The teacher understands and uses multiple methods of assessment to engage learners in their own growth, to monitor learner progress and to guide the teachers and learner's decision making.

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ARTIFACT 1

Name of Artifact: Evaluation and Redesign of a Traditional Assessment 

Course: WL 561: Teaching Second Languages - Theory into Practice

Date: Fall, 2021

World-Readiness Standards Addressed: Interpersonal Communication, Interpretive Communication, Presentational Communication​

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RATIONALE

The artifact I selected for this Standard is an assignment I conducted during the course WL 561: Teaching Second Languages – Theory into Practice. The assignment required me to evaluate a traditional test and adapt it to reflect a standards-based approach and make it more effective towards learner growth and development. The test was designed to measure student knowledge of discrete language elements that were completely void of any context. This is not an effective approach to assessment. To be useful to monitoring learner progress and contributing toward decision-making, an assessment must be contextualized. That is, it must be based on some real-life situation. The traditional test did not do this and was designed to measure the amount of learner knowledge accrued on various grammatical and vocabulary elements. A test designed with this purpose can sometimes fall under the interpretive mode of communication but to be effective and address the Standards, all three modes of communication need to be integrated into the assessment so that learners can apply what they have learned to real-life situations (NSFLCP, 2015).

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The objective for my redesign of this traditional grammar test was to create an assessment that would actively engage learners and contribute more effectively to their growth. Rather than have students respond to questions with one-solution answers, I based the assessment on a scenario involving a trip to Paris. Students had to describe their itinerary, make plans, purchase tickets for public transport and order meals in restaurants.

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I chose this artifact because it demonstrates my understanding of the key concepts involved in developing assessments, as well my ability to design a summative assessment that provides learners with opportunities to demonstrate their proficiency across the three modes of communication within a specific context area (Shrum & Glisan, 2010). Learners are still using the vocabulary, verbs, tenses and numbers they previously learned, but instead of testing their knowledge, the redesigned assessment requires them to draw on that knowledge and use it in a performance-based assessment integrated into a real-life situation. Actively engaging students in contextualized assessment leads to much more effective progress than a traditional test (Shrum and Glisan, 2010).

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As a new teacher, I relied more than I should have on traditional assessments much like the one I was asked to evaluate in this assignment. The evaluation and redesign of this test combined with other work from my MATL courses has helped me grow as a teacher by helping me to understand the value of assessments as a tool for effective learner development. I now understand the value and effectiveness of a performance-based assessment integrated into real-life context, that addresses the standards and requires students to use all three modes of communication. If I were to redesign this assessment again, I believe it could be improved by using a backwards design model, adding more choices in the performance-based tasks and by designing a scoring and grading rubric that I would share with students prior to the assessment.

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References

The National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project. (2015). World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages

     (4th ed.).  Alexandria, VA.

Shrum, J.L., & Glisan, E.W. (2010). Teacher’s handbook: Contextualized language instruction. (4th ed.). Cengage Learning.

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ARTIFACT 2

Name of Artifact: Essay on Self-Assessment in a French Class

Course: WL 663: Applied Linguistics

Date: Fall, 2020

World-Readiness Standards Addressed: Interpersonal Communication Interpretive Communication, Language Comparisons

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RATIONALE

The second artifact I have chosen to demonstrate my understanding of the different types of assessments and how to use them for planning instruction and contributing to learner growth, is an essay that I wrote on learner self-assessment during the course WL 663: Applied Linguistics. The essay was a review of an article that discussed research into learners’ self-assessment of their speaking skills in an advanced French class. One of the important aspects of assessments that I learned from this assignment is that there are many different types of assessments and the choice of which type of assessment to use depends on the instructional goals and the type of evidence needed to confirm those goals have been attained (Shrum & Glisan, 2016).

 

In this particular instance the instructor was confronted with a class of advanced students that varied significantly in their speaking ability. One of the instructor’s primary instructional objectives was to a attain a very significant level of learner participation in speaking activities. She therefore designed a series of self-assessments that learners would perform at week four, eight and twelve. The assessments were qualitative questionnaires in which learners would assess their speaking performance through multiple choice responses, self-rating scales and open-ended questions on their proficiency across various linguistic and pronunciation features. The key finding was that self-assessments led to a significant increase in students’ perception of their speaking ability. This in turn led to an increase in motivation and a willingness to engage.

 

This artifact contributed in a major way to my understanding of the various types of assessments and how effective a tool they can be to not only guide instruction but also to engage learners and support their development.  In particular, I learned how “self-assessment is shifting away from issues strictly concerning assessment theory, and embracing a broader view of self-assessment as a tool for motivating and enhancing learning" (Saint Léger, 2016, p. 159).

 

This artifact also demonstrates my understanding of how an assessment can be used to monitor learner progress and guide student decision making on their own learning. Shrum & Glisan (2016), refer to the washback effect, to explain how linking instruction closely to assessment can have a positive effect on language acquisition as well as the selection of learning strategies. Saint Léger (2009), also highlights how this form of assessment results in a transfer of some of the learning responsibilities from instructor to learner which can create a dynamic of self-regulation and self-reflection, two factors essential to learner development.

 

In addition to the questionnaires that were used in this artifact, in the future I would supplement the assessment process with peer feedback as well as the use of audio-video tools so that learners could also see and hear themselves speaking their L2.

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References

Saint Léger, D. (2009). Self-assessment of speaking skills and participation in a foreign

     language class. Foreign Language Annals, 22(1), 158-178. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.2009.01013.x

Shrum, J. L., & Glisan, E. W. (2010). Teacher’s handbook: Contextualized language instruction. (4th ed.). Cengage Learning.

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