacher-, and self-assessment, using the first part as teacher-assessment and the second part as self-assessment, etc. A final word We hope that you will find this book useful and that it will help you in your efforts to assess children in an effective, fruitful, and enjoyable way. We are sure that the tasks you find in this book will stimulate in you similar ideas on assessing young learners. We wish you and your children every success in this important and exciting venture!18 INTRODUCTION Group work assessment form Name —__________ Task. Group_____________ Date ______’s group: completed the task on time Yes NO worked well together Yes____ NO completed the task successfully Yes — No used English a lot Yes NO Comments —_— ______'s contribution to the group The group asked to: 1 Bas es - helped the group Yes_____________No used English a lot Yes No worked well with the other children Yes No carried out his/her task successfully Yes No Comments Photocopiable © Oxford University Press19 How to use this book ‘This book offers a variety of assessment tasks suitable for use with young learners. It provides a wealth of examples for assessing language learning at different levels. It cannot, however, cover every case you may need to assess. Each class and each child is different. ‘You may sometimes need to use one of the variations suggested or adapt the tasks to your children’s needs. Nevertheless, we believe that this book can give you a head start in using appropriate and child-friendly approaches to assessment and help you to use them in such a way that you ultimately develop your own assessment tasks closely adapted to your situation. How the book is organized ‘The book contains ten chapters: Chapter 1 presents the basics of portfolio assessment relevant to all the chapters that follow. Chapters 2-5 are devoted to the four language skills, Chapter 6 focuses on assessing integrated skills through projects, Chapters 7-9 cover grammar, self-assessment, and learning-how-to-learn skills, and Chapter 1 focuses on recording and reporting progress. How each assessment task is organized ‘The assessment tasks are organized according to the following categories: Level ‘The levels given should be regarded as a rough guide, since children vary in maturity, background, and other factors. Other factors can also influence their language learning. Courses in different countries vary in level, length, and intensity. We recommend that when you plan to use a specific assessment task, you decide whether itis suitable for your children’s level or not. You are the ultimate judge. Beginners Children at this level can be divided into three sub- groups: Complete beginners: Children with no knowledge of English. False beginners: Children with some knowledge of English, not necessarily from lessons. A child at this level may also be familiar with common expressions such as Hello! Thank you, etc.20 HOWTO USETHIS BOOK Advanced beginners: Children who have been taught English at school or in private classes for a year (or have had the equivalent of 80-100 hours of instruction). Children in this category can be expected to know: colours, numbers, days of the week, animals, food items, school objects, furniture, the verb to be, I’ve got/I haven't got, Icanican’t, I likelI don’t like, etc. Elementary Children at this level may have had between two and three years of English (or the equivalent of 100-300 hours of instruction). In addition to what they should know from beginner level, they should theoretically be able to talk about themselves, their family, daily routines, tell the time, describe people, pets, and their house or room. Pre-intermediate Children at this level would normally have had three to five years of English (or the equivalent of 240-500 hours of instruction) and are probably confident and familiar with everything at elementary level. In addition they should be able to give longer descriptions of things, people, and places, longer accounts of events, using the present simple and possibly the present continuous and past simple. Age group In the assessment tasks the age groups have been divided into: +6 and above +8 and above +10 and above Time ‘This is an indication of how long the assessment task will take. It does not include time for preparation, feedback, or follow-up. Class size and other factors such as the children’s familiarity with the task format and co-operation on the part of the children may have an effect on the time needed for each assessment task. Description This is a brief summary of the assessment task to give you an overview of what it involves. Language This is the language needed to carry out the task you are going to assess.HOW TO USETHIS BOOK 2a Skills ‘The aim of each assessment task is expressed in terms of a skill/sub- skill. Assessment criteria ‘These are the performance standards by which we judge whether the children have achieved the aims of an assessment task. They are expressed in terms of behaviour. Materials ‘This includes everything you need to prepare for the task. Preparation This indicates what you need to do before carrying out the assessment task. In class ‘This is a step-by-step guide to carrying out the assessment task. Feedback After an assessment task, time should be allotted to feedback. This is the time when the children reflect on how they have performed. At this stage children may also express their feelings about the assessment task. Follow-up The aim, topic, or product of the assessment task can provide an impetus for other learning activities. Under this heading, we offer ideas on how you can exploit an assessment task for further learning. Variations Depending on your particular context or set of circumstances (you have a large class, for example, or no access to a photocopier or overhead projector) you may need to make changes to the assessment tasks. The Variations present some suggestions along these lines. Assessment of outcome In assessment, you need to have certain criteria against which you can measure the successful completion of a task. This is done by looking at the product/outcome of the activity. It can be done by you (teacher-assessment), the children themselves (self-assessment), or2 HOWTO USETHIS BOOK other children (peer-assessment). It can also be done in a variety of ways depending on the task, the age, and the level of the children Gournal writing, conferencing, for example). Assessment of outcome often includes portfolio assessment which is, however, presented in a separate category. Portfolio This gives ideas on how to use the portfolio with the assessment task, and usually gives ideas for making assessment results more meaningful, say, by including the child’s or your comments, or by adding other forms of assessment like journal writing, observation notes, or parents’ comments to supplement the assessment task results. See Chapter 1 for more on portfolios. Comments The comments provide information that does not fit under other categories. Website ‘The Resource Book for Teachers website, launched in April 2004, includes useful links for primary teachers, extra activities, and downloadable versions of the worksheets from this book which you can adapt for your classes. It also includes an example of an electronic portfolio (see chapter 1). The website address is: http:/www.oup.comvelt/teacher/rbtLanguage portfolios What is a portfolio? A language portfolio is a compilation of an individual child’s work, showing his/her language abilities, effort, and language development over time. It usually includes samples of written work, audio or video recordings, drawings, teacher’s notes, tests, peer- and self-assessment forms, and reviews of books read. Portfolios offer a child-friendly way of assessing language development and gaining insight into children’s views, attitudes, and language-learning strategies. Portfolios provide a way of individualizing the learning and assessment process, because each portfolio is different. The children are in control of their portfolios and can develop them in ways that express their individuality. Portfolios encourage children’s overall involvement in learning and assessment processes. Their use also affects class methodology, since portfolio-using classes usually become more child-centred and collaborative — the children and you become partners in learning. Because this empowers the children, they develop feelings of trust and respect for you as their teacher. Nevertheless, starting to use language portfolios in your class is never altogether easy. You will need to feel comfortable with the children taking over, becoming more autonomous, and moving around the classroom. You also need to feel comfortable about inviting parents to participate in their children’s learning. Most of all, you will need to be patient. Your class is not going to change overnight — the children are not going to become proficient portfolio-users in a matter of weeks. At the beginning, you will need to model every step they take, from organizing a portfolio to choosing and evaluating work samples. You, too, may need some time to experiment with the procedure, try things out, and allow yourself to make mistakes! It may help to boost your confidence if you give yourself a pilot year to try out portfolios without going through all the stages and without making them central to your assessment. Why portfolios? Portfolios provide you with: ~an opportunity to link instruction with assessment. You assess the children on the activities they are involved in and what is going on in the classrooms2 LANGUAGE PORTFOLIOS —arecord of each individual child’s linguistic development, through continuous observation and information-gatherings ~a global view of the individual child’s progress, including attitudes, learning strategies, interests, and talents. The children’s progress can, therefore, be viewed in relation to these very important factors; ~a body of work you can use to discuss the children’s progress with their parents, other teachers, the school authorities, and the children themselves; ~a reason for arranging regular conferences with each child. This ‘way you can genuinely get to know and give particular attention to all the children and establish a strong relationship with them; ~ a way of involving parents in the learning and assessment processes. Portfolios provide the children with: —an opportunity to become responsible for their own learning, by ‘becoming actively involved in areas such as goal-setting and choosing and applying their assessment criteria; —an occasion to reflect on their performance, attitudes, and personal learning styles; —a chance to exercise some control over the assessment procedure: for example, children may have a say in choosing what pieces of work should be assessed by you and what work samples should be forwarded to the next teacher. You can also arrange times to discuss their progress and opinions with yous —tangible evidence of progress the children can relate to, since they choose each piece they include in their portfolios; — increased involvement in the learning process. For example, the children can suggest activities they would like to do, areas for reinforcement, or topics they would like to covers — increased motivation and excitement for learning. The children observe progress as it takes place, and have access to the products of their efforts to show (off) to friends and family. Guidelines for using portfolios Children need some time before they can use portfolios effectively. Be patient! Try various approaches before deciding what works best for you and your children. Not everything included in this book will work for you, but we hope that you will get some ideas from it and try them out. Above all, remember that portfolios are not collections of random pieces of work. Although you take the children’s preferences into account, itis important that you set goals and include samples of work that provide evidence of the children’s progress toward those goals. Keeping and accessing portfolios Ideally portfolios should be kept in the classroom. Choose a place the children can access easily ~ somewhere not too high, not behindLANGUAGE PORTFOLIOS 25 closed or locked doors, etc. The children should feel free and able to access their portfolios whenever they wish. If classroom storage is. not possible, suggest that the children take them home, or keep them in the staff room or other appropriate place at school, but the children must feel free to ask for their portfolios when they want them. You may decide to get the children to bring the portfolios to class once a week. Eventually, as more schools become equipped with computers and Internet access, the children will be able to keep on-line portfolios. This will allow them to access their portfolios from anywhere, anytime. Confidentiality is vital because the contents of the portfolios are private. If anyone other than the child or you wants to see a portfolio, they must ask for permission. It is best if the owner of the portfolio is present when others are viewing it, except when the portfolios are being assessed by the school authorities. Although parents are invited to view their child’s portfolio at conferences with the teacher, portfolios can also be taken home if the parents are unable to come to school for the conferences, provided that they are returned promptly. The children should feel that the portfolio belongs to them. They are usually happy to share their work and their progress with parents and family. Setting criteria for choosing work samples Although at the beginning you will be the one choosing most of the children’s work samples for inclusion in the portfolios, try to do it together with them, voicing your thoughts as to why you are choosing one piece of work and not another. Modelling the selection procedure, while also inviting the children’s opinions, will put them on the road to independent selection. ‘Work with the children to set criteria for choosing work for their portfolios. The class can discuss and eventually identify the criteria they should be looking for, on the basis of other children’s portfolios and samples of work considered good. You may start from very basic criteria but expect children to come up with more sophisticated criteria as they get more experienced. You may, therefore, need to discuss selection criteria again at a later stage of the year. Here are some criteria the children may come up with: —Tlearned a lot by doing this activity. —Lenjayed doing it. =I think it looks nice. — Iwas interesting. = Itshows that Ihave learned a lot. = Thaven’t made many mistakes. ~My handvoriting is nice. = Like it. = My friends think it is good.LANGUAGE PORTFOLIOS ‘Whatever the final list looks like, it is a good idea to type it out, perhaps in the mother tongue if necessary, copy it, and give it to each of the children to paste on the inside cover of their portfolios. As their criteria become more sophisticated, you can update the list and get them to paste it over the old one. The purpose is to remind them of the criteria when they are considering work to include in their portfolios. (See the example of a list below.) Ican add something to my portfolio when: =I worked hard to do it. = enjoyed working with others (family, friends) when | did it =I don’t have anything else like it in my portfolio. — It’s a better version of an earlier work sample. = My teacher suggested it. =I think it's very interesting. ~ It shows I use English outside the classroom. ~ It shows my English is getting better. = I like it a lot. Photocopiable © Oxford University Press Ouraim is to train children to reflect on their work and to make sensible decisions about what pieces of work to include in their portfolios. To help the children, try to find time to ‘conference’ with them to discuss their choices. A ‘conference’ may be a brief chat when you are looking at a new entry. If you ask the children Why did you choose this? and follow this up with a short discussion, it will help them to reassess their decisions and give you an insight into their selection procedures. Nevertheless, during the selection procedure, do try to include entries that show progress towards curriculum goals. Some of your own criteria could be: — the child wants to include the particular piece of work — the language used is suitable to the child’s language level ~ the child made a significant effort in completing his/her work ~ the work is a significant achievement for the child — the work illustrates the child’s strengths and positive traits. Reviewing and updating the portfolio ‘Work included in the portfolio does not have to stay there permanently. Encourage the children to review their portfolios and go over their entries. This can help them to appreciate the progress they have made. You can train them to do this during one-to-one portfolio review conferences, or in model class sessions when they can review portfolio entries from past or even imaginary students. Reviewing their portfolios and reflecting critically on their workis also important when children are choosing work samples to be passed on to their next teacher. Most of the material in theirLANGUAGE PORTFOLIOS 27 portfolio is likely to be sent home with them, Usually only avery small selection of work gets handed on to the next teacher. For this purpose, the children should choose the three or four pieces of work that best reflect their abilities and progress. Portfolio review/assessment A portfolio includes a wide variety of work samples offering a global view of children’s progress. It includes work that demonstrates the children’s progress towards the course goals: writing samples, speaking samples (tapes), assessment task results, book reports, etc. Although each child’s portfolio is different, they should all provide evidence of the child’s progress. The portfolio is therefore the assessment procedure that encompasses all the others and brings together assessment tasks, tests, teacher and learner-initiated work samples, reports, and teacher’s and children’s notes. It is the portfolio that provides an overall picture of the child. In this way, a review/assessment of the portfolio is the ultimate assessment of the child. Portfolio assessment can take place two or three times a year, in the form of a conference between you and the child. Ideally you should get input from the children and the parents before compiling your review/report so you can include their comments in it. Give the children time to go over their portfolios and prepare for their conference with you. If possible, invite the parents to a parent-teacher-learner conference. But if there is no time for this (you would need to allow about 30 minutes for each three-way conference), you could still get feedback by sending the parents a comment/evaluation sheet to fill in when you send home the portfolio. You can enlist the help of a colleague and take over each other’s classes while you are holding reviews and conferences. After each conference, note the comments the parents and children have made and carry out your own review of the child’s portfolio. Complete your portfolio report on the basis of the work samples, assessment task results, observation notes, and comments on work samples. The sample of a review chart on the next page has been completed in note form. A note of caution: Some parents may not be ready to accept the portfolio style of assessment. If this is the case, try using a combination of portfolio reports and traditional term reports. Getting children and parents involved Itis vital to the success of portfolio assessment that the children are involved in all aspects of the process at all times. This involvement strengthens their feelings of ownership and responsibility for the portfolio, as well as towards the learning and assessment process in general. An additional result of being actively involved is that the28 LANGUAGE PORTFOLIOS Portfolio review Name Alice Class Z Term ___ Spring | Area Overall achievement Strengths Needs and future action Reading Very good ~ Loves books and — Needs to improve her reading reads a lot. speed and learn to read = Uses pictures and context silently. to understand unknown — Should continue with readers words. during holidays. Writing Good = Her handwriting and — Has a few problems with spelling have improved. combining sentences ~ Should practise writing short paragraphs (2-3 sentences). Speaking Good — Always eager to use ~ Fluency hampered by English frequent gaps in vocabulary. ~ Can talk about herself ~ Should try to increase and her daily activities. her vocabulary. Listening Very good = Can easily grasp main ~ Does not always recognize idealgist of a listening text. spoken form of words in her vocabulary. — Try listening to tapes of stories with the book open. Attitude to Excellent — Loves learning English English and is always enthusiastic ‘about her lessons. Teacher's signature Child's signature Parent's signature children feel empowered by having control over their own learning and assessment. Parents should also be involved in the portfolio process. They can profit from and also assist in the development of a portfolio. Being involved makes them feel part of their child’s learning development and gives them an insight into what is going on in the classroom. Moreover, they can assist their children by giving positiveLANGUAGE PORTFOLIOS 29 ‘comments on their work and by helping them to formulate selection and evaluation criteria. They can, for example, help to choose work samples for inclusion in the portfolio or offer comments on something their child has already chosen. Here are some practical suggestions for involving children: —Help the children to become gradually responsible for deciding what to putin their portfolios. ~ Include the children as much as possible in all decision-making. ‘When dealing with very young children, you will need to have decision-making discussions in their native language, at least for some time. The two key stages in using portfolios are formulating the selection criteria and portfolio assessment criteria, With young children who are new to the portfolio process, it may be useful to have a prepared list of criteria which you can (skilfully) elicit from them through discussion. — Hold one-to-one conferences with the children to discuss their portfolios, assess progress, and set short-term goals such as ‘I will learn to spell my name’ and ‘I will learn the numbers 1-20 by next month’, And here are some practical suggestions for involving parents: ~Tell the parents, either at a meeting or by letter, how you will be using the portfolios, what the benefits are, etc. — Invite the parents to joint parent-teacher-learner conferences on the children’s progress. ~Ask the parents to fill in a form at regular intervals with comments on their children’s progress, This form can eventually be included in the portfolio as well, ~ Encourage parents’ suggestions and comments on work samples for inclusion in their children’s portfolios; these could be from the children’s activities at home, Portfolio ideas A portfolio should include a variety of information such as assessment tasks, children’s notes, journal entries, and other examples of the children’s work. Very young children can report and reflect on their work and say why they want it in their portfolio in their native language. You may wish to write their comments in both languages. If the children can express themselves orally but are not able to write, help them by writing down some basic comments they dictate to you. Alternatively, use tapes to record journal entries or children’s comments. Also include your own notes and reports in the portfolio. These may consist of anecdotal accounts of something interesting that happened in class, interview notes (see the example below), a brief conversation with a child, or notes from a parent-teacher-learner30 LANGUAGE PORTFOLIOS conference. If you feel these should be confidential, keep them in separate portfolios to show to parents and to pass on to the children’s next teacher. Interview notes for Alice 18/4/2002 Alice and | talked about the books she likes reading, She said her parents read to her a lot. | asked her how she deals with things she doesn’t understand, She said she uses pictures and the context to help her understand. She makes a lot of guesses and often these guesses are accurate. Here we offer some some ideas to keep portfolios organized in terms of entries on rhymes, books, and children’s development of extensive reading skills. Extensive reading checklist Keep this checklist right at the beginning of the children’s portfolios for easy reference. Tell the children what the checklist is for and explain to them that it will demonstrate their progress in reading over the next two to three years. The checklist can be filled in whenever a child achieves one of the stated goals. Comments may refer to portfolio entries which offer evidence of achievement of each of those goals. You will probably need to state the goals in the native language as well as in English, so that parents can follow their children’s progress and the children themselves have a record of what is expected of them next.LANGUAGE PORTFOLIOS 31 Extensive reading checklist Class _ Comment enjoys reading can identify the title and author of a reading text | can identify the main characters can grasp the plot of an | extensive reading text — a L _ + a actively seeks opportunities to read can grasp the main ideas ofa text can talk about the main characters reads a variety of books | can deduce meaning from context without being obstructed by unknown words | can summarize a text/narrate astory can evaluate a text Photocopiable © Oxtord University Press32 LANGUAGE PORTFOLIOS Reading log This is to keep track of the children’s progress in extensive reading, using graded readers, etc. It is also a way for them to reflect on their work and to keep a record of their own progress in reading. The columns in the log are for the children to note when they started and when they finished reading a book. It is also a useful record of their reading speed and the interest they have shown in the books they chose. Books are fun! Name — - Class ‘About the book | Started | Finished My thoughts reading | reading (What I liked/didn’t like) Book title Author Main characters Book title ‘Author Main characters Photocopiable © Oxford University PressLANGUAGE PORTFOLIOS 3 Rhyme log ‘This log can be used with assessment task 3.2, ‘Hickory dickory dock’, or by itself. Keep it in the portfolio for children to record thymes they have learned and may have recorded on tape. My favourite rhymes Name Class Rhyme Date | My thoughts My teacher's recorded (How much I liked it/ thoughts How well! did) Photocopiable © Oxiord University PressListening Listening is vital from the first day children start learning English, whether in a formal setting in a classroom, or in a natural setting. Listening is what helps them to understand your instructions and your explanations of classroom rules and learning procedures. It is also fundamental to accessing new language and finding out how language works. Children may take time to produce language, but this is by no means a passive phase. During this ‘silent period’ they are actively processing what they hear in order to understand what is being said and to find out how language works. When they feel ready, they begin to use the language actively. You can help a child in the listening stage by using pictures, gestures, and mime. ‘Understanding oral language is the first step towards learning. As such, itis a competence that needs to be assessed. Assessing listening comprehension gives us the first evidence that children have started making active use of their limited knowledge of the foreign language to extract meaning from what they hear. Listening assessment is the only way to find out what children really know during this silent period. Children do not necessarily need to respond verbally for you to assess whether they understand the new language. Most of the assessment tasks in this chapter are designed for children to show their understanding in non-verbal ways. Listening as a skill consists of a variety of other sub-skills such as listening for specific information (scanning), listening for gist (skimming), listening for detailed understanding (intensive listening), guessing meaning from context, and predicting what will follow. As children become more proficient learners, they can be trained in these sub-skills to improve their ability to deal with real- life situations. A few of the assessment tasks in Chapter 2 are designed to assess the children’s emergent sub-skills.21 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS: ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION IN CLASS LISTENING 35 What are they doing? Beginners 6 and above 15-20 minutes ‘The children match photos to pictures following oral instructions. Action verbs: eating, drinking, painting, writing, sleeping, toarching, running, listening, reading, siting. Listening for specific information; recognizing action verbs in the present continuous. The children should be able to recognize common action verbs in spoken statements. Worksheet 2.1 (see back of book); scissors; glue; a set of photos of each of the children. If you propose to do Variation 2, you will need pictures of famous people instead. (See Variations 1 and 2.) 1 PhotocopyWorksheet 2.1 for each child. 2. Make a black and white photocopy of a class photo for each child or ask the children to bring in a photo of themselves which you can copy for the class. Cut out the copies so that you have a set of photos and there is a set for each of the children. If you end up with too many photos keep them to use in later activities. 3 Prepare a set of ten statements, for example, Maria is laughing, using the children’s names and the actions in the pictures on Worksheet 2.1. 1 Give outa copy of Worksheet 2.1 and a set of photos to each child, 2. Help the class decide which ten pupils’ photos are to be used for the activity. 3 Tell the children to cut out the faces from the photos and stick them on the right figure according to what they hear. Tell them they will hear the sentences twice. The first time they just place the faces on the figures. They can stick them down after your second reading. 4 Read the statements you prepared, for example, Luis is reading, with short pauses between them, 5 Read the statements again. 6 Tell the children to stick the right face on each figure.36 FEEDBACK FOLLOW-UP VARIATION 1 VARIATION 2 ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME LISTENING ASk the children to exchange worksheets and check each other’s answers. Older and more confident children can then take turns to come to the front, mime the activity, and tell the class what they are doing according to the drawings, for example, I’m Luis. I’m reading. If the children are not able or ready to say what they are doing, they can mime the activity. If some children’s pictures do not appear on the worksheet, they can say the name ofa classmate and just mime the activity, for example, Kumiko is laughing. During this process the children check their partner's worksheets and mark them using the marking scheme below. Write the sentences on the board for older children to copy under or near the appropriate figure. 1 Make a copy of Worksheet 2.1 and a set of photos of ten children in your class. In the margins of the worksheet, write the names of the ten children. 2. Give out the worksheets and tell the children that they are going to hear statements such as Pablo is painting. They have to draw a line to join the name and the picture showing the action. After the children have finished, check the answers with the class. 3. Then give each child the ten faces and tell them to stick the faces in the right places on the worksheet. (If this takes too long, g0 straight to Feedback and tell the children to stick the faces on for homework.) This activity works well for older children using pictures of famous people instead of children’s photos. ‘This activity involves peer assessment and use of the discrete-point marking scheme. (See Introduction.) When they exchange worksheets, the children tick the correct answers on their partner’s workshect and then assign an overall mark, for example 8/10. They may wish to add an overall comment. Comments should be agreed on by the whole class, after discussing what constitutes ‘excellent’, ‘very good’, and ‘good’ performance, for example: 10 = Excellent 8-9 = Very good 6-7 = Good 0-5 = Tryharder2.2 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION IN CLASS FEEDBACK FOLLOW-UP LISTENING 37 Clothes Beginners 6 and above 15 minutes The children listen and colour clothing items according to a script. Clothes: pyjamas, hat, sandals, dress, shorts; colours. Listening for specific information. ‘The children should be able to recognize basic clothing items and colours in a spoken text. Worksheet 2.2 (see back of book); an enlarged photocopy of Worksheet 2,2; coloured pencils; glue; a piece of A4 paper for each child. Photocopy Worksheet 2.2 for each child. You may wish to modify the worksheet according to the needs of your class. 1 Explain to the children that they are going to hear a story about clothes. They have to colour the clothes according to what they hear. 2 Give out Worksheet 2.2 and tell the story below or one of your own making. John and Mary are watching television. Suddenly, their dog Bruno runs in front of them. He looks very funny. Bruno is wearing Mary's pink hat, blue pyjamas, and John’s brown sandals. Mary and John Tun into the bedroom. Their clothes are everywhere! Mary's green dress is on the floor and John’s red shorts are on the bed. What a mess! 3 Tell the story again for the children to check or complete their work. 1 Putan enlarged copy of Worksheet 2.2 up on the board, with the clothing coloured according to the story. 2 Go round checking that the children have coloured the clothes correctly. 1 Give out a piece of A4 paper to each child, 2. Ask the children to cut out the clothing items on their worksheets. ‘They then draw a boy or a girl on their piece of paper and dress him/her by pasting the appropriate clothing items on their picture.38 VARIATION 1 VARIATION 2 ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME 2.3 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION IN CLASS LISTENING 3 Older children who are able to write can then draw lines to the clothing items and write their name and colour, for example, blue skirt. If they are using textbooks, they can refer to them and copy the words they need. 4 Finally, display the children’s work around the classroom before they enter it in their portfolios. ‘You can change the names of the characters in the story to include some of the children’s names. Adapt the story upwards or downwards to match the children’s language level. If you have very young children, you will not want to expose them to language greatly beyond their level, so try using single statements, such as Mary has a pink hat. Award one point for each correctly coloured clothing item. If the children do not know the colour they can puta tick (V) on the clothing item and score half a point for getting the clothing. Also give them half points if they identify the correct clothing item but colour it the wrong colour. In the classroom Beginners 6 and above 10 minutes The children listen to a series of numbered sentences and write the number of each sentence under the picture that matches it. Classroom language: Come here, Open your books, Sit down, Be quiet, Stand up, Stop, Listen; numbers. Listening for instructions. The children should be able to recognize spoken classroom instructions. Worksheet 2.3 (see back of book); pencils. Photocopy Worksheet 2.3 for each child. 1 Give out Worksheet 2.3. 2 Tell the children to listen to you and then number the picture that matches what you said. Explain that they will hear the text twice. Warn them that some sentences will not have a matching picture.FEEDBACK VARIATION ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME PORTFOLIO 2.4 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS LISTENING 39 3 Read out the following sentences, pausing after each one so that the children can mark their answers: Number 1: Come here. Number 2: Open your books! Number 3:Be quiet. Number 4: Sit down! Listen! 5: Open your book. Number 7: Stop. 4 Repeat the sentences. 5 Allow time for the children to check their answers. 6 Collect the worksheets for checking. Repeat the sentences and ask the children to respond with actions or mime. You can either ask individual children or get the whole class to do the actions at the same time. Let the children take your role (teacher) and give instructions to the rest of the class. The class have to respond appropriately. This could take the form of a game such as ‘Simon says’, Include any other instructions that you frequently use in class. Award two points for each correct answer. Children keep a list of commands or other expressions used in the classroom, for example: + Can you repeat please? + Can I borrow a pencil? Help them with spelling if necessary. Fruit fool Elementary 8 and above 10 minutes ‘The children listen to a recipe and scan for specific information. Food vocabulary: eggs, yoghurt, water, oranges, strawberries, bananas, juice, apples, bowl, kiwi, glasses, biscuits, plate, fruit, verbs related to cooking: mash, stir, decorate, cut, pour, add, slice; bowl, glass, fork. Listening for specific information.40 ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION IN CLASS LISTENING ‘The children should be able to find specific information in a spoken text. Worksheet 2.4 (see back of book); overhead projector (optional); ingredients for dessert (optional). 1 Photocopy Worksheet 2.4 for each child. 2 You may like to prepare a recording of the script below. 3 Set up the overhead projector if you use one. 1 Give out Worksheet 2.4. 2 Tell the children that they will hear a recipe and have to tick the words they hear in part A. Allow the children time to look at the words in part A before you start, so that they will know what to listen for. You may need to go. through the vocabulary first. 3 Read the script below or play the tape. Right, everyone. Are we ready? Today we are going to make a dessert — fruit fool. I’s yummy! You can make fruit fool with any kind of soft fruit. Today we're using strawberries or bananas. Now, here's what we need: Shall | say that again? 2small bananas 2small bananas 12 strawberries 12 strawberries pot of yoghurt apot of yoghurt biscuits biscuits kiwi slices, kiwi slices 25g of sugar 25g of sugar Ok, now. Are we ready? Let's go. 1 Cutthe strawberries in two, or if you are using bananas, slice them 2 Putthe fruit in a bow! and mash it with a fork. 3. Nowstir the yoghurt untilitis creamy. 4 Add the yoghurt and the sugar to the fruit. Stir well. 5 That'sit! Pour the fruit fool into small bowls or glasses. You can decorate it with biscuits and kiwi. Mmm... Can't wait to try it! 4 Tell children that they will hear the script again. This time they fill in part B, writing the numbers 1-5 in the order they hear the words. 5 Read or play the script again. Give the children a minute or so to. check their answers. 6 Read the script or play the tape a final time. 7 Collect the worksheets for checking.FEEDBACK FOLLOW-UP VARIATION ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME 2.5 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATE! LS PREPARATION IN CLASS LISTENING a 1 For oral feedback, put the worksheet on the overhead projector, or write it on the board, and ask the children to give you their answers. 2 Ifthe children are comfortable reading English, write the answers on the board. Ifyour classroom circumstances allow, bring the ingredients for the dessert and prepare the recipe in class with the children. Alternatively, give the children the recipe and suggest they make fruit fool at home. If they do, they could even bring it to the next lesson for their friends to try! ‘With a mixed ability group, you could give Part A of the activity to the weaker children and Part B to the stronger ones. Allow children to choose the task they think is most suitable to their level. Award one mark for each word in Part A and two marks for each word in Part B. Crazy weather Elementary 10 and above 10 minutes ‘The children match words with pictures according to a dialogue. Weather: windy, cloudy, rainy, sunny, foggy, snowy; days of the week; Past tense: was Listening for detailed information. The children should be able to understand weather vocabulary in a spoken text and recognize the days of the week. ‘Worksheet 2.5 (see back of book); overhead projector (optional). 1 Photocopy Worksheet 2.5 for each child, 2. You may decide to record the script, with the help of friends or colleagues. 1 Give outWorksheet 2.5. 2 Tell the children they are going to hear a dialogue about Mary’s holidays. They have to look at the pictures and decide which picture shows the weather on each day of her holiday.2 FEEDBACK FOLLOW-UP. VARIATION ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME LISTENING 3 Give the children plenty of time to look at the pictures. 4 Read the script below or play the tape. Pause after your reading of each day, to give the children time to find the right picture. What was the weather like on Mary's holidays? Igor Hi, Mary, you're back from your holidays! How was Coco Island? Mary It was strange! The weather was crazy. It was different every day. On Monday it was sunny... Igor And then? Mary On Tuesday it was rainy. Igor Really? Mary And on Wednesday it was very cloudy! Igor On Thursday? Mary On Thursday it was foggy. Igor Ohdear! And on Friday? Mary On Friday it was very windy, and on Saturday it snowed! Igor Strange! What happened on Sunday? Mary Oh! On Sunday, |came home. 5 Give the children a minute or so to think about their answers. 6 Read the script or play the tape again. 7 Collect the worksheets for checking. 1 Put the worksheet on the overhead projector or draw simple icons, for example, @Mf or 39¢ on the board and ask the children to give you their answers, which you can write on the board. If they are able, let them come out and write the day of the week under the appropriate picture. If any of the children are not sure why they got something wrong, play or read the relevant section again. 2 Ifthe children cannot write the days of the week, you can also call out the days for the children to mime what the weather was like on each day. 1 A few children can come to the front and mime weather conditions, while the rest of them guess what the weather is. 2. Ask the children to work in pairs or groups to prepare a mini play based on Mary’s crazy holiday. Those children not miming the weather can take the part of scenery, such as trees, animals, etc. By varying the vocabulary, you can do the same task with various sports or animals, for example, what the children did everyday at a sports camp, or what they saw during a safari trip in the jungle. Award two marks for each question answered correctly.Speaking Speaking can be the most rewarding and motivating skill, especially for children, who get excited when they are able to express a few things in the target language. They want to go home able to sing a song or recite a rhyme, and are eager to show off their new-found ability to their family and friends. Nevertheless, speaking can also be frightening and intimidating for shy children. It requires great care in the choice of speaking-assessment tasks and overall assessment procedure, to ensure that children have opportunities to perform in ways and situations that are informal and non-threatening. Give them opportunities to work and speak in pairs or groups, and to speak individually only when they are ready. Speaking-assessment tasks must also be realistic (i.e. realistic and genuine communicative interactions) and contextualized (i.e. in contexts familiar and interesting to the children). In this chapter we offer a variety of examples of how to assess speaking on the basis of these criteria, We suggest marking schemes relevant to the children’s language levels, as well as self- and peer- assessment, journal writing, interviews, and portfolios. See Chapter 10 for marking schemes for speaking. For the class teacher, the main problem in assessing speaking is dealing with the practicalities. How does one assess speaking in a class of 30 or more children whom one sees maybe twice a week? ‘One solution is to get the whole class to prepare for the speaking assessment, but only choose one group of four to six children to assess at a time. The number of children you assess depends on the task and the time required for it (the more time you have, the more children you can assess), and on how experienced you are (the more experienced you become, the faster you will be able to assess the children). Keep a record of which children you have assessed until you have covered the entire class. Once you have started the assessment task and the children are working smoothly, you can concentrate on the group you are assessing, making notes if you need to (discreetly, so that you don’t upset the children). Assign silent follow-up activities, so that fast finishers are kept busy and allow you time to finish the assessment. Ifyou use the relevant Speaking report forms (see 10.4 and 10.9), you will have the aims of your assessment handy, and when you fill it in, you immediately have a completed report to give to the children, Make sure you fill in the form as soon as possible after the lesson, so that you can still remember which child did what! When you give the children their reports, try to give them more oral feedback and encouragement on their performance.“4 3.1 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION IN CLASS SPEAKING You can assess a larger number of children, possibly all of them, if you use a cassette to record them while they are carrying out the speaking task. Recording the assessment allows you to listen to the children in your own time and also provides a permanent record for the children’s portfolio. By observing just four to six children at a time, you might worry that the rest of the class feels cheated, because they prepared for the task buthave not been assessed. You can get round this in a way that satisfies the children. Ask all the children, including the ones you have assessed, to use self- or peer-assessment at the end of the task. Then find time to collect and look at their self-assessments and discuss them briefly. You can keep some comments on the discussion and add them to their portfolio together with their self assessment and their own comments. In addition, children can also write comments on their performance, their feelings, even on the task itself in their journals. (See 8.7, Journal writing’.) Getting to know you Beginners 6 and above 15 minutes This is an information-gap activity. The children ask and answer questions to obtain personal information. Question formation and asking for personal information: Whar’s your name? How old are you?What’s your favourite ...? Speaking: asking and answering questions; providing personal information. The children should be able to ask questions to get personal information, provide information about themselves, carry out the task successfully, use basic turn-taking skills, and work with others. ‘Worksheet 3.1 (see next page); overhead projector (optional) Photocopy Worksheet 3.1 for each child. 1 Write Worksheet 3.1 on the board, or putit up on the overhead projector. 2. Explain to the children that they have to fill in this form by asking four of their classmates questions. Make sure they ask children they don’t sit with or know too well.Getting to know you Name SPEAKING 5 3. Tell them that they can get up and walk around the room to find the four classmates and talk to them. Ask them not to make too much noise or disturb others. If you have a very large class, have the children sit at a different place than usual. Then they can ask classmates near them and not have to walk around. 4 Ifthere is any information they are unable to write (such as a surname), they can ask their classmate to spell it for them. If the children need help but don’t know how to ask for it, write the relevant question on the board for them to refer to (for example “How do you spell ...?”). 5. Give outWorksheet 3.1 Worksheet 3.1 Class Date Choose four friends. Ask them questions and complete the form. Use English! Friend 1 Friend 2 Name Name Age Age Favourite food Favourite food Favourite colour Favourite colour Favourite ... Favourite ... Friend 3 Friend 4 Name Name | Age Age | Favourite food Favourite food | Favourite colour Favourite... Favourite colour Favourite... Photocopiable® Oxford University Press FEEDBACK 6 The children go round asking their classmates questions, then fill in the form. 1 Invite children to tell you how they think they did, what difficulties they experienced, and how they dealt with them. Then give general feedback on how well you think they carried out the task, for example, how polite they were, whether they used only English, etc. Tell them gently how they can improve, focusing on the general aims of the activity (see Assessment Criteria above) and not on accuracy.6 ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME PORTFOLIO 3.2 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS SPEAKING 2. Whenall the children have finished, ask them to look at their worksheets and choose one piece of information they didn’t know about one of their classmates. The children take turns to say what they learnt, for example, Conchita’s favourite food is pizza. 3. Ifyou have chosen to observe and assess a small group of children (see introduction to this chapter), give them more detailed feedback on how they performed, in private. If you can’t find time for individual conferencing, have a group conference with these children. Base your feedback on 10.9, ‘Speaking task report A’, which includes the marking scheme and a report on speaking. Select a number of children to observe while they are carrying out the task. Use 10.9a, ‘Speaking task report’, to assess and report on their achievement. All the children complete self-assessment form 8.8. ‘The children prepare a visual presentation about their classmates or a group of friends. Depending on their level, they include information on name, age, birthday, etc. If possible they should bring a picture of their classmates/friends to accompany the report. Alternatively, they can draw their picture. Hickory dickory dock Beginners 6 and above One week The children practise reciting a nursery rhyme at home, When they think they have mastered it, they record themselves and bring the tape to you. ‘Telling the time:This rhyme does not test any particular language item, but can be learnt when the class is practising time. Choose other rhymes according to your syllabus. Some suggestions are: —‘Polly put the kettle on’ for imperatives —‘Incy-wincy spider’ for weather vocabulary —‘Hey diddle diddle’ for vocabulary. The children can change the animals in the rhyme or add new ones. For dish and spoon, substitute animals. ~‘There was an old woman’ for past simple (older children). Speaking: intonation and pronunciation.ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION IN CLASS SPEAKING 47 ‘The children should be able to recite a specific nursery rhyme with acceptable pronunciation and intonation. A worksheet with the rhyme; cassette; blank tapes; peer-assessment forms. Ask each child to bring a blank tape to class. 2. Prepare a worksheet with the rhyme for each child. 3 (Optional) Record yourself or another person reciting the rhyme. ‘Make a copy for each of the children, using their tapes. 4 Copy a few peer-assessment forms for each child for future use (see page 49). 1 Tell the children they are going to learn a rhyme by heart, and that they have a week to do this. 2 Give out the worksheet to each child. 3 Read out the rhyme or play the tape to the class. 4. Read or play it again, Then get the children to join in. Repeat the thyme as many times as necessary. Add some actions and movements to help the children to memorize the rhyme, for example: Hickory dickory dock. The children clap three times. ‘The mouse ran upthe clock. They walk their fingers up their arm. The clock struck one, They clap once. ‘The mouse ran down. They walk their fingers down their arm. Hickory dickory dock. The children clap three times. 5 With younger children, you could give them a drawing of a mouse and a grandfather clock to cut out. They could then move the mouse up and down the clock as they recite the rhyme. 6 Explain to the children that you are going to assess them on how well they say this rhyme at the end of the week. Give them the deadline date and reassure them that they just have to do their best. Tell them to practise at home by comparing themselves with the recording. When they feel ready, they record themselves on the tape and bring it back to you. 7 Ifthe parents are able to help, try to involve them, too. Tell the children that they can ask their parents or other family members to listen to them reciting the rhyme and to comment on their performance. When the children are ready to record, they may need help from their parents to operate the record function on the cassette recorder.FEEDBACK VARIATION 1 VARIATION 2 ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME PORTFOLIO SPEAKING 8 Let those children who feel confident enough to say the rhyme in class do so. If any children are not happy reciting aloud, you can listen to their tape in private later. 9 Listening to anything up to 30 rhymes at one sitting is likely be too much for even the most enthusiastic rhyme-lovers. Ifa lot of children want to recite their rhyme in class, spread their performances over two or three lessons. 1 Ifyou assess the children on the basis of the recording, make notes while you listen to the tape and give private feedback to each child later. 2. Ifa child has recited his/her rhyme in class, feedback can be through peer-assessment (see Assessment of Outcome below). Also try to find time to discuss each child’s peer-assessment forms and give your own feedback. Ifyou don’t have access to a cassette player, the final goal could be voluntary oral presentation of the rhyme in class. Make it possible for shy children to recite their rhyme to you privately before or after class. In order to help them with the practising stage, you can recite the rhyme in class each lesson during the preparation period. Each child can choose a rhyme he/she likes and work with that one so that the class gets a variety of rhymes to listen to. 1 Ifa child performs in front of the class, you can use peer- assessment. Use the peer-assessment form on the next page. Each performance doesn’t have to be assessed by alll peers. 2. Divide the class into groups of three or four. Each child is then assessed by one of the groups (not the one he/she belongs to). Each child thus carries out four assessments for his/her classmates and collects four assessment forms with comments about his/her own performance. 3. Ifyou are going to be the only one listening to a rhyme, assign a mark/comment holistically according to the impression you get from the performance. Emphasize pronunciation and intonation. ‘You could also ask the parents to give a grade/comment. 1 Include the child’s tape, together with your notes on the child’s performance and peer-assessment forms. A note written in the mother tongue by the parents and/or child with their thoughts on the activity (how well he/she did or how he/she enjoyed it) can also be included with the tape. 2. Recommend to those children who enjoyed this activity that they continue recording the rhymes they like, either from among those you introduce in class or others they learn from other sources. ‘The children should fee! free to ask for your help whenever they need it and bring the tape back to you each time they add a new3.3 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA SPEAKING 49 My name Name of rhyme Date Rhyme read out by 1 | loved listening to the rhyme. Very Good. [L} 2 I liked listening to the rhyme. © Good. 3 Listening to the rhyme was OK but it could be better. Try Harder. Ly Photocoplable © Oxford University Press rhyme. Your regular encouragement, in the form of private comments or public appreciation, will keep the children interested in the project. If children do this, they can use the Rhyme Log from Chapter 1, page 33. Monster differences Beginners 8 and above 20 minutes ‘This is an information-gap activity in which children colour pictures and then find the differences between them. Question formation and parts of the body: arms, legs, head, eyes, ears, teeth, hands; How many ... has... got?; colours: What colour islare ...?; numbers. Speaking: asking and answering questions. ‘The children should be able to ask and answer simple questions, work co-operatively in pairs, and carry out the task successfully.50 MATERIALS PREPARATION IN CLASS FEEDBACK SPEAKING Worksheet 3.3 (see back of book); coloured pencils; overhead projector (optional); a piece of A4 paper for each child (optional). 1 Photocopy Worksheet 3.3, one for each pair of children. Copy the score sheet below for each child, Remind the children to bring their coloured pencils. 2 Cutthe worksheets in two and give one half to each child ofa pair. Set up the overhead projector if you are using one. w 4 Ifyou use the Variation, get the children to prepare monster drawings ahead of time. 1 Tell the children you are going to give each of them a picture of a monster to colour. Point out that each child will have a different monster ftom his/her partner’s. 2. When they have coloured their monsters, they have to work with a partner, asking each other questions to find the differences between their monsters. 3. Write the words the children will need on the board for them to refer to, for example, eyes, ears, arms, legs, teeth; How many headsleyeslears/armsilegs has your monster got? 4 Give outWorksheet 3.3 and allow the children time to colour their monsters. 5. Ifyou think it necessary, demonstrate the activity to the class. Colour your own monster either on your own worksheet or on a transparency. Invite a volunteer to work with you so that you can find the differences between his/her monster and yours. Ifyou choose a strong learner, this can help the rest of the class because they see how the task is carried out. If you don’t use an overhead projector, make sure to show your completed worksheet to the children, so they can see the differences for themselves, 6 Monitor the class while they are colouring and ask them not to spend time colouring in too carefully. This can cause problems if some children have finished and their partners are still colouring. If this happens, tell the children who are still colouring to decide what colour they want the hair, arms, etc. to be and just to put the right coloured dots on the different parts of their picrure. They can finish colouring later if they want to. 7 Put the children into pairs. Make sure that they change partners, so that they are not sitting next to the child who saw them colouring. 8 Get the children started on finding the differences, Remind them not to look at each other’s worksheets. This activity involves self-assessment. When each pair has finished, they can look at each other’s monster. They can then assess how well they’ve done and give themselves a score based on the score sheetSPEAKING 51 Monster differences We checked our monsters and there are differences. The differences are: po a 2 a mens Bo Bo a A Bee 10 ee We found differences. We get points. Signatures Photocopiable © Oxtord University Press FOLLOW-UP VARIATION ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME PORTFOLIO on this page. They should write down the differences in note form, for example, I = green hair, 2 = three legs, etc. The children pretend to be one of the monsters, give themselves a name, and introduce themselves in two or three sentences. For example: Hi, I’m Scary! I have rwo heads and five legs. My hair is green. ‘You can lower the language level for this activity by limiting the language used as well as the number of differences. For example, if the children don’t colour their monsters, the questions will be How many teethlearsleyesiarmsilegs has it gor? and there will only be five differences focused on. 1 Choose two or three pairs of children to observe while the rest are carrying out the activity. Use assessment Worksheet 10.9a, “Speaking Task Report’. 2 The children can also check their own performance by using the score sheet for self-assessment. If the children want to, they can include their worksheets with the coloured monsters and their score sheet in their portfolios.32 3.4 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION IN CLASS FEEDBACK SPEAKING Look at my room Elementary 8 and above 15-20 minutes ‘The children work in pairs to describe a room. Each child places household objects on a worksheet according to the other's description. Prepositions: in, on, under, in front of, between, next to, above, below top, bottom, left, right, corner; there is/are; household objects and furniture. Speaking: describing a room. ‘The children should be able to describe a room, work cooperatively in pairs, and carry out the task successfully. Worksheet 3.4; coloured pencils; scissors; glue; a piece of Ad paper for each child; self-assessment forms. 1 Photocopy Worksheet 3.4: two copies for each child. 2. Ifyou want to save time, give out the worksheets beforehand and ask the children to cut out the objects at home and bring them to class in an envelope. 1 Give outWorksheet 3.4. Ask the children to cut out the household objects on the worksheets. 2. Each child places the objects on one of his/her room plans. Make sure that the children do not look at each other’s worksheets. If this is impossible, get them to change partners before they start working in pairs. 3 Put the children in pairs. When they are ready, they take turns to describe their room. Their partner positions the second set of objects on their second worksheet according to the description they hear. Encourage the children to ask questions if they need help. 4 Go round monitoring the activity to make sure all the pairs are working well. 1 The children check each other’s worksheets and clear up possible misunderstandings. 2. To get an overall idea of the class’ performance, hold a teacher- led session in which you ask questions such as: ~ Who got everything right? — How many did you get right? etc.FOLLOW-UP ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME 3.5 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS. PREPARATION SPEAKING 3 1 The children can colour the objects and paste them onto the worksheet. Older children could also write a simple description of the room on a separate paper. Put the children’s work on display around the classroom. 2. Ifthe children have written a description of the room, take in the descriptions. Put the pictures on the board and then give out the descriptions randomly to the children. Each child reads the description he/she receives and then has to find the corresponding picture. 1 Use 10.9a, ‘Speaking Task Report’. Give special emphasis to the children’s task achievement and their communicative competence. This will be reflected in the outcome of the task. 2 You can also use a discrete-point marking scheme, awarding a mark for every object correctly placed, 3. Allthe children should complete self-assessment form 8.8 (page 121). Who’s got my shopping? Elementary 10 and above 15-20 minutes The children work in groups of four, asking and answering questions to carry out a task. Question formation and shopping vocabulary: bananas, apples, cat ‘food, shampoo, soap, lamp, chocolate cake, ketchup, pencil, milk, water, lemonade, orange juice, chocolates, sweets, sandeoich, crisps, biscuits, jam, chicken, Have you got alan ...? Have you got any ...?Yes! No! Here you are, Thank you. Speaking: asking and answering yes/no questions. ‘The children should be able to form comprehensible questions and answers and use turn-taking skills. Their language need not be completely accurate, but should convey the desired message and contribute to the solution of the task. Worksheet 3.5 (see back of book); pencils; cassette (optional); an individual silent activity for fast finishers. 1 Photocopy Worksheet 3.5 for each group of four and cut it into sections a, b, c, and d.54 IN CLASS FEEDBACK SPEAKING 2 Make sure you have an individual silent activity you can give out to fast finishers. 1 Divide the class into groups of four. 2. Give out one picture to each child so that each group has pictures a,b, c, and d. 3. Explain to the children that they go shopping and literally bump into their friends. All their bags fall onto the floor and their shopping gets mixed up. When they put things back in their bags, they need to see if they have the right things. 4, Tell the children that each person has their bag and their shopping list. They have first to find out what things are missing. ‘Then they ask the others if they have the missing items. ‘Whenever they find an item, they put a tick on their list and carry on until they have recovered everything. $5 Draw a bag and a shopping list on the board and show what things are missing from the bag. Put a question mark (?) next to the things that are missing. 6 Give the children time to look at their worksheets and put a question mark (?) next to the things missing from their bags. 7 Use the list on the board to act out the situation with one of the stronger children. Depending on the ability of the children, it may be necessary to write the dialogue on the board: ‘Teacher: Have you got any apples? Child: No. Teacher: Have you gota chocolate cake? Child:Nes. Here you are. ‘Bacher:Thank you. 8 Tell the children to begin the task. 9 Go round monitoring the activity to make sure all the groups are working well. 10 Give out a silent activity to the fast finishers, so that the rest have achance to finish their task. 1 When all the children have finished, ask them to stop what they are doing (the written follow-up activity) and report to the class. Ask how many of them managed to find all the missing items from their lists. Congratulate them accordingly. 2. Aska group of four confident children to the front to do the task again. The others listen and compare the way their group went about the task. Ask the other groups to say if they had any difficulties, how easy/difficult it was for them, what they did well, and how they could do better. 3. Ifthe children feel comfortable recording their voices, you could give one or two groups a cassette to record their work. You could then play the recorded task to the rest of the class. Again ask the other groups for comments.FOLLOW-UP ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME 3.6 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS: PREPARATION SPEAKING 55 1 Younger children could work in groups and play a memory/speaking game. The first member of the group says ‘I want to buy a banana’. The second player has to repeat the same sentence and add one more item: ‘I want to buy a banana and cake’, and so forth. (If you are using food vocabulary, make sure you pre-set the vocabulary for singular countables, so that the children don’t have to cope with some and any. Also practise a/an beforehand.) The group scores a point for every child who says the sentence correctly. The group with the most points is the winner. 2 Older children can follow up the activity with written work such as word puzzles or other vocabulary games that focus on the vocabulary items you are assessing. 1 Concentrate on one or two groups to observe. Ifyou used cassettes you can also concentrate on the groups you recorded. Use 10.9b, ‘Speaking Task Report’ to assess the children in the selected groups and report on their progress. 2 Allthe children should complete self-assessment form 8.8. They’re the best Elementary 8 and above 10 minutes ‘The children ask and answer questions to complete cards about famous football players. Question formation: What's his name/surname? Where’s he from? How tall is he? How old is he? Speaking: asking for and giving information. ‘The children should be able to ask and answer questions on basic personal facts about famous people, carry out the task successfully, and work co-operatively in pairs. ‘Worksheets 3.6a and b (see back of book); cassette; tapes; overhead projector (optional). 1 Photocopy Worksheets 3.6a and 3.66 for each pair of children. 2. (Optional) Ask the children to bring a tape each to class.56 IN CLASS FEEDBACK FOLLOW-UP ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME PORTFOLIO SPEAKING 1. Divide the children into pairs. 2 Give out Worksheets 3.6a and 3.6b face down to each pair. 3. Ask the children to turn their worksheets over and look at them. Stress that they must not look at their partner’s worksheet. 4 Tell them that they have to fill in the missing information by asking their partner questions. 5 While they work, go round checking that all the pairs are working smoothly. 1 When all the children have finished, copy the worksheets onto the board or put the them on the overhead projector. 2. Invite volunteer pairs to ask and answer questions until all five cards are complete. 1 Ask for volunteers to use the completed information on their worksheets to make an oral presentation about one of the football players. 2 Older children may like to prepare a role play in pairs, Each pair acts out the parts of a journalist and a famous football player. ‘Their questions will be based on the card, but also allow them to use their imagination or background knowledge to add more questions or new information. Give half the class the completed versions of the cards and the other half empty ones. The children with the empty ones interview the others and fill in the cards. You can do the same activity using the children’s favourite singers, actors, or basketball players. Older children might like to do the activity with more demanding information about their favourite artists or historical figures. The children can bring their own knowledge to the task if you ask them to look up information about their favourite footballer/singer/actor, etc. You could give them a list of things to research, for example height, birthday, etc. When they bring the information to you, you can choose which people to include and create new worksheets accordingly. Use 10.9a, ‘Speaking Task Report’, for those you have observed, and have all the children complete self-assessment form 8.8. Then invite them to write comments on their performance and write up the task in their journals. Respond to their comments with messages in their journals. 1 While the children carry out the task you may, with their permission, record them and include the tape in their portfolios. ‘The same can be done with the Follow-up activities. 2 The children can add any material they found on their favourite athlete or famous figure to their portfolio. This could be the start ofa collection of authentic target language material.4 41 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE Reading Good readers enjoy reading, get better att, read more, and consequently improve both their reading skills and their general language ability. When children have difficulties with reading, however, they start to dislike it, read less, don’t improve, and consequently have more reading problems and grow to dislike it even more. To prevent spiralling negative attitudes, we need to help children to improve their reading skills and learn to enjoy reading from the very beginning. One way to help children improve their reading skills is to train them to use the sub-skills involved, such as skimming and scanning. Poor readers have often learnt only one style of reading, usually intensive reading. The inability to differentiate between reading skills usually makes readers slow and dependent on every single word they read, whereas good readers are fast, and are able to predict content and guess the meaning of words from the overall context of the passage. These are skills that can be developed by training. Because we believe that assessment should be a continuation of the work done in the classroom, we recommend that reading assessment be done in an interesting, contextualized, fun, and authentic way. We have also included assessment of extensive reading, Even though it has been argued that extensive reading should not be assessed because it diminishes the children’s enjoyment and can eventually put them off reading altogether, our argument is that itis an important skill and an invaluable learning resource. If it is assessed in a positive and child-friendly way it will not create negative feelings in children. On the contrary, it can help them realize that it is important and may result in more extensive reading in the English lesson. Problems at the zoo Beginners 6and above 10 minutes ‘The children match words with pictures. Animal names: fox, lon, elephant, pony, crocodile, giraffe, hippo, snake, gorilla, penguin58 SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION IN CLASS FEEDBACK FOLLOW-UP VARIATION 1 VARIATION 2 READING Reading: recognizing animal words. ‘The children should be able to recognize the written form of selected vocabulary items. Worksheets 4.1a and b (see back of book); an enlarged copy of the worksheet; A3 card to make a set of cards with the names of the animals; Blu-Tack; prize stickers (optional) 1. Photocopy Worksheets 4.1a and b for each child. 2. Prepare a set of cards with the vocabulary you are assessing. 1 Give out Worksheet 4.1 to each child. 2. Explain in the mother tongue thet there has been a big storm and that all the letters have fallen off the signs at the zoo. They have to put the signs back by drawing lines to match the signs with the animals. 1 Put the enlarged worksheet on the board. Hand out the animal name cards you made. Invite the children with the cards to come out and take turns sticking the words on the right signs. 2 Goround the class and check that the children are correcting their work. If one of the children at the board makes a mistake, make sure the others point it out ina calm, friendly, and non- threatening way and that helshe is given a second chance before another child gives the answer. 3. When the children have finished the activity and their self- assessment (see Assessment of Outcome below), discuss how they know when they are ‘doing well’ and when they ‘need to work harder’. 1 The children play a memory game, using the names of all the animals they have learnt up to now. The game can be played either with the whole class or in groups of five or six. 2 One child starts by saying the name of an animal, for example, a lion. The next child repeats the animal already mentioned and adds another one for example, a lion and a penguin. The next adds another, and so on, until a child can’t name another animal or until the last child repeats everyone else’s animals, adds his/her own, and wins. When you are going to assess animal words, ask the children to name their favourites. You can decide to assess those instead of the ones listed above. If the children come up with a lot of animals, you might decide together on which names should be assessed. You can also use this task to assess copying skills if you ask the children to copy the words on the appropriate sign rather than drawASSESSMENT OF QUTCOME PORTFOLIO 4.2 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS READING 59 a line. In this case make sure that your marking reflects what you are testing, in this case reading and writing. (You could allocate half or a quarter of the marks to copying, depending on the importance you attach to this skill), 1 Self-assessment. Give out Worksheet 4.1b and a set of prize stickers, one to each child (optional). 2. While the feedback is going on at the board, the children assess themselves by placing a ‘happy’ sticker under each word they got right or a sad sticker under each word they got wrong. Ifyou don’thave stickers, the children can draw happy/sad faces. 3 Monitor the children and make sure they are able to do the self- assessment. Provide help where needed. 4. If atthe feedback stage you discussed ‘doing well’, the children can write a final comment for themselves. You can decide on the criteria with the children, for example: 8-10 correct answers (Very good!) 6-7 correct answers (Good!) 3-5 correct answers (Be careful.) 0-2 correct answers (You need to try harder.) 5 The children can take the worksheets and the assessment forms home to share their achievements with their parents. 1 Once the worksheets have been returned, the children may want to include them in their portfolios along with their self- assessment forms. 2. Ifthe children are using self-assessment 8.3,‘A picture of achievement’, they can now add the animals in the picture as, proof of having learnt the names. Zinky’s home Beginners 6.and above 10 minutes. ‘The children read sentences and use the appropriate colours to colour a picture. Nature vocabulary: flowers, sky, grass, river, clouds, trees, cows; colours. Reading: comprehending simple sentences.60 ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION IN CLASS FEEDBACK FOLLOW-UP JON 1 READING The children should be able to recognize the written form of colours in a simple text and understand short written sentences with known vocabulary. Worksheet 4.2 (see back of book); coloured pencils; coloured chalks or whiteboard markers; prize stickers (optional) 1 Photocopy Worksheet 4.2 for each child. 2. Prepare a class set of Worksheet 4.2 without the text for the Follow-up. 1 Explain in the mother tongue that they have got a postcard from an alien called Zinky. 2. Draw ‘Zinky’ on the board and introduce her to the children, Zinky has asked them to colour her postcard so that they understand what her planet looks like. 3. Give outWorksheet 4.2 to each child. 4. Tell the children to read the text and colour the picture. 1 Draw a rough outline of the picture on the board. When the children have finished, invite volunteers to come out one at a time to colour part of the picture, Start with the weaker volunteers so that they have more choice and can colour the parts they know. Gradually the picture will be complete and the children can compare their own with the one on the board. 2 Then ask the children to do self-assessment (see Assessment of Outcome below). 3. Ifany children get a colour wrong, find out whether they know the colour in their mother tongue. 1. Give out Worksheet 4.2 without the text and ask the children to colour it with the colours we have here on Earth. 2. They can then write the colour on the appropriate areas of the picture (for example green on the grass, white on the clouds, etc.) or copy Zinky’s sentences, but change the colours. They can then send their own postcard to outer space! With very young children, if they know the colours but not the rest of the vocabulary, you can assess colours by omitting the text and adding arrows with the words indicating what colour each object should be.VARIATION 2 ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME PORTFOLIO READING 1 1 If the class has one or two computers, you could create the picture on the class computer (using Paint or a similar program) and save it as a template. The children complete the task at their ‘own pace or when assigned to do so by you. They save the file under their name and read the instructions/text. 2 They then colour the shapes by clicking on the right colour and the right place in the picture. Finally, they print out the completed picture when they have finished. 4 Ifyou have access to a computer lab all the children can do it at the same time. wo 1 Self-assessment.To carry out their assessment, give the children prize stickers (hearts, suns, stars, etc.) or ask them to draw stars next to the appropriate sentence on the Worksheet for each colour they got right. There are eight colours in the text. Finally, the children give themselves a grade/comment according to the scheme you write on the board: 8 stars = Excellent! 6-7 stars = Very good! Good! N 1. This is something the children may want to keep in their portfolio. Ask them if they do. If children who didn’t do well are reluctant to put the worksheets in their portfolio, give them the ‘opportunity to complete the follow-up activity and include that instead or as well. ‘The children can add a comment such as ‘I know the colours’. If the children are using self-assessment 8.3, ‘A picture of achievemenv’, they can now add the rainbow as proof of having learnt the colours. wn62 4.3 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCI LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION IN CLASS FEEDBACK FOLLOW-UP. READING Messages on the fridge Beginners 6 and above 10 minutes ‘The children match instructions with pictures. Giving instructions: use of imperatives. Reading: comprehending written instructions. The children should be able to understand short written instructions. Worksheet 4.3 (see back of book); small pieces of paper for each child. Photocopy Worksheet 4.3 for each child. 1. Give out Worksheet 4.3 to each child. 2. Tell the children to imagine that they go home and there is nobody there. They find a lot of messages on the fridge. They manage to do everything, so a friend draws pictures of what they have done to show their parents. They have to match each message with the right picture. 3 Collect the worksheets for checking. 1 Call out the number alongside one of the pictures. Ask a volunteer to come out and mime what is happening in the picture. The rest have to guess which message it is and say it out loud. 2) Write it up on the board and put the right picture number next to it. 1 Give outa piece of paper to each child. 2. The children write an instruction, for example Drink your milk! Help them where necessary. 3. They fold the piece of paper and hand it to you. Mix all the papers up. 4 The children take turns to come out and pick one of the papers. ‘They read their paper silently, then mime carrying out the instruction. The rest of the class have to guess the instruction and say it out loud.VARIATION 1 VARIATION 2 ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME 4.4 LEVEL AGE GROUP. TIME DESCRIPTION _ LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION IN CLASS FEEDBACK READING 6 5. For very young children who are not able to write yet, prepare a set of instructions and put them in a hat. The children can then pick papers out of the hat, read them, and mime the instructions. If you would like older children to contribute towards their assessment, ask them to write an instruction each. You can then randomly select five or ten and prepare a worksheet to assess those. If you want to assess the children’s ability to form the imperative, you could erase the messages on the fridge and ask the children to come and write up the missing messages. Use a discrete-point marking scheme, Assign two points out of ten for each correct match. Grandma’s garden Elementary 8 and above 15 minutes ‘The children complete a picture based on a written passage. Prepositions: in, on, under, in front of; there is;there are. Intensive reading; writing (in Follow-up). ‘The children should be able to comprehend a short written passage in detail Worksheet 4.4 (see back of book); an enlarged photocopy of the worksheet. 1 Photocopy Worksheet 4.4 for each child. 2 Complete the picture and make an enlarged photocopy for the Feedback. 1 Give out Worksheet 4.4. 2. Ask the children to read the passage and draw the five things missing from the picture. 1 Put the enlarged photocopy of the completed drawing up on the board. 2. Ask the children to check their work and assess themselves (see Assessment of Outcome below). Monitor this process, offering help when needed.FOLLOW-UP VARIATION 1 VARIATION 2 ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME 4.5 LEVEL AGE GROUP DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION IN CLASS READING 3. When the children have finished, discuss their performance to see if they are happy with their results, whether they think they could have done better, and why they think they made mistakes, etc. Asa writing follow-up, get each child to draw two new items on their picture and then complete the text accordingly. The text can be adapted to the level of the class or the prepositions you want to assess by adding or eliminating items. The children can prepare similar texts and exchange them with their peers. Each child completes his/her partner's picture. Use a discrete-point marking scheme. Allocate two points for each correct addition. Acartoon strip Elementary 8.and above 20-30 minutes The children prepare a cartoon strip based on one scene or the overall plot of a story or reader they have read. Involves the children’s overall linguistic ability. Extensive reading: comprehending extensive texts. ‘The children should be able to understand a written story. Graded readers or story-books, markers, coloured pencils; a piece of paper or card for each child. Give the children a number of story-books or readers to choose from well in advance. 1. The children choose a book they have read and want to work on. Explain that they have to draw a cartoon strip based either on one particular scene or on the overall plot of the story. They also have toadd speech bubbles or write captions for the pictures they draw. 2. Remind the children of the basic conventions for cartoon strips: ~The progression is always from left to right and from top to bottom. —Speech bubbles at the top of the frames are read before the lower ones.FEEDBACK FOLLOW-UP 1 FOLLOW-UP 2 VARIATION 1 VARIATION 2 ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME READING 65 3 Give a piece of paper or card to each child and tell them to start. 4 Go round monitoring the activity, helping when necessary. Comment on the children’s cartoon strips individually. Ask the children to prepare an alternative scene or ending to the story in their cartoon. 1 The children get together in groups, have a look at each others’ cartoons, and select one. 2. They then mime the scene in the cartoon to the class. The class have to guess which scene it is and/or which reader it comes from. (This is only possible if all children in the class are familiar with the same readers.) If the children cannot write, so cannot complete speech bubbles, accept drawings instead. Check the children’s understanding by talking to them in the mother tongue. 1 You can turn this activity into a take-home test. This will save you valuable class time and give the children the benefit of increased autonomy. You can follow the steps described in In Class above. 2 Remind the children that a take-home test is their responsibility and that they are expected to carry it out themselves. But they can show their work to their parents or other family to get feedback. The final feedback can be a note from the parents stapled onto the cartoon when itis returned to you. 3. Also ask the children to add their own comments, including mention of any help they had from others. 4 Finally, agree a deadline with the children for handing in the work. You can help the parents by sending a note to them explaining what a take-home test is and what is expected of them. 1 Assess the activity on the extent to which the children have understood the basic elements of the story. Evidence of the children’s understanding will be provided through the questions you ask and the cartoon strip itself. While the children are working, go round asking questions. Here are some possible questions to check understandin; — Who's this? (name of character) — How are the characters related? — What are they doing? ~ Why is X happylsadiangry, etc? Ifa child seems to have misunderstood the main ideas of the book, but has enjoyed reading it, show that you are pleased he/she enjoyed it, Remember extensive reading should be done for pleasure as well as for learning!66 PORTFOLIO 4.6 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA. MATERIALS: PREPARATION IN CLASS FEEDBACK READING 2. Add your comments and notes from your chat with the child to his/her cartoon strip. 1. Their own cartoon strip is something the children will certainly enjoy having in their portfolio. 2 Apart from your notes, the cartoon strip can be accompanied by the children’s notes or a paragraph giving some information on the story, how they liked it, and why they chose that story to work on. The children’s progress can also be recorded on the Extensive Reading Checklist in their portfolio. (See Chapter 1, page 31.) At the zoo Pre-intermediate 10 and above 10 minutes ‘The children scan a brochure to find specific information. ‘Names of animals; time; days of the week; months, Reading: scanning for specific information; writing (optional in Follow-up). The children should be able to gather specific information from an authentic written text within a given time limit. ‘Worksheet 4.6 (see back of book). Photocopy Worksheet 4.6 for each child, or you could use leaflets from a local zoo if they are in English and at an appropriate language level. 1 Give outWorksheet 4.6 or your leaflet to each child. 2. Ask the children to look at their worksheets to find out what they are supposed to be looking for. Then tell them to scan the brochure very quickly to find the information. 3. They have to answer the questions in five minutes. (Although the time you set can be geared to the level of your class.) 4 Collect the worksheets for checking. Ask the children to explain to the class how they found their answers. By listening to the other children’s strategies they could learn effective ways of scanning a passage.FOLLOW-UP VAR ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME READING 67 ‘The children write a list of things they would like to do at the zoo. 1 Tell the children to work in groups and write five questions based on the brochure in Worksheet 4.6. Go round checking their questions to make sure they are not too difficult for the level of the class. 2 The children exchange questions with another group and have five minutes to answer the new set of questions. 3 Get the groups to exchange answers. After the groups have answered the questions they give their answers to the group that wrote them. Each group should then check whether the answers they have received are correct. 4. Each group offers feedback to the other group and allocates them amark. Use a discrete-point marking scheme. Award two points for each correct answer.5.1 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION Writing ‘Writing in a foreign language is difficult. It presupposes mastery of a number of language areas such as spelling, grammar, and vocabulary, as well as skills like handwriting and punctuation. This is probably why writing is usually not a favourite activity with young learners. For this reason writing needs to be made creative, communicative, and enjoyable. This is especially important for young children, whose primary motivation for learning English is not passing an exam. They are motivated by interest in the language, what they can do with it, and by how much fun they have in their language class. Although young children’s language can be very limited, they can still do interesting and creative writing activities. ‘Tasks for assessing young children’s writing abilities should therefore be based on the same principles as classroom activities. ‘They should represent realistic and authentic situations and generate interest and enjoyment. ‘The assessment tasks in this chapter reflect some of the writing skills that children are expected to develop, such as copying letters, words, and short sentences, and writing their own sentences and short paragraphs. These tasks are made interesting and meaningful through topics derived from the children’s school and home environment. The activities we provide also reflect the interests of this age group (sports, pets, television programmes, friends and family, games, etc. Itis relatively easy to assess writing because in most cases the writing is done by a large number of children at the same time and does not require any other materials or technology. A piece of paper is often all they need. As a bonus, much of what is produced as part of the assessment is immediately ready for inclusion in the children’s portfolio! What's missing? Beginners 6 and above 10-15 minutes ‘The children write a shopping list with the help of word and picture cues.LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION IN CLASS FEEDBACK FOLLOW-UP 1 FOLLOW-UP 2 WRITING 09 Vocabulary related to birthday parties: birthday cake, burgers, crisps, doughnuts, jelly, biscuits, sandwiches, balloons, party hats, drinks, candles. Writing: making a list, copying. ‘The children should be able to produce legible handwriting, copy a variety of words, and write a shopping list. Worksheet 5.1 (see back of book). Photocopy Worksheet 5.1 for each child. 1 Give out Worksheet 5.1. Ask the children to look at the first picture, then at the second one. 2. Explain in the mother tongue that today is their birthday party and everything is ready. Suddenly, they come into the room and find that the cats have ruined the food and party things. What a problem! Now they have to run to the supermarket to replace the missing things. 3. Tell the children to look carefully to see what is missing. They then make a list so that they don’t forget anything. 4 Collect the worksheets for checking. 1 Ask the children to say what things needed replacing. When they call out a word, write it on the board so that in the end you have the complete list on the board. Accept words similar to the originals, e.g. drinks or orange juice. 2 The feedback process may end here or, if you haven’t collected the papers, ask the children to look at the board and check their answers by using a W next to each correct word anda X next to each misspelled word. If they copied the word wrongly, ask them 10 copy it again next to their wrong version. This gives further practice in copying because they now have to check and copy from the board, If there are any mistakes in their second copying from the board, take that into consideration in your final marking. Give the children options for making another list, such as five things they would like to have at their birthday party, five favourite animals, or five favourite colours. They then have to write it down with the help of their coursebooks, picture dictionaries, or other word lists. Afterwards they can decorate their list by drawing the items in it. A guessing game. Children come to the front of the class holding. their list and the others try to find out what is on the list. To make the game more challenging, only allow a limited number of guesses.10 VARIATION 1 VARIATION 2 VARIATION 3 ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME 5.2 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION WRITING If the children cannot yet recognize the vocabulary items in this task, you can adapt the worksheet. Delete the word box and write the words under the relevant items. The task will then be assessing copying skills, even if the vocabulary items are new to the children. ‘The worksheet includes all the words the children need. If your class is a little more advanced, partially delete the words. This means that the children have to write and not copy the list. As the words are only partially deleted, this can be a halfway stage between copying and writing, and can be used to test spelling. If the children are even more advanced, you could delete the word list completely, so the children have to rely on their knowledge for the spelling of the words. Ifyou have a mixed-ability class, you can use all the above variations at the same time. Prepare the worksheet in four different versions and give each one to the group who can manage that worksheet level. If you do this, you can assess the whole class with the same task and the same worksheet, but each child will be assessed at his/her own level. Use a discrete-point marking scheme. There are eight missing items: birthday cake, candles, drinks, balloons, party hats, jelly, burgers, sandziches. Give each correctly copied word one point and two for legible handwriting. Introduce yourself Beginners 6 and above 10 minutes ‘The children complete speech bubbles in a cartoon strip. Useful expressions: My name’s —_, I’m —_. years old, I live in sete. ‘Writing: simple sentences. ‘The children should be able to write simple sentences about themselves and produce legible handwriting. Worksheet 5.2 (see back of book). Photocopy Worksheet 5.2 for each child.IN CLASS FEEDBACK FOLLOW-UP. VARIATION 1 VARIATION 2 ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME 5.3 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS WRITING n 1 Give out Worksheet 5.2. Ask the children to look at the characters. 2. Tell them that the two characters have just met for the first time. 3. The children have to fill in the bubbles to complete the conversation. They are free to choose names for the characters or they can give one of them their own name. 4 Collect the worksheets for checking. 1 Ask the children to say what they have written and write the expressions on the board. 2. Point out that there are several ways of giving certain information: J amiI’m seven or I amiI’m seven years old. ‘The children work in pairs to role play the dialogue. Put the complete dialogue on the board to help them, Ifthe children are not able to do this task entirely unaided, help them by drawing lines to show the number of words missing, or by writing the first letter of each missing word. For elementary level children, you can add to the cartoon strip and assess expressions like J like sports and I’ve got two brothers, etc. 1. Usea discrete-point marking scheme. Give the children points for conveying their intended message successfully. They get two and a half points for each communicatively successful expression and two and a half points for handwriting. Ignore minor spelling mistakes which do not interfere with meaning. 2. Alternatively, you can use the writing task marking scheme in 10.10, ‘Writing Task Report’. My favourite programme Elementary 8 and above 15-20 minutes ‘The children write a short paragraph about their favourite television programme with the help of guide questions. ‘Television vocabulary: comedy, soap opera, love story, news, cartoons, ere. Writing: guided writing.R ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION IN CLASS WRITING ‘The children should be able to write a short paragraph about their favourite television programme. Worksheet 5.3 (see below); paper. Photocopy Worksheet 5.3 for each child. 1 Give out Worksheet 5.3. Worksheet 5.3 My favourite programme Name ___________. Class______ Date What’s your favourite TV programme? What kind of programme is it? What's it about? What day of the week is it on? What time is it on? Who's your favourite character? aunwne My favourite programme Photocopiable © Oxford University Press,FEEDBACK FOLLOW-UP 1 FOLLOW-UP 2 VARIATION ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME WRITING B 2. Tell the children that by answering the questions in full sentences they will be writing a short paragraph about their favourite television programme. 3. Letthem know that they can ask you for help if they do not understand something in the guide questions. 4 Ifthey finish early, they can draw a picture illustrating the programme. 1 The children exchange paragraphs with their partners. They read their partner’s paragraph and fill in the following form: My friend’s favourite television programme Name. Class __________ Date ‘My partner is 1 What is your partner's favourite programme? 2 Do you like it? 3 Will you watch it? 4 When is it on? 5 lanswered all these questions very easily/easily/not so easily 6 My partner’s paragraph is: Very good/Good/OK. Photocopiable © Oxford University Press. 2 Explain to the children that if they answered easily about their partner’s writing, it means that their partner did a good job. If not, they should tell their partner later why it wasn’t easy to answer the questions. Was it the handwriting, the spelling, or the overall state of the piece? ‘The children can write a sentence or add speech bubbles to the picture they have drawn (see In Class step 4). ‘The children imagine they have their own television station and plan a day’s programmes. Instead of a television programme, you can do the same with a radio programme or a film. You can also vary the questions depending on the children’s level. 1 10.10, ‘Writing task report’, 2. Alternatively, use the peer-assessment forms. Collect them and add your comments.“ PORTFOLIO 5.4 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION WRITING ‘The children can include the tasks along with their reports, the peer-assessment forms, and your comments in their portfolio. They may also want to include material on their favourite programmes, such as pictures, reviews, etc. or their plans from Follow-up 2 if they did it. Lost and found Elementary 8 and above 20 minutes ‘The children write a description of an object. Vocabulary: colours, shapes, and classroom objects. Writing: describing objects; listening and speaking (optional). ‘The children should be able to write a descriptive paragraph. ‘Worksheet 5.4 (below); a small piece of paper for each child. Photocopy Worksheet 5.4. or draw the worksheet on the board for the children to copy. Worksheet 5.4 Lost and found Name___________ Class _________ Date Lost! More information 2 3 4 Photocopiable © Oxford University PressIN CLASS FEEDBACK FOLLOW-UP VARIATION 1 WRITING B 1 Get the children to draw something they usually bring to class. Most of the characteristics of any object, such as colour, shape, etc. can be drawn quite easily. If there are any they cannot draw, get them to write them down in note form in the appropriate space on the worksheet, for example made of. , oldinew, etc. Help the children to add the information. 2 When they have finished, collect the drawings and then redistribute them. 3. Give each child a drawing other than his/her own. Tell the children they have lost this object. 4 They have to write a note with a description of the lost item to put on the ‘Lost and Found’ notice board. The description should correspond to the drawing they were given as much as possible. You can expect descriptions like the following: Lost! A square yellow-and-green rubber. Pia Maria Lost! Assmall, round yellow purse. It's made of plastic. It has a dog on it. Jane Lost! A long, white ruler. It's old and dirty, Michael ‘The children take turns to read their descriptions to the class. The others listen to see if the description matches the picture they have drawn. The one whose picture it is stands up. Pre-intermediate children can role play ‘At the lost and found office’. They play the role of the person working at the office or the person looking for something. They can use the following as a guide: A. Excuse me, I’ve lost my pencil case. B Wall, we have lots of pencit cases here. What does your case look like? A Mmm, it’s plastic and it has a zipper. ‘The same activity can be carried out with different vocabulary items such as clothes, toys etc.16 VARIATION 2 ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME 5.5 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS WRITING ‘You can simplify the task by cutting out the ‘More information’ line and limiting the description to the most basic characteristics of the object. Ifyou want the children to use specific expressions such as made of , made in, old/newo, etc, add them to the worksheet under ‘More information’. When you collect the notices use 10.10, ‘Writing task report’. Pet needs home Elementary 8 and above 15-20 minutes ‘The children write an advert describing a pet they want to find a home for. Vocabulary related to pets. Writing: writing a short paragraph. ‘The children should be able to write a short paragraph describing an animal. Paper or card; an enlarged copy of the advert below, or overhead projector. He needs a home! His name is Fluffy. He’s just three months old. He likes playing with wool. He likes sleeping, too. Little Fluffy needs a home. He’s very friendly. Call Terry on 618-0754325 any time. Photocopiable © Oxford University PressPREPARATION IN CLASS FEEDBACK FOLLOW-UP VARIATION ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME PORTFOLIO WRITING n 1 Prepare an enlarged photocopy of the advert. 2. Setup the overhead projector ifyou are using one. 3. Tell the children to bring photos of pets or a favourite animal if they have any (for the Variation). 1 Putthe enlarged advert about a pet looking for a home up on the board or on the overhead projector. 2. Discuss the advert with the children, for example, What is this advert for?When can we phone? 3. Tell the children that they have a pet (a puppy or kitten) which they are not allowed to keep, so they want to find ita home. They are going to write an advert to post around the neigbourhood. 4 Give outa piece of paper to each child. The children write the advert. Go round monitoring as they write and offer help when needed. 5 Fast finishers can draw a picture of their pet. 1 Peer-feedback. The children exchange adverts with their partners. 2 Write questions on the board for example: ~ Did you like the advert? — Was it easy to understand? — Would you take this pet home? ~ Why? Why not? 3. Ask the children to read each others’ adverts, answer these questions, and discuss their work, in their mother tongue if necessary. 4 You can also decide on the questions after discussing with them what makes a good advert. 1 Discuss with the children what responsibilities are involved when one has a pet. 2 The children write a list of things they will do for the pet: — Twill take it for a walk every day. —Iwill play with itlfeed it, exc. The children can write about real or imaginary pets. Some children, for example, love having unusual animals such as snakes, lizards, geckos, praying mantes, etc. ‘Use 10.10, ‘Writing task report’, and peer-assessment, The children can include the advert in their portfolio.78 5.6 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION IN CLASS FEEDBACK FOLLOW-UP WRITING Wri Pre-intermediate ig about people 10 and above 20-25 minutes ‘The children write questions and a description of a person. Vocabulary for descriptions: professions; zaas born in; intelligent, generous, smart, kind, witty, interesting, etc. Writing: question formation, and giving biographical information and personality traits. ‘The children should be able to write questions to elicit biographical information and personality traits, and write a short description of a person with the help of guide questions. Photographs of a friend or relative. Ask the children to bring a picture of a friend or relative, preferably someone unknown to the rest of the class. 1 Show the children a picture of a friend or relative of yours. Encourage them to ask questions about him/her. 2. The children exchange their pictures with their partners. 3 The children write five questions on things they want to know about the person in the picture. 4 They give the photograph back to the owner together with their questions. 5. Each child writes a short paragraph answering their partner’s questions about the person in the picture, and shows it to their partner. The children get feedback from discussing the results of their peers’ assessment (sce Assessment of Outcome below). Put the pictures up on the board and give each child a description, making sure he/she hasn’t seen it before. Each child reads the passage and then puts it up next to the person it describes. Instead of a photograph of a real person, the children can draw a monster or a funny figure, and make up biographical data and personality traits.ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME WRITING 7° 1 Use peer-assessment. Each child completes the assessment form below about his/her partner. The form can be written in the mother tongue if necessary. Writing about people: peer assessment Name Partner 0 Date 1. Did your partner’s paragraph answer all your questions? Yes | No 2 Was it easy to find the answers? Yes / No 3 Was it easy to understand the paragraph? Yes | No 4 How would you describe your partner’s paragraph? Very good [J GoodLy oKly Photacopiable © Oxford University Press 2A first draft may be considered adequate but peer-assessment can also be used as feedback to improve a second draft. In this case, you can either mark the second draft with the same form, completed by the same or another child, or you can mark it using 10.10, ‘Writing task report’.6.1 LEVEL AGE GROUP _ TIME OVERALL DESCRIPTION OVERALL LANGUAGE Integrated skills Throughout this book we have argued that assessment should be motivating to children and that one way to achieve this is to make it meaningful and contextualized. This implies integration of skills, as in real life. Integrating skills can be motivating for young learners because the various skills complement each other and allow children to express more of themselves, something they are not always able to do when using only one skill. Although children may have limited competence in the four skills, this should not prevent them from putting the little knowledge they have to real communicative use. For example, if we accept that writing follows speaking, listening, and reading, we should seize any opportunity for children to exercise their limited competence in writing. Writing is less threatening and more natural to children if itis contextualized and regarded as an extension of the other skills. By integrating the skills we can present whole communication contexts to the children. In any assessment activity that includes more than one skill, the children will show their competence in each individual skill by achieving the specific aim for that particular skill such as writing a script. In addition, children will also show their ability to use all the skills to achieve the overall aim of the activity such as putting on a play. You may want to assess all the skills involved, or focus on certain skills only. ‘The children’s specific language skills can be measured by using the Assessment of Outcome sections. Endangered species Beginners 6 and above 3x 40-minute lessons (minimum) ‘The children learn about endangered species and make an oral presentation with the help of stick puppets. Names of animals and their food preferences (plants, fish, etc.); colours.SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION 1 Colour the bear. 2 Cutout the bear. >< INTEGRATED SKILLS aL Speaking: oral presentation. Listening: listening for specific information. Reading: reading for details and following instructions. Writing: copying. ‘The children should be able to copy individual words, match words with pictures, match paragraphs with pictures, follow written instructions to make a puppet, make a very simple oral presentation, listen to an oral presentation, and find specific information. Worksheets 6.1 and c (see back of book); pictures of the animals you are assessing; Ad paper for each child; sticky tapes popsicle/lollipop sticks or pencils; scissors; coloured pencils, Optional: magazines; books; leaflets; Internet websites (printed out or bookmarked in your computer); camera; cassette-recorder; camcorder; overhead projector. 1 Photocopy Worksheet 6.1b on page 82 (optional). Photocopy and cut up Worksheets 6.1.a and c for each child. 2. Ask the children to bring in any illustrations or toys or books they can find of the following animals: whale, panda, rhino, tiger, crocodile, koala bear, polar bear, gorilla. 3. Ifpossible, choose one of the animals and make your own stick puppet as a model for the children. 4. Set up the overhead projector if you are using one. 3 Stick the bear on your pencil. Photocopiable © Oxtord University Press82 ASSESSMENT CRITERIA IN CLASS FEEDBACK INTEGRATED SKILLS Lesson 1 ‘The children should be able to copy individual words and match words with pictures. 1 Introduce the topic to the children by talking about endangered species. Show pictures, and write the names of the animals and other relevant vocabulary on the board (for example, bamboo) and get the children to practise saying the names. 2 Give out Worksheet 6.1b or a similar chart and ask the children to draw the animals and copy the animals’ names from the board. Alternatively ask the children to copy Worksheet 6.1a from the board, or just to draw the pictures. Worksheet 6.1b a | | | Name Name Name Name 8 | | Name Name Name Name —_|—— |- _ Photocopiable © Oxford University Press 3. Divide the class into groups of four. If you have a mixed-ability class, make sure to include children from all levels of ability in each group. 4. Assign four animals (set A or set B) to each group. Ask the children to each choose a different animal from their group’s set and find a picture or other information about it to bring to class for the next lesson. They can begin their search in class ifyou have a selection of magazines, books, leaflets, or access to the Internet. Or they can search at home with the help of parents or other family members. Make sure each member of a group chooses a different animal. 1 Goround looking at the children’s work and offering them feedback.ASSESSMENT CRITERIA IN CLASS FEEDBACK ASSESSMENT CRITERIA IN CLASS INTEGRATED SKILLS 3 2. Putthe completed charts on the notice board and invite the children to view each other’s work. Lesson 2 ‘The children should be able to match paragraphs with pictures, follow written instructions, and make a puppet. 1 Revise the animals the children learnt about in their previous lesson and invite them to show the class the pictures they found. If they have information to share with the class, either allow them to use the mother tongue or help them by giving them the necessary vocabulary and expressions. 2. The pictures can later be displayed on the notice board. If any of the children are interested, they could take some of their material home and prepare posters to put on the notice board. Help them with ideas. 3. Purthe children in the same groups they were in for Lesson 1. 4 Give out Worksheet 6. 1a, according to which set of animals the children are working with. 5. Tell the groups to match the paragraphs with the pictures and fill in the names of the animals. 6 Next, tell the children they are going to make puppets. Each child chooses one of their group’s four animals for their puppet. 7 Put the instructions for making the puppet on the board (see page 81). Tell the children to cut out the picture of their animal and follow the instructions for making their puppet. Ifyou have made a model, put it where the children can see it. The puppets can be finished at home if there is not enough time in class. 1 While the children are working on their puppets, go round the groups asking them to take out Worksheet 6. 1a again. Read the passages through with them and check their answers. 2 The children can also mark themselves out of 20, allocating five points for each correct match. You can then check their marking and add comments. Lesson 3 ‘The children should be able to give a very simple oral presentation, listen to an oral presentation, and extract specific information. 1 The children sit in their groups. If any of them have brought posters to class, allow time for them to show their posters and display them on the notice board. 2 Getall the children to show their puppets to the class.34 FEEDBACK FOLLOW-UP 1 FOLLOW-UP 2 INTEGRATED SKILLS 3. Explain that they are going to look at the reading passages on ‘Worksheet 6.1a again and that each of them is going to give a short oral presentation of the animal they made a puppet of. 4. Allow time for the children to read their chosen passage and think about what they are going to say. 5. The children can practise their presentation with a partner in their group, taking turns to listen and help their partner to prepare. 6 Goround the groups making sure all the children are doing their preparation. Offer help when needed. 7 Invite the children to give their oral presentations. The children hold up the puppet of their animal while giving it. Shy or weak children may choose not to give a presentation, in which case make sure that their animals are presented by someone in another group. 8 Hand outWorksheet 6.1c and give each group the part about the animals they haven’: worked on already. Explain that while the children presenting the animals in set A are speaking, the children who worked with set B listen to the presentations and circle any words they hear on Worksheet 6.1c. Ifyou have more than one child presenting each animal, the children will have the opportunity of hearing about it several times. If not, the class may ask a child to repeat his/her presentation. 1 Speaking: oral presentation. If the children are willing, you could record their presentations on cassettes. Each child can listen to the recording either at home or at a time scheduled with you. You can then discuss the performance together. 2. Ifthe presentations are not recorded, take notes and discuss the presentation with each child. Comment on it privately soon afterwards, while itis fresh in both your minds. 3. Listening: write the answers to the word-circling activity on the board so that the children can check their answers. 4 Tell the children that they get one point for every correct word they circled. They can add up their marks themselves. Check their marks later and add your comments. ‘The children have prepared a lot of material during this project (drawings, posters, puppets). This material can be displayed. Help the children to prepare suitable headings and put the display up in an obvious place in your school. If the children would like to, let them visit another class to give their presentations. You or the class teacher can present them. The host class may even like to do the listening comprehension activity on Worksheet 6.1c as they listen to your class.FOLLOW-UP 3 VARIATION ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME INTEGRATED SKILLS 85. Ifthey are interested in animals, the children might like to join an environmental organization such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWE). Help them to fill in the forms if they want to join. Encourage them to find out more by checking websites such as: World Wildlife Fund http://www.worldwildlife.org The International Rhino Foundation http:/www.thinos-irf.org Endangered Wildlife Trust http://www.ewt.org.za/ The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International http:/www.informatics.org/gorilla Wildlife Conservation Network http:/www.wildnet.org Ifyou don’thave enough time to carry out this project with your class, consider leaving out a step or assigning some of the tasks for homework and involving the parents. If, for example, the chart you handed out at the beginning has the names of the animals already written on it, the drawing and colouring of the animals can be done at home. 1. Togetan overall picture of the children’s performance youneed to look at all the work produced throughout this project. You can do this bit by bit or collect all the work together when the children are preparing their portfolio package. 2 You can look at the assessment criteria for each stage/lesson and make sure that you assess the aims that are relevant to you. If, for example, copying is too basic an aim for your class, you can leave out that step and concentrate on the more demanding aims of the oral presentation and the listening activity. 3. The outcomes can be assessed in the following way: Lesson 1 Allocate 20 points to the end product of this stage. Break down. the points in the following way: Give eight points for copying correctly, one for each word. Give eight points for matching correctly, one for each word. Give four points for overall quality of handwriting. Lesson 2 1 Allocate 20 points to the reading activity, five points for each correct paragraph match. 2 Successfully executed puppets show that the children followed the instructions. Nevertheless, itis very informative to observe the children and keep notes on how they worked during this stage. For example, did the child wait and copy other children’s actions, or did he/she seem to be confident and understand the instructions? Lesson 3 1 Oral presentation: Use self-assessment for this (see 8.8) and discuss the results with the child. You could also observe the presentation and assess it using 10.9a, ‘Speaking task report’.86 PORTFOLIO 6.2 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME OVERALL DESCRIPTION OVERALL LANGUAGE OVERALL SKILLS OVERALL ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS INTEGRATED SKILLS ‘You may only be able to do this for a few children unless you are recording the presentations. 2 Listening: Allocate one point for each correct word. 1. The children should all have a big selection of material by the end of this project. Help them to staple everything together and make a card cover. Encourage them to add comments on their work. The comments can be either in the mother tongue or in English, if you help them. 2. Ifa child has prepared extra material because of a particular interest in the topic, include that in the portfolio as well. 3. Ifyou have been taking photos during the presentations or other stages of the project, the children could choose which ones they want to include. They and you can also add comments to accompany the photos. 4. Finally, your comments on the child’s work and any reports you may have compiled can also be part of the package the children include in their portfolio. i-play Elementary and above 8.and above Lesson 1:40 minutes Lessons 2 and 3: 2x 20 minutes Lesson 4:30 minutes + to present the play The children work in groups to prepare a mini-play. Depends on the story used. Speaking: expressing feelings with appropriate intonation and expression. Reading: comprehending extensive texts. Writing: writing a script. ‘The children should be able to comprehend an extensive written text, write a basic/simple script with the help of written or visual information, read a passage or a part in a script, projecting the appropriate feelings (interpretative reading), perform a partin a short play, work as a group, and co-operate successfully. Story-books or class readers; cards; markers; (optional) cassettes and recorders; camcorder; cameraPREPARATION ASSESSMENT CRITERIA IN CLASS INTEGRATED SKILLS 87 1 This assessment is based on stories or readers the children have previously read and perhaps worked with on book reports. The ‘whole class might work on the same book, but on different scenes. Otherwise, the class can work with a selection of different readers. 2. When the children have prepared and written up their scripts, photocopy each script for each member of the group. Lesson 1 ‘The children should be able to comprehend an extensive written text, write a basic/simple script with the help of written or visual information, work as a group, and co-operate successfully. 1 Explain to the children that they are going to work on one of the stories or readers they have read to prepare a mini-play. 2. Divide the children into groups of four (or six if you have a large class). If the children are working on a selection of books, set up the groups according to the book they want to work on. If the class works on one reader with a long story, first discuss whether it can be divided into various scenes. 3 Once the class agrees on the scenes, write them clearly on the board. Put the children into groups according to the scene or story they want to work on. (This may also dictate how many children can join a particular group, and you may have to add or remove characters.) 4 Toensure that all the children contribute to the script writing, ask the groups to assign roles before they begin. Then during the script writing, make each child responsible for writing his/her character’s part. Go round checking the roles are within each child’s abilities. If you need more roles, add a character to ‘echo’ another, for example, in April Fool’s Day another character can echo Mr Nosey. This sort of role is particularly suitable for weaker learners. 5. Tell the groups to start working on the script. The following example is based on the Graded Reader Pat and her Picture, by Rosemary Border, Oxford University Press. 6 Goround monitoring the groups and offering help when needed, encouraging the children or giving them ideas to get them started. Check that the children are not writing very long scripts. Remember that they also need time to perform them! 7 When they have finished and after your feedback, ask the children to decide who will write out or type up the script. The child in charge should bring you the script before the beginning of the next lesson, so that you can photocopy it for all the children in the group. If photocopying is a problem, allocate time cither in this lesson or the next for all the children to write up the scriptneatly.88 INTEGRATED SKILLS Sample story script 1 Scene1 Bus driver Hello, Pat! Hello, Jim! Sit down, please! Pat Yes, Mr. Brown! OK, Mr. Brown! Scene2 aim Hello, what's your name? Pat Pat! Scene3 Miss White Hello, children! How are you? PatandJim — Fine, thanks! Miss White What's this, Pat? Pat It's my picture, Miss White. It's a bus driver. Miss White He's got a gold tooth. It’s Mr. Brown. Scene 4 Bus driver Who's this, Pat? He's got a gold tooth. Is it me? Pat Yes, Mr. Brown. Bus driver Thank you, Pat. | like it. Narrator Nosey Sample story script 2 (one scene only) ‘This example is based on the reader April Fool’s Day by L.G Alexander, Longman. This is Puddleton, a small vilage. It's morning. i's 6 o'clock. Everyone's sleeping. Only Joe Selby is working in his garden. Today is April 1st, April Fool's Day. Joe wants to play a joke on a friend. [oe is digging in his garden] Good morning, Joe. Are you busy? Good morning, Nosey. Yes, I’m very busy. ‘What are you doing? I'mdigging ahole. Why? 'm looking for oll. Don't tell your friends! promise. I'mgoing to be arich man. I must go to work now. Goodbye. Goodbye.FEEDBACK ASSESSMENT CRITERIA IN CLASS INTEGRATED SKILLS 89 1 Working and co-operating in a group: observe the groups during the lesson and take notes on how they work together. Later, towards the end of the lesson, spend time with each group and discuss how well they worked together as a group and how efficient they were in preparing their script. 2. Comprehending extensive texts and writing a script: try to read the scripts or sections of the scripts the groups are working on. If you see anything that indicates lack of understanding of the reader, talk to the children. Question them and challenge them to explain, so that you get an insight into their understanding of the reader. 3 Comment on their use of the dialogue format, vocabulary, and expression. Lesson 2 The children should be able to read a passage or a part in a script, projecting the appropriate feelings (interpretative reading), work as a group, and co-operate successfully. 1. Give out the photocopies of the scripts. Each group gets the script they prepared in the previous lesson. 2 Give the groups time to go over their script silently so that they remember their parts and the play as a whole. 3. Tell them to rehearse the play. They should read it out loud at least three or four times. This will give you time to listen to a number of groups. Also suggest that they record themselves on cassette and use the recording to help them. They can listen to themselves either in class or at home and spot any mistakes they might be making, either in their use of the language or in their interpretation of the script. 4 When they feel ready, they can decide what props they will need for the play. Make sure they don’t plan over-ambitious props. If you have examples from other mini-plays, show them some sample props. Go round the classroom monitoring their decisions on props. 5. Forscene-setting, one idea is to draw or write the names of the places where the scenes take place, for example, ‘The school’, ‘The school bus’ on cards. One child can then hold up the cards and walk across the stage announcing the changes of scene before the actors appear. Par and her Picture, for example, would need only two cards, with words or a picture, or both: ‘On the bus’ (Scenes 1, 2, and 4), and ‘At school’ (Scene 3). The example scene from April Fool's Day again only needs two cards: ‘Puddleton village’, and ‘Joe’s garden’. 6 Once they have decided on the props they need, they can either prepare them in class or work on them at home. 7. The children have to try and learn their parts by heart. This can also be done at home with the help of parents, older siblings, or other family or friends.FEEDBACK ASSESSMENT CRITERIA IN CLASS FEEDBACK ASSESSMENT CRITERIA IN CLASS FEEDBACK INTEGRATED SKILLS 1 Props: Monitor the children’s work and offer feedback on the props. 2 Interpretative reading: listen to the groups while they are rehearsing and offer feedback on their interpretation of the script. 3. Ifthe children have recorded themselves, you might get the group to play back the recording and discuss with you the highlights of the play as well as areas in need of improvement. Lesson 3 ‘The children should be able to perform a part in a short play, work as a group, and co-operate successfully. 1 Allow the children time to get into their groups and check their props. 2. Ifthey are happy with the props, they can have a full rehearsal of the play with actions, etc. If you have a small number of children in the class, they can work in different corners of the classroom. If your class is of average size and the school has public areas Gibrary, garden, lobby etc.), you could probably get permission to use those. Set a time limit for the children. If you have a very large class, you might want to break this stage up into different lessons, during which different groups rehearse while the rest of the class works on other activities. 3. Monitor the rehearsals and remind the children that their play should not be too long. Co-operation and performing in a play: give the group feedback on the quality of their performance as a whole. Lesson 4 The children should be able to perform a part in a short play, work as a group, and co-operate successfully. 1 The groups present their plays in class. This can take place over several lessons so that each group can present their play. Another way of presenting the plays is to invite the children and their families and friends to a weekend session when your groups present their plays. If your class has worked on different scenes of the same book, put the performance together so that the audience sees the whole story scene by scene. 2. Ifpossible video and/or take photographs of the children, If the parents are invited you can get some help from them, too! The class or group completes a peer-assessment form for each group (see the next page).FOLLOW-UP VARIATION 1 VARIATION 2 INTEGRATED SKILLS on Peer-assessment form for mini-play Cee, te: le Assessment of group The play was based on the reader I liked watching the play. I liked the props. | The children in the group are good actors. ©©O© © © The story was interesting. The story was the same as in the book. The actors spoke clearly, Photocopiable © Oxtord University Press 1 Ifthe children took photos while they were performing, the most interesting photos can be displayed. The children write captions or speech bubbles for each photo and put them up on the notice board. You could turn this into a competition and give a prize for the funniest caption. 2 Ifthe plays are performed in public, the groups can prepare posters announcing and advertising the performances. The posters can then be placed around the school. If you are working with an advanced class and one reader, you could have groups working on various scenes and put all the scenes together for an end-of-year performance. Instead of writing a script following a scene or the plot of a reader, the children could write their own scene or change a scene, for example, by changing the characters’ personalities or changing the ending.92 ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME INTEGRATED SKILLS 1 Comprehending extensive written texts: when you assess the scripts prepared by the children and take into account the discussions you had with them about the script (especially if there were any misunderstandings), you get a good picture of the children’s abilities to comprehend an extensive written text, appropriate to their level. Your notes on their comprehension should accompany the scripts when they are entered in the children’s portfolios, 2 Writing a simple script with the help of written or visual information. Assess their writing using 10.10, ‘Writing task report’. 3. Reading a passage or a part in a script, projecting the appropriate feclings (interpretative reading): if you made a video or audio recording it provides a permanent record of the children’s achievement of this aim. Alternatively, you can use observation notes. 4. Performing a part in a short play: the peer-assessment forms can be discussed with them. 5 Working as a group and co-operating successfully: use your notes and the group work assessment form in the Introduction, page 18. 6 The children’s performance, their interpretive reading, their group work, and their co-operation skills can be discussed with the group if there is time. They could watch and discuss the video if one was made. If you feel that your class is able to handle a public discussion of each group, you might try showing the video to the whole class and discussing the above issues openly. Only do this if you are sure all the children are very supportive. But the fact that all the children are being treated in the same way should make them considerate towards their classmates. Encourage them to offer positive assessment and constructive comments. 7 Finally, all these assessment instruments should go in the children’s portfolio to give a complete picture of their performance in this task. 1 Asclection of the captions and pictures prepared by the children can be included in their portfolios. You may also arrange for copies of the tape or video to be included in each child’s portfolio if you recorded the plays. The tapes can be accompanied by the children’s comments on the activity. 2. Add reports, observation comments, and other notes that you might have made in assessing this task.6.3 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME OVERALL DESCRIPTION OVERALL LANGUAGE OVERALL SKILLS OVERALL ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION ASSESSMENT CRITERIA IN GLASS INTEGRATED SKILLS 93 Favourite songs and musicians Pre-intermediate 10 and above Lesson 1 and Lesson 2: 40 minutes each Lesson 3: 20 minutes + Lesson 4: 20 minutes for each group to present their work. (Presentations can take place over a series of lessons.) Children work in groups to prepare a presentation about their favourite musicians. Zodiac signs, birthdays, nationalities, hobbies, dates, and other information about famous people. Agreeing, disagreeing, making suggestions: Ler’s Why don’t we Reading: Comprehending extensive texts; searching for information from a variety of authentic sources. Writing: Making a poster; writing a paragraph about a famous person. Speaking: Discussing (agreeing, disagreeing, making sugge: expressing opinions); giving an oral presentation, Listening: Listening to authentic texts (songs); intensive listening ns, ‘The children should be able to comprehend extensive texts, search for information from a variety of authentic sources; co-operate well with other children in their group, orally make suggestions/agree/ disagree/express an opinion; write a paragraph about a famous person, make a poster; write questions about a famous person; make ashort oral presentation; extract details from a listening text. Sources of information about musicians, for example, magazines, newspapers, books, websites; camera and film (if you want to take photos); video camera (if you want to video the presentations); markers, crayons, scissors, glue and large pieces of card (for the poster); CD player or audio cassette player. Ask children to bring their own information to class (see above) Lesson 1 ‘The children should be able to co-operate well with other children in their group, orally make suggestions/agree/disagree /express an opinion, comprehend extensive texts, and search for information from a variety of authentic sources. 1 Ask the children if they have any favourite songs, who they are by, and finally, who their favourite musicians are. Write their favourite musicians on the board.94 FEEDBACK INTEGRATED SKILLS 2. Ask them to prepare an oral presentation about their favourite musicians so as to introduce their classmates and you to the music they like. 3. Divide children into groups of 4 according to their musical preferences. Try not to have two groups dealing with the same musicians. 4 Children discuss in their groups what information they should include in their presentation. Remind them that they should try and use English as much as possible. Write on the board some of the phrases that they will most likely need, for example: - Let's. — Why don’t we..? — Yes, it’s a good idea. = Lagree. ~ Idon’t agree. = Ithink we should ... 5 Encourage them to keep notes on what they decide. 6 Monitor the groups to try to make sure they speak in English. 7 Once they agree on the information they will be looking for, the groups discuss where and how they are going to work, what sources they are going to use, and who is going to do what (for example, research should be shared among group members depending on the sources each child has access to). 8 They also decide on a song they can play to the class. 9 Ifthere is time they can start their search using the materials brought in. If there isn’t enough time, the materials can be left in class or, perhaps, borrowed by children who have no access to target-language material at home. Procedure and co-operation Join the groups towards the end of their assigned time and check that they have organized their searching tasks appropriately and arranged times and places to meet if necessary. Offer feedback on how they worked as a group. Speaking Use Worksheet 8.8 (page 121). You can add categories such as J made a lot of suggestions, if necessary, or you may change categories, for example, I asked a lot of questions to I agreedI disagreed with my friends’ suggestions. Collect the forms and offer the children feedback, from your observations, on how well they did during the task. Ina class discussion, ask the children to report back on what information they agreed to include in their presentations. Write this, on the board, creating a checklist for all the groups. For example: Name, Real name, Age, Birthday, Zodiac Sign, Country they live in, Nationality, Hobbies, Hits, Girlfriend/Boyfriend, Other information. Reading Ask individual children questions while they are working, such as Are you finding this difficult? Are there many difficult words?ASSESSMENT CRITERIA CLASS FEEDBACK INTEGRATED SKILLS 95 How do you deal with the words you don’t know? This information will help you to give useful feedback. Lesson 2 ‘The children should be able to: co-operate well with other children in their group; write a paragraph about a famous person ; make a poster; write questions about a famous person. 1. The children sit with their groups to pool the information they have gathered, If the group is satisfied with their material, they prepare the text for the oral presentation. Otherwise they continue searching for information within a time-limit set by you. Advise them to prepare a written text first so that they can use it for their rehearsals/preparation. 2. Ifthe children are presenting on a group of musicians (for example, The Beatles), each child can prepare for and present one artist, whereas if they are concentrating on only one artist (such as George Michael) they should break up the presentation into parts based on the checklist created in Lesson 1. This way each child has a specific part to prepare. 3 Encourage children to take turns reading their work to the group to see how it sounds when itis all put together. They should also time themselves and offer each other feedback. 4. Divide the groups into pairs to deal with the poster and the listening activities. Poster Children prepare a poster with information about the musician/s and additional visual material which they display on the board. Listening activities Based on their presentation, they prepare listening activities such as questions, which they will give to the rest of the class to do during the presentation. The children write up the listening activities in the form of a handout. 5 If children don’thave time to finish the poster and the listening activities, they can continue at home or in the next lesson. 1 Askeach group to go through their presentation with you and discuss whether they think it provides adequate information about the artist, whether itis well organized, etc. 2 Check how the poster and the listening activities are progressing. Invite the children to contribute ideas and check that they have enough time or whether they are willing to work at home. Make sure that the song they chose is appropriate to be presented in class. 3. Also offer feedback on how the group co-operated and ask the children to tell you how they think their group is working, if they are having any problems, and how they can improve their group work.96 ASSESSMENT CRITERIA IN CLASS FEEDBACK ASSESSMENT CRITERIA IN CLASS FEEDBACK INTEGRATED SKILLS Lesson 3 ‘The children should be able to co-operate well with other children in their group; write a paragraph about a famous person; make a poster; write questions about a famous person. 1 In their groups, the children check each other’s work (make comments, additions, etc). Monitor the groups. 2. Remind them to give you the completed handout with the listening activities/questions so that you can photocopy it in time for their presentation. 3 They rehearse their presentations. Presentation text, poster and listening activities Offer feedback on their work. You may need to provide guidance for the handout, as sometimes children include difficult questions for their classmates. Oral presentation Find time during the children’s rehearsals to listen in, Remind them to speak loudly, clearly, and not too fast. Tell them that they can use notes but they should be comfortable enough to be able to look at their audience and not simply read from their notes. Co-operation See feedback for Lesson 2. Lesson 4 The children should be able to make a short oral presentation and extract details from a listening text. 1. Allow the group doing the presentation time for one final rehearsal. This may be done while the rest of the class is involved in asilent activity. 2 The group gives out the activities/handout they prepared. 3 The presentation takes place while the rest of the class carries out the listening activities. 4 Encourage the group to ask if their classmates would like them to repeat the presentation. 5. The group plays the song they selected. 6 The group collects the handouts to mark at home and return later. 7 They put the answers to the listening activities on the board. 8 Ifthereis time, the class can ask questions relating to the presentation, or listen to the song again. Peer feedback After each presentation, the class — ora section of the class ~ fills in assessmenv/feedback cards (see below). The group doing the presentation collect the cards and study them later during amecting/conference with you. During this meeting, discuss the points made on the cards and invite self-assessment from theFOLLOW-UP INTEGRATED SKILLS 7 children, Ask them how well they think they did, what were the good points of their presentation, what things went wrong, and what could be improved in the future. 1 Each group writes up a short written presentation about their chosen musicians. All the presentations can be put together, photocopied and stapled, and given to the class as a booklet. The songs may also be collected and a class cassette can be prepared to accompany the booklet. Children may want to help you with the preparation of a class cassette. Let them do it! 2. The posters and visual material materials can be arranged into a giant poster which can stay in class or be put on display in a public area of the school. 3 Youcan arrange for your class to visit other classes and do their presentations. Peer-assessment card for oral presentation. Name: Date: Presentation by Group: Name of Musician / Group: The group spoke loudly Yes / No The group spoke clearly. Yes / No | could understand them, Yes / No The presentation was interesting. Yes / No The presentation helped me answer all the questions in the handout. Yes / No | liked the presentation. Yes / No The poster was interesting. Yes | No | liked the poster. Yes / No Comments: Photocopiable © Oxtord University Press98 VARIATION 1 VARIATION 2 ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME PORTFOLIO INTEGRATED SKILLS You can have presentations about the children’s favourite actors or important/famous people. In the case of actors, the children can show extracts from films, if you have access to a video and television. Ifyou are short of time many tasks can be carried out at home, especially if children live close to each other. Co-operation Observe the children during group work. You can also chav/conference with the children (see feedback stages). Make notes on your observations and conferences soon after they take place. Use the group work assessment form (see page 18). You may also add some of the points arising from your observation and conference notes. Reading Observe and conference/chat with the children (see feedback in Lesson 1). You should again try to keep notes on the information you collect. These notes may be entered in children’s portfolios along with the children’s work and comments Speaking Speaking may be assessed through one or more of the following: ~ self-assessment 8.8 —peer-assessment (see peer-assessment card above) — observation notes ~ Speaking Task Report 10.9b for performance in the discussion task (Lesson 1) ~ Speaking Task Report 10.9a for the oral presentation, Writing Use the Writing Marking Scheme in 10.10.You can complete a report for each task, or fill in one report based on all the writing tasks the child has carried out. Listening The children have prepared listening handouts and they have also taken responsibility for correcting and marking them. Have a look at the completed and marked handouts before they are returned and record each child’s achievement. 1 Ifyou videotaped or recorded the presentations, the children may want to include the video or audio cassette in their portfolios. If you take photographs, the children can choose some to go in their portfolios. They can also add captions or speech bubbles to the photos. You can also include a class tape with all the songs presented. 2. Include reports, notes from conferences and observations, and self- and peer-assessment forms for each child.7 Grammar ‘This chapter on grammar assessment tasks was not written in the belief that grammar should be taught separately but because teachers need to know their children’s level of understanding of grammatical structures. The ultimate goal of teaching grammar is not for children to learn forms and abstract rules but to be able to convey their intended meaning effectively. Although communication is the primary goal, no one can communicate effectively and appropriately if their use of language is inaccurate. Even though some inaccuracies can be overlooked in foreign learners, especially in children, learners need to be made aware that inaccurate grammar interferes with meaning. Itis also desirable to assess grammar separately because itis unfair to penalize grammatical errors when assessing communicative ability in other skills. A short-term goal for teaching grammar could be to help children understand how language works. This can be especially useful with any language that children are already using as ‘chunks’. For example, a child may be using phrases such as My name is __, without being able to manipulate the components and use them in other contexts. When you focus on possessive pronouns, you help children to maximize the potential use of this structure by enabling them to create new sentences such as His name is, Her name is. Focusing on grammatical structures also helps you to get feedback on the way you teach particular structures. Children’s errors often lead back to the presentation of a structure in a way that has confused the children. This becomes more obvious when a large number of the children in the class seem to be making the same mistake. Feedback from children can often be very useful, particularly for beginner teachers. Grammar assessment should be a natural extension of the approach used in class. As stated in the Introduction, encouraging motivation and positive attitudes towards learning and the target language should feature high in our priorities when teaching young learners. This applies equally when we assess grammar.100 7A LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION IN CLASS FEEDBACK FOLLOW-UP VARIATION ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME GRAMMAR Colour the picture Beginners 6 and above 10 minutes The children focus on prepositions, colouring objects in a picture by following instructions. Prepositions: in, on, under; colours. Reading: recognizing and understanding selected prepositions. ‘The children should be able to understand the meaning of selected prepositions. Worksheet 7.1 (see back of book); coloured pencils; overhead projector and coloured markers (optional); paper. 1 Photocopy Worksheet 7.1 for each child. 2. Set up the overhead projector if you are using one. 1 Show the class Worksheet 7.1 or put it up on the overhead projector. Tell the children they first have to read the instructions at the bottom of the page. They then follow the instructions and colour the picture. Hand out Worksheet 7.1. ‘The children complete the task. Collect the Worksheets. Ren 1 Ifyou have an overhead projector, ask a few children to come out to the front. Give them coloured markers and ask them to colour the picture according to the instructions. 2. Alternatively, you could draw the picture on the board or enlarge the worksheet before you go through the answers with the class. 1 Hand outa piece of paper to each child for them to draw their ‘own pictures and write simple sentences like the ones on the worksheet. 2. They then exchange papers with their partners and colour each other’s pictures. If the children don’t know the colours, put a chart on the board for them to use as a reference. Use a discrete-point marking scheme.PORTFOLIO 7.2 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARAI GRAMMAR 101 The children can put their pictures in their portfolios if they wish. llike - 1 don’t like Beginners 8 and above 20 minutes ‘The children play a game focusing on the verb like. Affirmative and negative forms of the verb like in the present simple tense. Writing: writing sentences with like and don’ like. The children should be able to use the verb like in the affirmative and negative and to express likes and dislikes. Worksheets 7.2a and b (see back of book); dice; word and picture cards below; one record chart for each group (see next page). 1 Photocopy Worksheet 7.2 or prepare a circle and cards with your own choice of objects or actions. You will need one circle for each group of four children. 2. Make two sets of picture cards for each group (see below). 3 Photocopy Worksheet 7.2b (showing likes and dislikes) for each child. 4. Make a class record chart like the one on the next page. & rice eggs eo milk chocolates salad pizza Photocopiable © Oxtord University Press IN CLASS 1 Divide the class into groups of four and give each group a numbered circle (Worksheet 7.2a) and a die. 2 Hand out three cards to each child.102 FEEDBACK FOLLOW-UP ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME GRAMMAR 3 Explain to the children that their three cards represent things they like. If there is a picture on the circle that they don’t have on their cards, it’s something they ‘don’t like’, 4, Tell the children that each of them will throw the die four times. Each time they throw it they fill in their worksheet. If the number on the die corresponds to the number of an object in the circle, and they have the picture, they complete the sentence on the worksheet, for example, like milk. If they don’t have the picture corresponding to the number on the die, they fill in the worksheet with, for example, I don’tlike pizza. 5 The aim of this game is to be the first to complete three [like sentences on the worksheet. If by chance the same number comes up more than once, the children can write either I really like pizza or I really don’t like pizza. 6 Appoint a group secretary to record the children’s performance (see Assessment of Outcome below). 7 The children take turns throwing the die until someone wins. You could also continue the game until all the children have completed their worksheets. While you are collecting the record charts (see Assessment of Outcome), comment on the children’s performance. Ask the children to make true statements about the cards they have. ‘They can do this either orally or in writing. 1 Observe the children and take notes. 2. Give the group secretaries a copy of the record chart below. They tick a box each time one of the children forms a correct sentence. At the end the group can look at their results and discuss their performance 3 Collect the charts and Worksheet 7.2b for your records. You may like to monitor in case the secretaries don’t know when sentences are correct or not. Name Hike. | ttike.f | tlike.f | ttike..f | tlike.. | tlike.../ I don’t like | | don’t like || don’t like I don’t like | don’t like || don’t like Photecopiable © Oxford University Press,7.3 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE SKILLS. ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS PREPARATION IN CLASS _ FEEDBACK GRAMMAR 103, Families Beginners 8 and above 20 minutes ‘The children identify family members, add them to a family photo, and describe their relationship to the main character. Vocabulary: family members: dad, mum, brother, sister, grandma, grandad. Grammar: possessive ’s. Writing: identifying and writing about family members. ‘The children should be able to use the possessive ’s, recognize ‘family’ vocabulary, and write sentences introducing family members. Worksheet 7.3 (see back of book); scissors; glue; overhead projector (optional). 1 Photocopy Worksheet 7.3 for each child. 2. Enlarge a copy of the characters on Worksheet 7.3. 3. Setup the overhead projector if you are using one; if so, prepare a transparency of the completed worksheet for feedback, 1 Show the children an enlarged copy of the characters at the bottom of the worksheet. 2. Explain that they are Mark and Judy and their family. The children have to guess who each personis, cut out the characters, and paste them into the right photo frame. Tell them to look for family resemblances such as freckles. 3 Hand outWorksheet 7.3 and ask the children to carry out the task. 4 Once they have finished, explain that they have to draw lines from cach of the characters and write who they are, for example: This is Mark’s dad or even simply Mark’ dad. 5 The children complete the task. 1 The children compare answers with a partner to see if they agree. If there are any questions, they can ask them in an open class discussion. 2 Invite a couple of children who have arranged the family photos correctly to go round showing their work to their classmates for ‘comparison. The children can then put the sentences they wrote, for example, This is Mark’s dad or Mark’s dad up on the board.104 FOLLOW-UP ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME GRAMMAR 3. Alternatively if you have an overhead projector; put the final product on a transparency. You or the children can add the sentences as you go through the feedback. 1 The children can create their own imaginary family and talk about them. This could be a monster family or one based on familiar characters such as The Simpsons, The Addams family, etc. 2. They could also write sentences similar to the ones they used in the assessment task. 1 After they have discussed their work with their partners, the children fill in a self-assessment form (see below). 2. While the children are filling in their forms, go round the classroom discussing their answers with them. 3. Finally, collect their worksheets and add your own comments: Excellent, Very good, etc. When you look at the completed task, have their self-assessment forms in front of you and add your comments on the assessment form as well, for example, Yes, you did find the families. Well done! Be a litle bit careful wohen you write. Don’t forget the’s in Mark's dad. 4 Give back the worksheets with the self-assessment form attached. The children can take them home for feedback from their parents. Name Families I think | did well. dad J enjoyed doing this. | put the people in the right families. J explained who's who. lused the 's correctly. Circle the words you know. Class Date | ©©GOO /G©G©OGOO® ®@O@OO® mum grandad grandma _—sister-_~—_—wbrother Photocopiable © Oxford University Press PORTFOLIO The completed worksheets, the self-assessment forms, and the follow-up work can be included in the children’s portfolios if they wish.7.4 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE sl LS ASSESSMENT CRITERIA MATERIALS. PREPARATION IN CLASS FEEDBACK FOLLOW-UP ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOME GRAMMAR 105 We go together! Elementary 8 and above 10 minutes ‘The children match and copy sentences based on personal and possessive pronouns. Personal and possessive pronouns. Reading: recognizing relationships between sentences. ‘Writing: copying sentences. ‘The children should be able to recognize relationships between sentences with the help of personal pronouns: This is Marta. She’s ‘from Mexico, and relate personal and possessive pronouns to gender and number. ‘Worksheet 7.4 (see back of book). Photocopy Worksheet 7.4 for each child. 1 Hand out Worksheet 7.4. 2. Tell the children to look at part A of the worksheet and match the sentences that go together. 3. They then go to part B of the worksheet and copy the sentences under the right picture. 4 Collect the worksheets for checking. 1 Draw the pictures on the board. Ask the children to call out the sentences that go under each picture. 2. Before you write the sentences on the board, ask the children to explain why they chose each one. Ask the children to make as many sentences as they can about the people in the pictures: She’s ten years old, She’s got blue eyes. These can be imaginary. Use a discrete-point marking-scheme. The children get two points for each correct sentence match and two points for each pair of sentences placed under the right picture.8 Self-assessment Children’s self-assessment can include their attitudes towards learning and aspects of the learning process, such as the activities used by the teacher, the textbooks and other teaching materials they use, their preferred learning styles, and their actual progress/performance. The inclusion of all these areas in self- assessment signals their importance to the children. Most importantly though, self-assessment improves children’s motivation, enjoyment, and understanding of important aspects of the language learning procedure, and offers them the basic skills that characterize autonomous learners, such as reflection on and regular review of their work. ‘The various types of self-assessment presented here are only intended as examples for you to try out and use as a springboard to create your own. You will probably have to go through an initial phase of experimentation until you find out what really works for your children. During this early phase you should also train the children in the basics of self-assessment since they may initially find it difficult. They need to be guided through the process and you will need to model how self-assessment works. Moreover, in co-operation with the children, you need to set the criteria and illustrate what is considered acceptable, good, or excellent work, so that they understand what is expected of them. General self-assessment criteria can be set through discussion of what makes a good learner. When self-assessment focuses on achieving specific goals, you can discuss what knowing something means, for example, can say it, I can recognize it, I can understand it, etc. You may be aiming for a specific level of ‘knowing’, such as recognition, and the children need to be aware of that. Itis also important that you arrange time to see their self- assessment entries and discuss them with each child. It may be possible to fill in easy-to-complete self-assessment worksheets, such as 8.1, in class. For others, you will need to find time soon after the children have completed their self-assessment. You can compare their assessment with your observations and their assessment task results to check whether their assessment is accurate. A private discussion with a child may not take more than a few minutes and could even take place just before or just after class. Finding time to make even a brief comment on the child’s self-assessment is essential so that the children realize you are interested in what they think. Your feedback will also help to guide them in the right direction and help them to set goals that address difficulties identified during self-assessment.8.1 LEVEL AGE GROUP TIME AIMS. DESCRIPTION MATERIALS PREPARATION IN CLASS SELF-ASSESSMENT 107 If the children are having difficulties with language, you may have to use questionnaires in the mother tongue, although you could also try to use simple statements in language they have learned and practised, for example ‘I like ...” rather than ‘I enjoy...’, etc. Alternatively, you can use questionnaires to which the children respond with just a drawing. Go through questionnaires explaining the statements before getting the children to complete them. Depending on their level, you might ask the children to read the questionnaire statements in English, but allow them to write their comments and set their goals in their mother tongue. If the children are not yet able to read or write, read each statement, explain it, and then allow them time to complete their answer by choosing the right face on the page before moving on to the next statement. Self-assessment documents should be kept in the portfolios so that the children can have access to their progress records whenever they wish. This way they are able to compare their progress at various points in their career. Encourage children to share self-assessment with their parents so that the parents can check their children’s assessment and help them to set new goals. Self-assessment can be carried out at various strategic points during the course, and needs to be used as one among a variety of other assessment types. Attitudes towards English lessons All All 10 minutes (when introduced for the first time; afterwards, two minutes at the end of each lesson) ‘To encourage children to express their feelings and attitudes towards their English classes in a quick and efficient way. ‘The children indicate their general feelings towards their English classes by drawing expressions on a face. ‘Worksheet 8.1 (see back of book). Photocopy Worksheet 8.1 for each child. Modify it to suit your needs if you have lessons more or less frequently. Each face the children draw on the worksheet corresponds to one lesson. The day of the week should be written in the first column. In the last row, the children write something that made them happy (a song or a game, for example), thus strengthening their positive feelings towards the English classes. 1 Drawa ‘happy’, ‘sad’, and an ‘indifferent’ face on the board and mime the feelings yourself.