The grammar quiz, focusing on proposition usage, can be found at Dave's ESL Cafe or by clicking on this link: click here.
Practicality
This quiz is practical in the context of time needed to take and grade the test, cost of the test, and method of grading. Its small size makes it easy for students to finish in a small amount of time and for teachers to grade, even if the class sized is large. The quiz can be printed from online, retyped, or completed online easily. The quiz is also a blend of norm- and criterion-referenced.
Validity
This quiz is valid on a small scale. With only 10 questions, it doesn't include all prepositions, actually being limited to just a few. It is also very face-valid for the students and content-valid, being very obvious in its intention of determining their understanding of prepositions.
Reliability
The quiz has a few shortcomings in reliability. It is very consistent in its form, however, being multiple choice, students are given options to guess at as opposed to independently coming up with an answer. Also, as it is an online quiz originally, the availability of computers and internet access can be affecting factors of its reliability in administration. The test doesn't change; the questions are the same each time you go back to it. Scorer reliability will not be an issue since it is multiple choice with definite answers.
Authenticity
The questions are good examples of real-world language use and contain subject matter that is interesting and useful to language learners. There is no story line in this quiz, but a story line can easily be implemented if modifying this quiz or creating a replica.
Washback
There is poor opportunity for washback with this online quiz. If the quiz was administered as a paper form, then washback could be present. When necessary, incorrect answers are marked and correct answers or given.
Self-Evaluation
My lesson on Tuesday, 7/6, pertained to giving and receiving directions for driving, walking, bicycling, etc. where the individual is responsible for getting themselves to the desired destination, as opposed to a specific grammar aspect. If there was less teacher monologue in the beginning, more time could have been allocated to interaction between students. Instead of listing all of the vocabulary in the beginning, I could have engaged students earlier by asking them for directions, steering them towards using the intended vocabulary, explaining the vocabulary words if and when necessary. I do think that the activities that would eventually occur in the lesson are very communicative.
Showing posts with label assessment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label assessment. Show all posts
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Jason's Test Assessment and Grammar self-evaluation
Test on Prepositions
This is a pretty simplistic if not somewhat long multiple choice test on prepositions of time. From the standpoint of the 5 principles we discussed, my opinion is that:
1. From the standpoint of practicality, this test is very practical. The multiple choice makes it very quick and easy to grade and also pretty quick and easy for students to take.
2. From the standpoint of reliability, this type of test is one of the most reliable for the professor to grade. You will still need to make sure (as much as possible) that the students are well fed and well rested but in terms of grading, you should have no reliability issues because there is no room for your opinion or bias to enter into the choice of grading.
3. From the standpoint of Validity, the test seems like it would be a perfectly valid test, validly measuring what it aims to measure. However, inevitably you will have some students trying to guess at some of the answers and having the potential to get the right answer from just guessing while not super high is high enough to warrant a comment.
4. From the standpoint of authenticity, it offers a little in the way of real world authenticity because you are using the the prepositions in real, valid sentences. However, this language is not very relevant or meaning to anyone and does not offer very much authentic creativity and authentic use of language. Its a little stinted as well.
5. From the standpoint of Washback, there doesn't seem to much you could do in terms of giving good feedback other than reteaching the grammar lesson.
In terms of the grammar lesson that I gave on Tuesday, one of students made a suggestion about giving more examples using myself or other students and I think that this would be one great way to make the lesson more real-life and real world. Maybe I could tell a story and act out the story that I am telling while I tell it using prepositions to related myself to various objects in the story. I could also have the students act out something using prepositions. Maybe you are in a clothing store and your friend tells you that he or she saw the coolest/cutest whatever and it was over there to the left of such and such or something and so the students would have to go find the item based on the clues they were given. I think our treasure hunt was really communicative in this way but it could be polished.
This is a pretty simplistic if not somewhat long multiple choice test on prepositions of time. From the standpoint of the 5 principles we discussed, my opinion is that:
1. From the standpoint of practicality, this test is very practical. The multiple choice makes it very quick and easy to grade and also pretty quick and easy for students to take.
2. From the standpoint of reliability, this type of test is one of the most reliable for the professor to grade. You will still need to make sure (as much as possible) that the students are well fed and well rested but in terms of grading, you should have no reliability issues because there is no room for your opinion or bias to enter into the choice of grading.
3. From the standpoint of Validity, the test seems like it would be a perfectly valid test, validly measuring what it aims to measure. However, inevitably you will have some students trying to guess at some of the answers and having the potential to get the right answer from just guessing while not super high is high enough to warrant a comment.
4. From the standpoint of authenticity, it offers a little in the way of real world authenticity because you are using the the prepositions in real, valid sentences. However, this language is not very relevant or meaning to anyone and does not offer very much authentic creativity and authentic use of language. Its a little stinted as well.
5. From the standpoint of Washback, there doesn't seem to much you could do in terms of giving good feedback other than reteaching the grammar lesson.
In terms of the grammar lesson that I gave on Tuesday, one of students made a suggestion about giving more examples using myself or other students and I think that this would be one great way to make the lesson more real-life and real world. Maybe I could tell a story and act out the story that I am telling while I tell it using prepositions to related myself to various objects in the story. I could also have the students act out something using prepositions. Maybe you are in a clothing store and your friend tells you that he or she saw the coolest/cutest whatever and it was over there to the left of such and such or something and so the students would have to go find the item based on the clues they were given. I think our treasure hunt was really communicative in this way but it could be polished.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Listening - Types of Performance, Techniques, Assessment
I. Types of Listening Performance (Brown 308-310)
a. Reactive – This is essentially rote memorization. It is not as valid for an interactive classroom but it may have a small role in correcting pronunciation.
b. Intensive – For stressing specific components of language such as phonemes and intonation or for “imprinting” a phrase.
c. Responsive – Teacher speaks and students respond immediately. It can help with checking comprehension, questions and commands, or clarification.
d. Selective – Finding specific meaning within a longer discourse such as speeches, broadcasts, stories. This is similar to teaching the strategy of picking out the key words in an utterance.
e. Extensive – More effective for lectures and note taking and uses a top down method of teaching.
f. Interactive – Requires integration with speaking and other skills and includes all of the above types of performance. Leads to true, real-world communication.
II. Listening Techniques (Brown 312-317)
a. Bottom-Up – This technique goes from small pieces like phonemes to grammar specifics.
b. Top-Down – More concerned with schemata, which is what the student brings to the classroom.
c. Interactive – An exchange of ideas between two or more people and the effect that they have on each other.
III. Assessment (Brown 318-319)
a. Intensive Listening Tasks – More about distinguishing pieces of language such as phonemic and morphological pairs, stress patterns, recognition and paraphrasing.
b. Responsive Listening Tasks – This is about questions and answers
c. Selective Listening Tasks – Fill in the blanks, verbal responses, chart completion and sentence repetition.
d. Extensive Listening Tasks – Focus is dictation, dialogue, lectures and stories.
e. Interaction – Includes full skills integration and all of the above points including speaking.
Critical Thinking Questions
1. What type of technique would you use for the intensive type of listening performance and why?
2. How would you go about assessing a student or students in an extensive listening performance environment? Give examples.
3. In an interactive teaching situation, which uses all five of the other types performance, which performance type do you feel you might use more and why?
a. Reactive – This is essentially rote memorization. It is not as valid for an interactive classroom but it may have a small role in correcting pronunciation.
b. Intensive – For stressing specific components of language such as phonemes and intonation or for “imprinting” a phrase.
c. Responsive – Teacher speaks and students respond immediately. It can help with checking comprehension, questions and commands, or clarification.
d. Selective – Finding specific meaning within a longer discourse such as speeches, broadcasts, stories. This is similar to teaching the strategy of picking out the key words in an utterance.
e. Extensive – More effective for lectures and note taking and uses a top down method of teaching.
f. Interactive – Requires integration with speaking and other skills and includes all of the above types of performance. Leads to true, real-world communication.
II. Listening Techniques (Brown 312-317)
a. Bottom-Up – This technique goes from small pieces like phonemes to grammar specifics.
b. Top-Down – More concerned with schemata, which is what the student brings to the classroom.
c. Interactive – An exchange of ideas between two or more people and the effect that they have on each other.
III. Assessment (Brown 318-319)
a. Intensive Listening Tasks – More about distinguishing pieces of language such as phonemic and morphological pairs, stress patterns, recognition and paraphrasing.
b. Responsive Listening Tasks – This is about questions and answers
c. Selective Listening Tasks – Fill in the blanks, verbal responses, chart completion and sentence repetition.
d. Extensive Listening Tasks – Focus is dictation, dialogue, lectures and stories.
e. Interaction – Includes full skills integration and all of the above points including speaking.
Critical Thinking Questions
1. What type of technique would you use for the intensive type of listening performance and why?
2. How would you go about assessing a student or students in an extensive listening performance environment? Give examples.
3. In an interactive teaching situation, which uses all five of the other types performance, which performance type do you feel you might use more and why?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)