My Marking System for a Language Class Summarised.

“How do we mark kids in C.I. classes?” asks a C.I. newbie on the Yahoo listserv.  Assessment and evaluation are always hot topics.

First, definitions.  Assessment is observing how people are doing, and based on that observation

1. changing what you the teacher do and
2. giving students feedback in order to
3. improve student performance.

Assessment in a comprehensible input classroom means checking whether individual students (or the class) understand both statements and questions, and– if they don’t– clarifying. Weak choral responses?  No response?  Wrong answer?  Go back and clarify. The same goes for individual kids.  If Johnny can’t answer the question “What does ___ mean?”, go back and re-explain.  BOOM! that’s assessment.

Evaluation is assigning a number to student work based on a student’s performance in relation to standards (criteria).  This we do at the end of instruction (ie when a story cycle is done, or at the end of the year).

Second, principles.  If you havn’t been in-serviced about “assessment for learning,” google it, I can’t explain it all here, but let’s make three things SUPER CLEAR.

A.   We only evaluate “final products,” not practice, homework, behaviour, attitude, etc.   The long and the short of this surprisingly controversial statement is that we expect our kids to do X, Y and Z, and the mark we ultimately assign them at the end of Year ____ of Blablabian Language Class should reflect how well they do X, Y and Z, baseed on a set of criteria.  Whether or not Johnny is nice in class, and whether or not Suzy does her homework are irrelevant: what matters is how well they do in relation to criteria.

B.  We only evaluate what has been taught.  No random new vocab, no activities on tests the kids havn’t done, no gotcha! games etc.  You test what you teach, period.

C. We always let ppl re-do work so they can improve their mark. In my class, this means that their mark is always their most recent writing, reading and speaking mark.

Assessment should be fast, simple and minimal, because people learn from interesting comprehensible input and not from testing and feedback, and because teachers need to see their families & have a life 👍.  

Now, here is what I do.

DURING THE COURSE

My instruction is very loosely built around story cycles. I will ask a TPRS-style story, and add to that Movietalks, Intro Routine, Story Listening, Picturetalk, reading, etc. When we are “done” with one story and its associated vocab, I evaluate. Evaluation for a story cycle includes the following:

1. Two listening quizzes. For this, I read a 5-7 sentence story that I make up on the spot aloud. The kids listen, write down the Spanish, and translate into English. This will be 33% of the story cycle mark. To evaluate these, they basically get a mark for getting the gist of each sentence. I don’t “grade spelling” unless the spelling makes their writing incomprehensible.
2. One reading quiz. I will give the kids something to read, and get them to translate it. Whatever it is, it has to be 98% comprehensible. Usually, I will give kids a version of something we have created in class, or something similar to what we made in class. To evaluate this, I will randomly pick three sentences and see how well they understand. They will get a mark out of three.
3. One Story Listening grade. I do Story Listening on Fridays. I get the kids to summarise a printed version of the story and hand that in.  They almost always get 2.5/3 or 3/3 on this. This goes into the reading category. If a story cycle takes more than a week, sometimes they get two SL grades added to their reading.
4. One 5-min picture description write and one story write. This is how I mark writing.
6. Other stuff: I can also grade comics for a reading mark. If we are reading a novel, I can copy a few sentences from a chapter and get the kids to translate that for a reading mark. You can easily get reading marks from Textivate, and I also use Sr Wooly scores sometimes for reading marks.

So, at the end of a story cycle, I will have two marks for writing, two for listening, and one or two for reading. Each category is worth 33.3% of grade. I print marks out & post them online.

Now, if kids have unexcused absences, or they didn’t do the comic or Q&A for stories, etc., they will get a much lower grade than they expect. If the grade is low, I tell the kid or their parent “Baninder is missing X, Y and Z. If she completes these next story cycle, she will probably get a higher grade.” So the kids know that the posted grade is their grade right now. They also know that they can change their grade by paying attention.

When the next story cycle starts, the gradebook resets.

AT THE END OF THE YEAR

In my course, the final exam is 100% of the mark. I tell kids and parents that their marks along the way are a rough indicator of how well they are doing.  At the end of the year, we do the following:

1. First class: they have a listening test where I read a longer story (15-20 sentences) aloud.  They have to write down the Spanish and translate. Then, we have a reading test: they get a written text they have never seen, and translate it into English. I randomly pick 5 sentences and grade those for each of reading & listening.

2. Second class: they have three writing tasks.  First, they have 5 min. to describe themselves.  Second, I project a picture, and they have 5 min. to describe the picture. Third, they have to write a story.

3.  For speaking, I do this.

After seven years of C.I., I have found this system clear, simple, low-work and low-stress for the kids. To sum up,

• students are always marked on their most recent work
• no oral evaluation for beginners
• this is real “assessment for learning” where only final products are evaluated with reference to criteria
• there is no marking of attitude, homework, participation, etc.  If kids screw around, or don’t work, I deal with it– but not by using marks as carrot or stick