Final Colloquium

ECO I

“Assessment

Scheme”

Class: 1st year at EPIE “Almirante Guillermo Brown”.

Class profile: 20 students: 9 boys and 11 girls.

Level: Pre-Intermediate.

Length of the lesson: Mondays and Thursdays from 17.50 to

20.30 pm.

Language Functions: asking and talking about hobbies and

interests.

Grammar: present simple, expression followed by –ing, “I really

like cooking”. She’s interested in..” She’s into…”

Vocabulary: Hobbies, interests, free time activities.

Materials: Netbooks, Internet connection, Blogs, and Glogster.

Aim of the task:

The objective of this task is to tap into the students’ speaking

skills by carrying out an interview to another group from the

EPIE.

The task:

The interview project is called “Getting to know other people”.

The students and I will device a set of questions that has to be

learnt in order to avoid reading directly from the sheet of paper.

They are also required to record the conversation take a picture

of the interviewee. This information is supposed to provide the

foundations for them to embark on a written assignment using

“Glogster”.

«Speaking skills»

Questionnaire for the interview

1-What’s your name?

2-How old are you?

3-Do you like going out with your family? Why/Why not?

4-Do you like taking pictures? What kind of pictures?

5-Do you enjoy watching films? What kind of films?

6-Do you like chatting on Facebook? With whom? When?

7-Do you like going out with friends? Where? How often?

8-Do you like cooking? Why/ Why not?

9-Do you like to play any sport? Which sport?

10-Do you like listening to music? What kind of music?

Clustering: whether students are fluent or not. In order to be fluent, speech must be phrasal and not word by word.

Reduced forms: whether students use contractions,

elisions, reduced vowels, etc.

Performance variables: whether students make use of hesitations, pauses, backtracking, and corrections.

Fluency: Important to check if their oral production was

intelligible and clear enough.

Pronunciation, stress, and rhythm: crucially important to check whether nucleus placement was achieved to place emphasis on the salient words.

Involvement: Whether they worked with enthusiasm or not.

Task: if the purpose of the task has been achieved and students were able to get the necessary information to continue with the following stage of the exercise.

Assessment criteria: Speaking skills

Micro-skills

Whether students produce questions in a rhythmic way and with the appropriate intonation contours. Indispensable to distinguish questions from statements.

If they produce fluent speech during the delivery. To avoid “choppy language”.

Students’ use of strategic devices such as fillers, self-correction to make the message clearer.

Use appropriate word order.

Macro-skills

The accomplishment of communicative functions. In this case, the collection of personal information.

Socio-linguistic features like giving and taking the floor; avoidance of interruptions will also be assessed.

Using body language and other non-verbal cues is paramount to convey meaning and to avoid switching to Spanish if a word is not familiar.

“Very good job! You have managed to get all the answers and you had a good predisposition to the task”

“You have used gestures and body language to convey the message if you lacked the words”

“You were really fluent and friendly”.

“You could have used more gestures instead of switching to Spanish”

“You needn’t follow the order of the questionnaire; you could have saved time by asking the questions you remembered instead of staying silent”.

Feedback

«Writing skills»

Aim of the task:

The aim is to practice writing skills by utilizing the data gathered

during the interview to produce a short paragraph about the

interviewee. This will be done using a web 2 tool called “Glogster”.

The task:

In this writing task, students are expected to create a poster using

“Glogster”.

In this poster students have to write about the interviewee’s

likings and personal information based on the answers obtained.

They also have to attach a picture of that person. They are free to

decorate the Glogster and play a little with the magnificent tools it

offers.

Glogster

«ThePoster»

Organization: I will see if the paragraph they were supposed to write in the Glogster is complete in itself. That is to say, if it contains all the data required by the task

Grammar: whether the words are written correctly and there are no spelling mistakes or slips of the finger. I will also check tenses.

Punctuation and spelling: Are there any spelling mistakes? Punctuation is also crucial.

Vocabulary: Students should use vocabulary dealt in class concerning hobbies and free time activities They should also use coordinating conjunctions or linkers to make the text coherent and avoid repetition.

Layout: since they will be making a poster for someone else, I will revise the layout and attractiveness.

Responsibility: I will take into account whether students upload their Glogster within the allotted time.

Assessment criteria: Writing skills

Micro-skills

Did students produce orthographic patterns of English? If not, form-focused attention to those spelling mistakes is needed to create awareness of these patterns.

Acceptable core of words, whether they used the expected set of vocabulary from the unit and appropriate word order.

Did students use acceptable grammatical systems? Is tense correct?

The use of cohesive devices or coordinating conjunctions will also be evaluated since these are the devises that help achieve a coherent piece of discourse.

Macro-skills

Develop and use a battery of writing strategies, such as soliciting peer and instructor feedback, and using feedback for revising and editing. Did they ask me any doubt or resorted to a peer for help?

Is the communicative intention accomplished? Is the overall message understood? In this case, the paragraph should communicate the interviewee’s interests and leisure time activities since that piece of writing will be given to the interviewee it should be intelligible and coherent.

“You have done a fine job! You have used the information gathered very appropriately and the poster looks really beautiful”

“You had many repeated phrases, remember you can also use –prefer and enjoy- so as not to repeat –like- so much but you did good on the layout!.”

“Your poster is wonderful! Although you need to check

spelling! Get a dictionary and please correct the spelling mistakes; then send me back your poster”

“The interviewee’s profile is a bit mixed up, please start the paragraph with the personal information of the interviewee; excellent decoration and positive message, please send it back soon tomorrow”

Feedback:

I will encourage learners to create a Blog to be used as a

learning journal, in which they have to write how they felt in the

course of the week related to the topics and activities proposed

in class.

A further reason for employing journals is for learners to self-

assess their own progress. This provides the opportunity for

them to expand and not being limited to checklists and

questionnaires. For this reason, I will ask students not only to

incorporate what they have felt during the lesson but also a

“self-evaluation section”, where they can assess their own

performance.

Alternative Assessment:

A systematic instrument: «My journal»

For every single lesson, I will use a personal journal in which I will

take down notes on each individual student. This will allow me to

keep track of every learner in particular and also to make any

necessary observations that can serve as a guide when it comes

to the final mark.

My personal journal will read as follows:

“Joana: She usually does all her homework and is willing to

participate, but during the interview she seemed lost and with a

lack of interest in the task. She was not friendly with the

interviewee either.”