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Assessment, Class management

Positive Feedback Comments

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If the student senses that you care, they will start to care as well. If the teacher does not care about the welfare of the students, why should they care about the teacher and the subject.

To learn the skill of giving constructive feedback took me a long time. But I did get better in doing that – by trial and error method. Quite a lot of principles to remember!

Feedback comments to encourage your students

The expressions below can be softened by adding ‘I think …’ ‘I have got a feeling that …’ ‘I am very pleased that …’ ‘It seems to me that …’ to them.

‘I think …’  You participate enthusiastically in discussion.
‘I’ve got a feeling that …’ You are superior in dividing work in your group.  
‘I am very pleased that …’   You listen to and follow directions well.
‘It seems to me that …’  You express ideas clearly and logically.

You will find 55 sample comments below that you can use in giving positive feedback to your students, those in senior high school or over 16 years of age. You will, however, notice that in practice you will use less than 10 phrases in the development discussion because you need to lure the students to say many of the ideas themselves.

SOCIAL SKILLS – feedback comments

 ‘I think …’  ‘I have got a feeling that …’   ‘I am very pleased that …’   ‘It seems to me that …’ USE THESE PHRASES TO SOFTEN THE MESSAGE

1 The other students seem to admire you for your calmness.
2 You have demonstrated great organizational skills.
3 You enjoy dramatization and encourage the others well.
4 I love to watch you working in groups and get the others back on track.
5 You have a great sense of humour and you lighten up the atmosphere.
6 The others say you are the one who encourages others most.
7 Your classmates like to be around you.
8 You are often the thoughtful leader in the group discussions.
9 You have developed more positive ways to interact with others.
10 The way you cooperate with others in group work is exemplary.
11 I admire your willingness to take responsibilities and follow them through.
12 What you are particularly good at is dividing work in your group.
13 You follow my directions well and advise the others if they do not get what I mean.
14 The way you treat the shy ones is superior to anyone else in class.
15 It is you the classmates turn to if they have a problem in English.
Modify the phrases for your own purposes and to encourage those who are not very good in English.

STUDY SKILLS  – feedback comments 

1 You have started to do your homework well and it shows in class too.
2 The others have noticed how you concentrate on learning much better this year.
3 Despite your hobbies you seem to manage your time well.
4 The strategy you follow in essay writing works beautifully now.
5 I’m so pleased that you seem to rely on yourself now.
6 You solved the problem with multiple choice questions and your open-ended answers are superb.
7 You probably realize yourself how much your vocabulary has expanded in just a few months. The tips seem to work well.
8 You are gaining academic skills, such as using effective learning strategies.
9 The way you pronounce English is music to my ears, just like native speakers. Recording your own speech on the phone was a great idea.
10 You are consistent in using English all through the lessons.
11 I’ve noticed how you help the others to find information quickly in the internet.
12 You have become so good at expressing your opinins that I suggest you will take part in our next school debate.
13 Reading newspapers and magazines in the internet has improved your reading skills tremendously.
14 I’m glad you don’t worry about grammatical mistakes any more and still you make fewer and fewer of them these days.
15 You seem to have found your own style of learning English better. And you even give hints to others.
Study skills, learning to learn well, requires a lot of time and patience.

ATTITUDE and MOTIVATION –  comments

1 You have realized that you are an auditive learner and youtube seems to serve you well.
2 The others have noticed how you take more and more pride in the way you make progress.
3 You have understood how important the learning tips I’ve given to the class are. The sky is the limit now.
4 Lately you have show enthusiasm for learning English.
5 You asked me how to improve your pronunciation, I gave you some advice and gosh how beautiful you sound now.
6 I’m glad you pulled up your sock when I returned your essay last month. The one this week nearly blew me away. Marvellous!
7 You really seem to enjoy speaking English and you are very active in class these days.
8 It’s great you like to challenge yourself in class and not do the easy assignment.
9 You have the guts to keep on asking relevant questions. I’m happy to answer them and the others benefit from them too.
10 You give constructive feedback to the others and me too.
‘The teacher is fair and on my side’ – a message that makes a big difference in the students’ minds.

ENGLISH PROFICIENCY – feedback comments 

1 You have shown noticeable improvement in speaking and pronunciation.
2 You comprehend reading tasks quickly and can explain the content in your own words.
3 You seem to make steady progress in learning active vocabulary and it is shown in both writing and speaking.
4 You have learnt to use more complicated grammatical structures with few mistakes.
5 Your essays have a clear logical structure and the points are soaring.
6 The presentations you give in front of the class are enjoyable to listen to.
7 When you have set your goals you do not give up no matter what.
8 You are able to analyse the listening tasks in detail and even challenge the formulation of some questions.
9 Your knowledge of the English-speaking world is amazing.
10 You seem to be able to think in English without any hesitation just like native speakers.
11 Thanks to reading English novels your passive vocabulary is admirable.
12 Your ability to argue for your case both is speech and writing is most convincing.
13 You have really made use of all the strategies we have been studying to learn English more efficiently.
14 The lesson on auditive, kinesthetic and visual learners seems to have openend your eyes to what sort of learner you are.
15 Your fluency in speaking leaves nothing to be desired. And your pronunciation is music to anyone’s ears.
Language skill is the most delicate skill to give feedback on. Low-achievers in particular need encouragement even for minor improvement.

What we teachers say to our students, has a much more profound meaning to our students than we can ever imagine.

Assessment, Class management

AfL, Giving constructive Feedback, Traps and Samples

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When we give feedback to the students it is easy to give positive feedback since we know it will boost the self-esteem of the students.

Giving positive feedback is easy but the real challenge emerges if we need to give negative feedback on or challenge some part of a student’s performance.

How can we give constructive feedback and avoid hurting the students’ feelings?

This is a true skill and requires a lot of practice before it becomes natural. You will most likely find yourself in your own traps many times.

Read the dialogue below and try to work out the teacher’s tactics in giving feedback on an essay. Don’t cheat! The analysis is under the photo below but think for yourself first.

T: “Jim, your essay is improving month after month and I am so happy for you. Last year you got 55 points out of 100 and now you are at 70. Can you show me the essay and my corrections. Am I right in assuming that your next goal is 80 points, ? Any challenges?” (1)

S: “Thanks. Yes, 80 points has crossed my mind. I’ve been reading a lot of internet magazines recently and I think I need to keep on doing that. I’ve noticed how some writers have great logic in their texts and I have not got that yet. And I seem to mess up with the passive voice and misspel too many words.” (2)

T:”Yes, you are right. Stick to the essay model structure that we practised last month. What is the problem with the passive voice?” (3)

S: “I do not know how to use the tenses there. I’ve forgotten how it works. I’ve still got the handout about it. I’ll ask my girlfriend to explain it.” . (4)

T: “Ok, if it does not work get back to me about it. And the misspellings, they are a problem even for natives. What can you do about them?” (5)

S: “I’ve started to write difficult words in the reminder file in my phone. Mike advised me and I’ve already got 25 words there that I always get wrong.” (6)

T: “That sounds good. I’m truly pleased with your attitude this year. You do your homework and you seem to know how to study in your own style. Besides your classmates think you are kind and appreciate the help they give to you. Ok, I have to go now. Keep up the good work and you’ll reach 80 points in a month or two.” (7)

(1) The Teacher (T) says a very positive thing first to get the discussion going verifying it with 15 % increase in points. The T implies that the points may even get better and lures the S(tudent) to reveal his/her goals. The T is satisfied with the S’s personal goals. The T certainly remembers what the S’s problems are but does not want to repeat them since the S sees them in the essay. The T does not use words like ‘but’ or ‘however’ since it would bring the positive message to zero in the mind of the S. ‘Your essay went from 55 points to 70 but …’

(2) The T lures the student him-/herself to say the problems aloud and the S reveals what he/she has been doing to improve the quality of the essay and has an idea where the problems lie. Self-awareness is clearly there, which the T praises later on.

(3) The T agrees with the S on what needs to be done to the logic of the essays. The T also reminds of the things already done.

(4) The S admits that the fault is his/hers and has thought about the solution. So the S knows he/she is responsible for solving the issue.

(5) The T comforts the S and instead of providing the S with a solution wants the S to find it him-/herself.

(6) The S is already trying out a solution and it turns out that he/she is willing to take advice from other students as well.

(7) The T ends the discussion with very positive but frank comments on other than language skills the S’s attitude to studying English and other people, his/her social skills and maturity to be responsible for his/her own studies. I-messages like ‘I’m so happy for you’ or ‘I’m truly pleased with your attitude.’ send a message ‘I am on your side and try to help you.‘

The words of the teacher are easily forgotten but the feelings aroused by the feedback are not. So, let’s be careful! Our nasty remarks may be remembered for decades.

A summary of the main points in giving feedback

I am repeating these ideas here to make it easier for you to check if the teacher is following the strategy. Have this list and the phrases at the end of this article in front of you when you are giving this kind of feedback for the first time.

  1. Give the positive feedback first.
  2. Don’t voice the negative points at all. You trick the students to say them themselves. So, lure, lead and let the student tell what the problems are and how to solve them. Turn the challenging issue to a question and ask the recipient’s opinion about it: “What do you think about the logic in your essay? Was there anything you were not pleased with in your presentation?” How do you feel about the essay /presentation now that you look at it?  Did the presentation / essay writing go as you planned it?  What do you now think about the group discussion / process of essay writing ?  Which parts do you think you succeeded best in?  What are the next steps you intend to take?                                    
  3. If the students cannot suggest a solution, send I-messages which will reveal your caring attitude; Asking for clarification: “Am I right in saying that writing logical arguments and using the passive voice are challenging for you?” or Expressing concern: “What I worry is that it seems hard for you to come up with strong main arguments.“
  4. Avoid words like ‘but, however, nevertheless, nonetheless‘. They bring the positive feedback to zero. (This is the BIG TRAP!)
  5. Positive feedback is easier to find in other skills than language (working well in groups,  helping others, asking for help, increase in motivation, better attitude to studying etc.) (Study skills, Social skills, Attitude / Motivation)
  6. Teachers often pay too much attention to assessing language skills only. Focusing more on the efforts, study skills, social skills and attitudes of the students, low-achievers in particular, would boost the students’ self-esteem and motivation.
  7. Repeat the most positive feedback at the end.  And encourage genuinely.

The question we teachers need to ask ourselves is:

“Our intentions in giving feedback may be good but what are the feelings aroused by the feedback session like? Disappointment, anger, humiliation, indifference, joy, relief or encouragement.”

Having read the dialogue above, my analysis on it and the summary on how to run a constructive feedback session with a student, you should be able to answer the following questions.

  1. Why should we focus on giving positive feedback?
  2. What is the best tactics bringing up challenges or negative comments?
  3. What can you do if the students have no solution to the problem at hand?
  4. Why should you avoid using words like ‘but’ or ‘however’?
  5. What are the skills areas on which you can give feedback?
  6. Why should you not focus only on language skills? Who benefit most?
  7. How do you end a feedback session?

OK. One more try. See if you spot the teacher’s tactics better this time.

T:“Mike, here is your listening comprehension test. You got full points for the multiple choice test. Congratulations.”

S: “Oh, thanks.”

T: ”Something the matter? You don’t seem happy.”

S: ”Well, the open-ended questions.”

T: “What about them?”

S: “I only got 6 points out of 15. It’s always the same. I don’t know what to do?”

T: “There may be many reasons for that. I’ve come across this problem many times but I think you may have some idea what is going wrong.”

S: “Sorry but I don’t have a clue what to do about it.”

T: “Ok, am I right in saying that on the basis of your essay your vocabulary is not wide enough. And any movements or noise around you seem to disturb you, right?”

S: ” Could be. In this test I did not know what ‘ sufficient’ and ‘pedestrian’ mean and I was lost. I haven’t had time to practise any of the vocab learning tips we rehearsed last month.”

T: “Yes, you are on the right track. Your passive vocab has to be much larger than the active one. What about the concentration issue?”

S: “Now that you said it, you may be right. I follow what the others are doing in class and forget to focus on what I hear. Can I move to sit in the front in the next test, by the window and see if it is any better?”

T: “Yes, sure. But your multiple choice questions show that you listening skills have improved a lot since we started last year. I’m sure you will soon overcome this problem since you are motivated and you study hard in groups and hand in the assignments on time. I will go through the questions one by one tomorrow in class and let me know after the lesson where and why you missed the correct answers.

Assessment, Writing

HOW TO USE THE EVALUATION CRITERIA FOR WRITTEN TASKS

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Most official criteria first apply a holistic view: overall impression, fluency and how pleasant the text is to read AND secondly detailed components: content/message, language and accuracy of language

Marking and evaluating any pieces of writing is always a challenging and time-consuming task for the teachers. Marking is supposed to be fair and reliable but one has to admit that there is always a little room for subjectivity.

What a marvellous group of future teachers of English! They are all university students, teacher trainees as we call them, who have been practising teaching English for a full year at Turku Teacher Training School. Now they are about to finish their training, ready to start their career as fully qualified teachers of English with a Master’s Degree in their pockets. Permission for the use of the photo pending.

In teacher training in Finland we first aim at a situation where every teacher trainee’s evaluation of an essay, for example, is within 5 points of the experts’ opinion (the scale being 0 – 100). Having marked hundreds of essays the teachers’ marking is usually within a couple of points.

For this reason in order to guarantee the maximum amount of objectivity we have to have criteria that is easy to use once we have been trained how to use it. The criteria has to be explained and analysed to the students too. It is the only way to show them what is expected from them when they write essays or work on any other written assignments.

In order to save paper give your criteria to the students once a year and ask them to glue it in their essay notebooks. During the year the students will mark their progress on the criteria sheet, each essay with its own symbol. The students are allowed to glance at the criteria even during exams.

Criteria never tell you directly what to do to get to the next level. Criteria only tell what is required at that level. CLT researchers have provided us with lots of strategies how the students can improve their language skills.

Learning strategies will help the students on the question ‘HOW to get to the next level in writing or any other language skill area. I have lots of comments on these strategies separately and under most of the topics, too.

Many students quickly become very good at evaluating their own and other students’ products. They realize that the detailed criteria open the door to the improvement of their essays.

Then they start to ask questions of the following kind:

  • How can I get more points for my argumentative essays?
  • Is there a commonly accepted structure for good essays?
  • How can I impress the reader with my vocabulary?
  • Which grammatical structures appeal to the reader?
  • What is meant by complex and simple sentences?
  • How much do mistakes affect the points given?
  • Are all mistakes equally serious?
  • What if I have a lot of spelling mistakes?
  • Do we have to follow the conventions of text types? Newspaper articles, reviews, interviews, blogs etc.?

Some of these questions are answered in my other articles, others in this very same article. If the student gets criteria-based feedback on his/her writing task, they will know which areas they are good at and which areas require much more work.

For instance, if the teacher gives the following points for the essay: overall impression 7,5, content/message 8/10, vocabulary and structures 6/10 and accurary/mistakes 7,5/10, the student will start wondering ‘How can I get 9/10 for content?’, ‘What’s wrong with my structures and vocabulary?; I think it is better than that?, ‘What are my most serious mistakes?

The remedy for the defects of a text can be found by applying the criteria to the text and using writing strategies.

Let’s now check how to proceed with using the ‘unofficial sample’ criteria below. It can be used in age groups 12 – 18 provided it is modified to the proficiency level of the students. Each column is enlarged below with some additional comments.

How to use this sample criteria if you are marking an essay

Do not be alarmed! Whatever criteria you are using the same principles in arriving at an ‘objective’ grade apply. HOWEVER. the main point is not to give a grade but give a more detailed account to the students where they stand in each column.

Choice 1 My recommended way of proceeding:

  • Start with the green ‘First Impressions’ column = Ease to read /Flow of ideas/ Fluency and decide which grade applies to the text you are reading.
  • Then move to the right to each yellow ‘Detailed criteria’ columns separately and decide on your grade.
  • The underlying idea is that ‘Content/message’, ‘Language’ and ‘Accurary’ columns are of equal value; i.e. have equal effect on the final grade
  • Finally come back to the ‘green’ column and see if the ‘yellow’ column grades match the green column one.
  • The average grade of ‘Content/message’, ‘Language’ and ‘Accurary’ columns should be close to your ‘First Impression’ grade in the green column. And this average grade is the final grade in most cases!
  • NOW, having done this procedure you can ‘objectively’ give the final mark and justify the grades against your marking sheet, both for the students and their parents.
  • For example, Overall impression 8+ out of 10, Content 7, Language 9-, Accuracy 8,5.

Choice 2 Some teachers prefer to move horizontally from the green column to the right. Their assumption is that the student’s level remains approximately the same in all columns, maybe going up or down one step but no more. If you know the student’s proficiency level, this is a faster way to give the grade since you do not have to read all criteria texts.

  • Let’s look at an example on proceeding horizontally: If you give, say, 6 points for ‘Flow of ideas’, move to the right on the same line to the other columns and see if the other standards match at level 6 or not. If they do not Move up or down in each column until you are pleased.
  • If you think the grade is between even grades 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 use grades 9, 7, 5 and 3.
  • Even half points, pluses or minuses are ok, if you feel like it.
  • Now the student can decide which skill area he/she wants to develop next and how to do it. This document is also easy for parents to understand if you meet them at some discussions.  

Additional comments on the columns 

1 How easy and pleasant is it to read the text? 2 Is it close to natural text written by a native at that age? 3 Are the ideas clearly presented?

At its best the text sounds natural and could be written by a native speaker.

The text is easy and pleasant to read and it is logical.

  • The yellow boxes clarify the meaning of some of the terms used.

  • Simple ideas are known to everybody, often opinions not supported by evidence. Complex ideas are convincing and backed up with proof, reasons or examples, seen from many perspectives.
  • Essays are just one type of written tasks and these days many other text types have to be practised and their conventions followed.

This language column has two components:

Vocabulary which at its best has to impress the reader and be stylistically appropriate.

The variety of the grammatical and sentence structures reveals a lot of the level of writing skills.

Still, one also has to take the audience and the text type into account when writing a text.

Yes, indeed. All mistakes are not equally serious. Basic errors learnt early in the study of the target language are more serious.

1 How serious are the vocabulary or grammatical mistakes?

2 Do these mistakes or spelling mistakes cause misunderstandings?

Assessment, Speaking, Yleinen

HOW TO USE SPEAKING CRITERIA

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Criteria are hard to write and understand and that is why teachers have to practise using them with their colleagues.

There are three reasons why oral exam criteria are used:

  1. we need them in order to justify our evaluation and the grades we give
  2. the students need to know their strengths and weaknesses
  3. they make self- and peer-evaluation possible

If we tell our students that their speaking is 7 out of 10 or B-, A being the highest grade, it actually tells very little about the student’s performance and what needs to be done next. That is why more detailed criteria are used.

In many countries speaking is unfortunately not part of language evaluation and that is why teachers need to get it right from the very beginning following their national criteria.

The criteria below is a sample to demonstrate how we can use any criteria effectively. Of course, depending on the age of the students we would have to modify the criteria to match the true competence of the students.

Criteria typically follow a pattern of decreasing scale  (excellent–very bad / always–never / very clear–uncomprehensible)

How to use the sample criteria above

1 Start with the yellow column Flow of ideas to get a holistic ideas of the performance.

Having listened to the speaker use this yellow column to decide what your first impression is like.

Go down from grade 10 until you arrive at the grade (1 – 10) that corresponds to your evaluation. You can of course use grades 3, 5, 7, 9 and even half points if you feel ilke it.

Fluent / mostly fluent / some fluent moments / hesitant with only a few ideas / next to nothing said. You can naturally change your opinion at the end of the evaluation.                                                                  

2 Do the same thing with the blue columns Content / Language / Interaction / Pronunciation to get a more detailed picture of the speaker’s skills in these areas

Language: How rich is the vocabulary? How demanding and accurate are the structures? Type of mistakes?

10 No serious mistakes/ 8 some mistakes/ 6 many mistakes/ 4 very many mistakes/ 2 no proof of any structures 

N.B. Some mistakes are more serious than others: Mistakes in basic vocabulary and structures are serious. Mistakes that cause misunderstandings are serious ones.

Content: How clear and how well argued are simple and complex ideas?  

Message/Content: basic and simple ideas max 6, simple & complex ideas / opinions but no proof 7-8, complex ideas: arguments and opinions with proof /reasons 9-10 elaboration techniques: plan and expand ideas with examples, proof and reasons, back up the ideas convincingly

Scale: Clear justified complex ideas/ Clear simple ideas and some complex ones/ Simple ideas/ Very simple ideas/ Only unclear ideas                           

How active, quick and sensitive is the speaker in responding to what another speaker says or asks?

Interaction: Excellent/ very good/ rather good/ satisfactory, very limited

N.B. None of the speakers in a group is supposed to dominate or be silent. The best students draw the quiet ones into the discussion by asking them questions?

Pronunciation: How close to a native speaker pronunciation does the speaker get? How much do mistakes in pronunciation affect understanding?

Often pronunciation and interaction are part of the same evaluation column.

3 Mark your grading in each appropriate column with any symbol.

You can also write your additional comments on the same page.

The same evaluation form below shows the student clearly the level of his/her performance in various skill areas. As a result the student knows which areas need the most improvement.

By studying the requirements for a higher grade in the form the students can set another goals for themselves. Finally they need to figure out the means and strategies that will lead to improvement. All these things increase motivation even in ordinary lessons.

The symbols in the evaluation form reveal immediately how well the student did in the exam.

We have to aim at being objective in giving grades even if there is always an element of subjectivity in evaluating speaking skills.

How to practise the use of the criteria with students

No matter what the criteria is like it makes a lot of sense to open it up to your students.

  • Go through the criteria with your students and explain how it is to be understood and used.
  • Listen to a short recorded speaking test twice as an example with your students, first all through and the second time in sections.
  • Analyse the section aloud so that the students follow your analysis looking at the criteria.
  • In advanced classes the students themselves might be willing to express their opinion about the section. Some teachers write down everything that is said in the interview, for example, to make the analysis even clearer. It takes a while to write it but you can use it over and over again.
  • Finally you can either verify the advanced students’ grading or present your own with justifications.

Spending 30 to 40 minutes on dealing with the criteria like I recommend above makes it possible for the students to evaluate their own and their peers’ performances.

Knowing the criteria well is the path to success if the student is willing to take the next steps and practise hard having the aims in mind.

Assessment, Communicative teaching (CLT), Pronunciation, Speaking

TESTING SPEAKING SKILLS

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Every lesson means rehearsing for the real-life ‘test’ far in the future. Eliminate FEAR in talking!

How to get started in testing

  • It is wise to practice speaking a lot in pairs and groups before you even think about testing.
  • Practise pronunciation and reading aloud in every lesson so that the students feel confident about their pronunciation.
  • Never correct the pupils/students when they are speaking in pairs or groups unless they ask you to. If you do, they will stop talking due to fear of making mistakes and, even worse, may feel humiliated.
  • Give general feedback and comments to the whole class after the practice sessions. Use assessment for learning to find the strengths and weaknesses of the class.
  • Make progress with students with small, enjoyable, even humorous and relaxing steps. Rely on results emerging after a few months.
  • Make the students come in front of the class: in pairs or groups – each one saying something for 5 seconds at least, later on 10 – 30 seconds, a minute, five minutes – just to use English and allow them to have a note with key words or ideas. Make it always a positive experience!
  • Remember that coming in front of the whole class may be scary and it needs to be a positive experience from the very beginning.
  • Practice listening skills too since the pupils are supposed to respond to what the others say. Teach appropriate phrases of response, too.

VITAL: Eliminate fear from practice and test situations – first evaluate the pupils/students in lessons and in other situations. Then give them individual feedback to encourage them to improve in speaking. Speaking skills should be part of the evaluation and noted in giving grades.

Agree on the criteria to be used in assessment. In elementary classes it has to be very simple but in senior high/sixth form you can you the official final exam criteria. Each country has its own criteria but the European Framework is widely accepted. It has skill levels from A1, A2 B1, B2, C1 to the highest native level C2. Many employers use this scaling.

Start with self and peer evaluation in class and encourage the students to use their phones for recording at home too. Allow them to listen to themselves while evaluating themselves. The same if they are assessing other students. Evaluating oneself and others is highly motivating.

Personal teacher–pupil feedback sessions before or after a test are most valuable: ask for the student’s self-evaluation first and then give positive feedback. Encourage, look at the criteria and have gentle reference to challenges. Learning to speak a foreign language is a long process and everybody wants to improve their skills in speaking.

The time for official oral tests/evaluation comes later on. When that time comes, use good and bad examples to give the students an idea of what is required of them. The evaluation criteria has to be explained and opened up at the same time.

The real test in speaking takes place abroad. In Venice, Italy, for example.

Testing individuals

Depending on the age of the pupils (6 – 15), they

  • can send me a 30-second or a minute-long phone-recorded speech or
  • I can have a two-to-five minute face to face discussion with them (I ask them one of the 5 – 10 questions given in advance and they can practise their answers at home and finally I ask them a ‘surprise’ question on a topic we had earlier in class)
  • for senior high students I use modified final exams

Testing groups

Groups can easily be evaluated while they are discussing in class. It makes sense to tell the groups in advance that they will be evaluated in order to encourage them to practise at home to get the best possible result. However, the students need to be given some advice.

  • Do not try to dominate the discussion. Show your excellence in drawing the quiet ones into the discussion by asking them questions or comments.
  • Use phrases that indicate you agree, disagree with the speaker. Or maybe you did not get the point or want to have justifications for an argument. So: ‘I disagree with you because …’. I fully agree with you but …’ ‘I’m sorry I missed your point.’ ‘Sorry, I did not get that’ ‘I’m not sure what you mean. Can you give us an example.’ etc.
  • Fight for your space and indicate you want to say your opinion.
  • Be ready to take the group feedback constructively and the feedback your teacher gives to you personally.

Modelling a group oral for an advanced class

In this activity we model the assessment of different types of speaking activities.

  • The class is divided into groups of four. Preparation time (10 min).
  • Each group is given a task of their own.
  • Each group member will receive a number (1-4).
  • One group at a time will discuss fro 10 min (total time 40 min all groups)
  • The others will observe and assess the performance of the given number using the given criteria. Write the number of the student you observe on the handout.
  • Feedback is given in groups (1s, 2s, 3s, 4s).
  • In brief, each group carries out a different speaking activity.The other groups observe and assess the activities.

Choose your topic. The order of presentations is random.

Group 1 Problem solving: You work for the Ministry of Tourism planning a holiday resort. You need to decide which facilities to have there. You can choose the place for the resort yourselves.

Group 2 Debate on the effect of tourism in your country. The argument: Tourism is good for our economy. Two of you are for the idea and two against (no matter what you really think about the matter).

Group 3 One of you is the tourist guide with his/her tourist group in a place of your choice. The guide describes the place and the tourists are making questions and comments. They also compare the place and habits to their own country/region.

Group 4 A magazine reporter is interviewing participants of the ‘Tour of Central Europe’ and their experiences in different countries. Each one of you has to say their opinion about the countries in question.

Group 5 A group of teachers are deciding where to go on a class trip with a class that all of them teach. They are also discussing what things need to be taken account of in the planning.

The criteria for group discussions are similar to the criteria we had for writing but now we have also interaction and pronunciation to be assessed.

Model text-based lesson, Reading

DEEP LEVEL READING, returning the marked example test

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Returning an exam or any test at school should be a vital learning situation. Learning from mistakes is best if the students tell each other how they realized what they are doing wrong and what they need to do next.

This article is continuation to the previous article and I strongly recommend a student-centred way of returning the marked reading comprehension tests to the students. There are four reasons for doing it this way:

  • The student will learn how and why they missed the right answer. And they are given the time and a chance to voice their ideas in peace.
  • The students realize how the others solved the problems they faced while doing the test.
  • Many students close their ears when the teacher’s explanations go on and on.
  • The group leaders are finally rewarded for their social skills and it enhances their self-esteem.

My recommendations for the lesson

  1. Divide the class into groups of 3 – 4 and make a good student responsible for the discussion in each group. However, warn these leaders not to lecture about the correct answers but give the answers only if the group cannot find them.
  2. Neither should the leaders show the answer sheet to the others. If they do immature students will simply copy the answers and the whole learning situation is spoilt.
  3. Giving the star students this task will enhance their social skills and they will not get bored and besides, we learn best when we teach others.
  4. Give the students the handout with my tips on the strategies to be used in reading texts. The ones mentioned in the previous article. Let the groups discuss the ideas for a few minutes.
  5. Return the exam papers to the students. Let the group members go through the exam quickly by just looking at their own exams. What went wrong and why? What was the logic like they followed? What did they succeed in? Which strategies would have been useful?
  6. Now the group will go through the whole exam and the leader will make questions, ask for justifications and encourage the others to think aloud why they missed the point. This process of discussion is actually more important than giving the correct answers.
  7. You may consider whether you are going to give the ‘correct’ answers to the group leaders just like they are below or a simplified version of them without the justification lines. A hard-working group may be rewarded with the answers after the whole lesson so that they can study the exam in peace and quiet at home.
  8. If it is absolutely necessary, the discussion may take place in the mother tongue. It makes no sense to go through the answers in English if the proficiency level of the students is not high enough.
  9. Finally answer any questions the students may still have and give feedback of the work of the groups. Praise the groups that worked well and speak in general terms of the problems you observed. The students will know if you are talking about their group.
  10. The very last thing: Ask for feedback, the students’ opinion of the project, the lessons spent on the strategies. Useful or not? What their liked and disliked? What could be done differently and how?

School buses belonging to some schools in Nairobi

Suggested answers for the reading comprehension test

Making a Difference in Tanzania

Up to 113 million children worldwide do not have access to school books. What a waste it is that old school text books are binned or pulped. Books written in Arabic will, of course, be
of no use in most of Africa but
English is an official language in Tanzania, for example. Moreover, all secondary education is done in English there and children are taught following the old British O- and A-Level curricula. Due to the way syllabi in Tanzania mirror the old English system, second-hand course books are perfect to help bridge the gap between rich and poor nations.

Words to be guessed; access = a chance to get, to bin = throw to rubbish bin, to pulp = turn to paper, recycle, curricula/syllabi = official school plans

The title of the article suggests that a problem is being solved. It implies a change.
The topic of the article, the main idea, is given in the very first sentence.
The photograph has a white person in the middle which forebodes him as the person who solved the issue in this primitive-looking school.
The predictions concerning the content of the article are connected to school life.
The thesis statement,(main argument) is given at the end of the 1st paragraph.

1. In Tanzania there are 113 million children without school books. F, because 113 is a worldwide figure

2. In Tanzania all education starting from the first school years is done in English. F, English is used from secondary school onwards

3. The curricula in Tanzania follow the old English model to a great extent. T, British O- and A-level traditions are followed

In Tanzania educational resources are scarce but children have the will to learn. An organisation based in Liverpool is working hard to see that school text books and other equipment are collected and re-distributed. The Tanzanian Book Appeal would be nothing without the help and support of schools, many of which have been involved in fundraising activities as well as donating old books. John, one of the students involved in the project, says that before the fundraising he didn’t really know or even care about Tanzania. Now he understands that Tanzania is the fourth poorest country in the world, and that there may be up to 40 pupils sharing one text book.

Rare words to be ‘guessed’: resources = equipment and money, scare = seldom seen, redistribute = spread out again to people, donate = give out free

The topic sentence of paragraph 2 is the very first sentence.
Why should someone take all the trouble? >>The children do not have enough books to learn new things.
The rest of the text explains what has been done and why.

The 2nd paragraph title could be: School involvement

The last sentence wraps up the idea of the 1st sentence: Tanzania is really poor.

4. In Tanzania there is not a lot of money to organize teaching. T, Tanzania has scare resources = no funds = not much money

5. An organization in Liverpool gathers secondhand school books and forwards them to Tanzania. T, the organization is ‘Tanzanian Book Appeal’ and the students and schools only help them

The whole procedure is planned in detail and even the Tanzanian officials are involved. (This topic sentence is added here to make the text more coherent.) Once the books have been donated they are collected in a truck and taken to a holding warehouse – which was donated by a local business – sorted through and stored. They will be packed up and shipped off to Tanzania in a big container.
The students who have worked on the project will then fly out to meet the books over there. The government in Tanzania have loaned government vehicles to sort out the distribution. The group of English students and teachers will then tour the schools in the Kagera region near Lake Victoria.

The original text has no topic sentence in Paragraph 3.

The whole text is a chronological account of the book handling procedure, explaining how the project was carried out.

Paragraph 3 could be titled as Practical actions taken.

If you get a feeling that the ending is missing you are right. The original text is much longer.

No hard words in this paragraph.

6. The aid organization does not need the help of school children in its work. F, the organization needs the children in fund raising, with donations and even in Tanzania

7. In Tanzania there may be as many as 40 pupils in one classroom. F, the class size is not even mentioned and might even be bigger, 40 refers to the number of students who have to share a book

B  Answer the multiple choice questions

8. What happens to the school books once they leave the donating schools?

  • a) They remain in an old lorry until a storage warehouse is found.
  • b) They are sent to Tanzania in small units with goods from local businesses.
  • c) The books that have been given away are taken into storage and sorted. OK, the books are sorted out before they are placed in a container in Britain

9. What happens to the books when they reach Tanzania?

  • a) A group of students from England will go and distribute the books in Tanzania. OK, they fly over but there are some teachers involved too
  • b) The school have to pay for the transportation of the books.
  • c) The British students travel on the trucks to the schools.

C  1 Why are British secondhand school books ideal for Tanzanian schools? (Give 2 reasons and answer in your own words in a full sentence or two.)

The language of secondary schools is English so they also need English books. The subjects and everything else is pretty much the way it is in Britain.

2 What do you think about the procedures of getting the books to schools after they have arrived in Tanzania? (Mention 2 opinions and why you think so.)

It shows that the project is taken seriously since even the school authorities and the government are involved. They want to secure the safe arrival of the books in their destinations so that they do not end up in the black market, for example.

Communicative teaching (CLT), Historical perspectives

ASSESSMENT OF and FOR LEARNING

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The quality of the student-centred learning process (AfL) is actually more important than the final results of the exams (AoL).

If you test and use the results to give grades, it is AoL. If you test and use the result to help the students, it is AfL. But AfL is much more …

Assessment for learning (AfL) consists of all the measures that the teacher and the students take while learning in order to make learning more pleasant, relaxing and effective. The best teachers have always done it automatically using formative tests, continuous assessment and personal feedback as a tool.

What the CLT researchers have done is that they have laid the scientific foundation for AfL to balance the over-rated importance of constant grading and exams (AoL).

Assessment of learning (AoL) refers to the traditional ways of evaluating students using summative exams, mostly at the end of the learning period.

In brief, the concept of AfL

  • was developed from formative and continuous assessment
  • but is more focused on the process of learning, learning styles and strategies
  • emphasizes the students’ role in assessing themselves and others
  • favours student-centered methods and feedback that enhances learning.

In short, using assessment of AoL

  • means checking towards the end of the course to what extent the goals of the course have been reached
  • This type of testing is discussed at the end of each skill area under the left-hand side menu topics ‘Vocabulary’, ‘Speaking’, ‘Pronunciation’, ‘Listening’, Reading comprehension’ and ‘Grammar’.

AoL and AfL compared

Assessment of LearningAssessment for Learning
AoL 10% of teaching timeAfL 90 % of teaching time
N.B. The percentages above simply indicate which kind of assessment I personally consider vital.
  1. The focus is on final results, summative exams and giving grades.
  2. The student is classified: excellent – good – satisfactory – bad.
  3. AoL takes mostly place at the end of the learning period in an examination marked by the teacher. Little analysis of what may have gone wrong.
  4. AoL means strict teacher-centred control, individual (not pair / group) accomplishments are valued.
  5. Little attention is paid to ways of learning and development of skills, mainly the content of the course is tested.
  1. The focus is on the learning process and ways to enhance learning.
  2. The student is compared with his/her previous performance.
  3. AfL takes place all the time, done by the teachers or other students, not to give a grade but to guide the learning process, individual needs are taken into account
  4. AfL is more like giving guidance and positive feedback to others continuously, the teacher in the background
  5. A lot of time is spent on learning strategies and how to improve language skills, knowledge of the content is tested but the ‘side products’ of AfL are recognized.

You may wonder if you should be worried about not always knowing if you are applying AfL or AoL. No, definitely not.

The borderline between AoL and AfL can, in fact, be a line drawn on water. Wise teachers have always, at least subconsciously, done both for the benefit of their students.

How come? For example, if you have a practice lesson before the examination and the exam is analysed afterwards when the papers are returned to enhance learning, AoL and AfL are intertwined, in my opinion, in an ideal manner. Any AoL exams that make the teacher realize that the goals were not reached and some remedial actions are required, turn the original AoL exams into AfL exams simultaneously.

Over the last fifteen years more and more attention has been paid to the process of learning which we teachers are trying to make as smooth and effective and enjoyable as possible. These measures are what we call ‘Assessment for Learning’ and they are utilized from the beginning of the course till the end until it is the time for the summative exam.

In the past learners of foreign languages were terrified of making mistakes and the fear of embarrassing yourself in front of others prevented learners from being fully engaged in learning. Thanks to the ideas of communicative learning teachers realized the message getting through to the listeners/readers was more important than the accuracy of the language. Application of CLT and AfL principles is a highly recommended combination in any language class.

No-one makes mistakes on purpose (unless they are joking). If the message is understood, the mistakes do not usually matter at all. We make mistakes even in our mother tongue. Why should we worry about them when learning a new language?

In the end, the success of our language lessons is measured in how well our students cope with the language in real life, not which grades they were granted.

The next two articles deal with the tools you can use in class to apply the principles of AfL.

Class management

AFL, Observation with Criteria, Self-/Peer-Observation

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Over the years I have developed a habit to observe my students constantly. What is new in CLT principles is to teach the students how to observe themselves and others using a criteria form. Then I compare my observations with theirs in development discussions.

The final aim is, of course, that observation becomes automatic and no form is needed in the end. It becomes a life-long habit.

Topics for this article:

  1. Why should we observe individual students? Beliefs!
  2. How can we do it in practice?
  3. What is meant by observation criteria?
  4. And what is a development discussion?
  5. What kind of positive phrases can I use in it?

The procedure in class observation is very straight-forward:

First we observe and look at the criteria, then we assess what the strengths and weaknesses are, give feedback and lead the student to decide what needs to be done.

I believe that …

  • doing systematic class observation does not increase the teacher’s workload; it simply reveals where the problems might lie, it can easily be done if we use student-centered methods
  • if the students learn to think about themselves as learners, they will take school more seriously but they need to know exactly what we expect from them (what to observe + get criteria to do it)
  • self-observation will lead to the development of many skills that are not evaluated in school reports (needed in life-long learning)
  • the use of observation criteria is needed maybe 3 times in the first year and later on once or twice in development discussions with the student
  • the use of observation criteria soon becomes an automatic tool to guide the discussion in groups how to study and treat others
  • the focus should not be in filling in the criteria form but in applying the ideas while studying
  • once we know where our weaknesses lie, we can start finding a remedy for them; observation, analysis and concrete actions are needed to make the change

5 Class observation and self-/peer-observation

In fact, my final aim is that self- and peer-observation become so automatic that no forms are needed any more.

In the previous article we dealt with points 1 – 4 below and now we will focus on points 5. to 8.

  1. Formative tests and ‘Quizzes
  2. Questioning techniques
  3. Differentiation= Mixed-ability class techniques
  4. Discussing learning styles and strategies
  5. Class observation and self-/peer-observation (which serves as the basis for assessment)
  6. Observation rubric /criteria opened up
  7. Performance appraisal / Development discussion
  8. Effective feedback – tips and phrases

The order of AfL points 5. – 8. is a bit complicated because they are so much intertwined. The logic in class runs roughly as follows.

  • Observation – can be done by anyone (the students themselves, peers, the teacher or some outsider)
  • Observation done by other students – peers – is extremely valuable for both parties provided it is done respectfully (See below what the feedback form may be like)
  • Observers must know which skills to observe (4 areas! See below)
  • Observers must be trained to use the criteria stating the ideal goals and the form to be used must be a simple by-product of the lessons
  • Observers should be able to give constructive feedback
  • The ones who were observed and given feedback to must be able to take actions to improve their performance (See the next article on effective Feedback)

Let’s look at these points one by one.

Class observation can be done by anyone in the classroom but it is useless if it is not followed by criteria-based feedback that shows how the students can improve their performance.

Observation is constantly done by the teacher but students can and should be trained to observe each other (peer-assessment) as well and while doing that they will learn to make observations of themselves, too (self-assessment).

Did anyone ever gice you feedback or discuss with you about your a) Language proficiency, b) Study skills, c) Social skills, d) Attitude and motivation? You are very lucky if you answered ‘Yes’.

Observation requires a lot of time and the only way to arrange it at school is to use student-oriented methods; get the student groups working and start observing.

“What am I supposed to observe? How can I make it more systematic?” you ask. They are the four things above. Let’s have a look at them now.

6 Observation rubric/criteria opened up

At first glance one might assume that the teacher’s job is only to observe the students’ language proficiency level in speaking, listening, reading, writing, grammar and vocabulary. Sorry, that is not enough.

Nevertheless, if our aim is to develop the students’ whole personality and prepare them for the future there are four things to observe: a) Language proficiency, b) Study skills, c) Social skills, d) Attitude and motivation

The problem with rubric / criteria forms is that they tend to be too difficult to use and that is why teachers stop using them soon. Therefore our forms should be very simple but still give enough useful information.

The form below is an example for a self- observation form. It can be in English or sometimes in mother tongue as well. If you change the wording from ‘I’ to ‘‘The student =St’ you can use the same form when you as the teacher observe and assess the students.

So, the idea behind this form is to make the students assess themselves first and then the teacher makes his/her collective mark in a different colour pen. Language skills are placed last on purpose since we want the focus to be on AfL. The scaling is up to the teacher (A –E, always – never, Excellent – Needs improvement etc.)

An example of a self-observation form for junior high students.

You may need to formulate a form of your own. Some things always overlap.

A = always, B = often, C =sometimes, D = seldom, E = never

Study skillsABCDE
I always study hard at school and at home.
I always do my homework by myself.
I use very many ways to learn English better.
I know how to use dictionaries and the internet.
I always finish the tasks given to us.
Social skillsABCDE
I co-operate very well in pairs and groups.
I am kind and always follow the class rules.
I help others willingly and ask for help too.
I control my own and other students’ behaviour.
I encourage the shy and quiet ones.
Motivation and attitudeABCDE
I want to work hard alone, in pairs and groups.
I try to find new ways of learning English.
I want to learn English outside school as well.
I practise speaking alone and with others.
I read, write and listen to English in my free time.
Language skillsABCDE
My spelling is nearly free from mistakes.
My writing is logical and convincing.
My vocabulary is excellent.
My pronunciation is very good and clear.
My speaking is fluent and with good ideas.
My listening skills are very good.
My reading skills are excellent.
I can use grammar taught to us very well.
A = always, B = often, C =sometimes, D = seldom, E = never

So explain them beforehand that you want to have a short discussion (development discussion) with everyone alone so that you learn to know them better and will be able to teach them better. They should be open and express themselves freely.

Expressions for the strengths of your students:

The expressions below can be softened but adding   ‘I am under the impression that …’…’  ‘I have got a feeling that …’   ‘I think …’ ‘I am very pleased that …’   ‘It seems to me that …’

‘I think …’     You participate enthusiastically in discussion.
‘I’ve got a feeling that …’   You are superior in dividing work in your group.  
‘I am very pleased that …’ You listen to and follow directions well.
‘It seems to me that …’   You express ideas clearly and logically.

The form below is another example of the form the teacher could use to observe each student. This could be used in senior high classes (even in mother tongue if the teacher finds it more appropriate).

SOCIAL SKILLS
You have a delightful sense of humor.
You demonstrate leadership skills.
You are well-liked by your peers.
You enjoy dramatization and encourage the others.
You exhibit great organizational skills.
You seem to have found your own ways of learning with others.
You have demonstrated increased social skills, such as helping others.
You ask for responsibilities and follow them through.
You are learning to be cooperative when working in groups.
You are developing more positive ways to interact with others.
STUDY SKILLS
You are becoming a good listener and your notes are superb.
You are using your time efficiently despite your hobbies.
You do neat, thorough work and follow the deadlines.
You have demonstrated a desire to work more independently.
You seek information independently.
You are developing concentration skills.
You are developing consistent work habits, such as …
You are gaining academic skills, such as using effective learning strategies.
ATTITUDE AND MOTIVATION
You take more and more pride in your work.
You are showing enthusiasm for learning English.
You have developed a positive attitude toward learning English.
You are becoming self-reliant.
You really seem to enjoy learning and speaking English.
You are gaining self-confidence and your comment are constructive.
You demonstrate initiative and ask relevant questions.
LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY
You have shown noticeable improvement in speaking and reading.
You have shown steady progress in vocabulary learning, for instance.
You write fascinating stories and your pronunciation is music to my ears.
You have become much more fluent over the last few months.
You use English correctly both in writing and speaking.
You have an expansive knowledge of cultural aspects.
You comprehend tasks quickly and use language well.
You have advanced in spelling and using intonation.

Remember that the students will forget your words quicker than the feelings this situation evoked in them.

See the next articles on how to deal with observation and positive constructive feedback! And how to avoid the pitfalls in giving negative comments!

Yleinen

Development discussion, Feedback forms and positive phrases

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Did you ever sit down with your English teacher to discuss your learning? I did not. Still, it would have meant the world to me! No feedback, not even once! It would have meant the world to me!

This article will deal with 1) Development discussion, 2) Giving positive feedback, 3) Observation and feedback forms and 4) Phrases to be used in giving feedback

Development discussion

When you have observed and followed the progress of the students for a few months it is beneficial to have a short discussion alone with each student about his or her attitudes toward English and English lessons, his or her skills and future goals in English or mother tongue if needed.

In Finland we call it ‘Development Discussion’. I think the connotation attached to the term ‘Development Discussion’ is more positive than ‘Performance Appraisal’ even if they basically mean the same thing. Explain to the students beforehand what it is all about and why you are having it. Give the rest of the class independent work while you are running these discussions.

You need about 3–5 precious minutes per student if you have prepared yourself and the students well. Preparation means filling in the obserbvation form in advance:

  • The student fills in the form introduced in the article ‘AfL, Observation with Criteria, Self-Assessment‘ (ok even if done in the mother tongue).
  • The teacher fills in the same form but ‘I’ has been replaced with ‘you’. It is the sample form you find below (meant for junior high classes and needs to be modified for other classes).

Depending on the student the focus may be on one or more of the four skill areas: Social skills, Study skills, Attitude/Motivation and Language proficiency. If you are giving feedback on one skill only, two to three minutes per student may be enough. The others are working independently during that lesson.

Collect the observation forms and other evaluation papers before the development discussion since it may give you some background knowledge of the students’ self-esteem as an English learner. Make your markings on the student’s observation sheet.

There is no harm done if the development discussion is done in the mother tongue if the level of the students requires that. Make the situation relaxed, encouraging and eliminate fear. ‘I’m on your side’ atmosphere. You are teaching human skills, not only English!

How to be tactful and give positive feedback

  1. Give some positive feedback first on any of the skill areas to make the student feel happy and relaxed. Don’t voice the negative points but let the student say them and try to solve the problem.
  2. Let the student reveal his/her self-assessments. It is better you do not show your assessment form to the student until the end of the discussion. Why not? Because the student will stop analyzing his/her assessments, if you do.
  3. If the student does not know what to say, turn the challenging issue to a question and ask the student’s opinion about it: “You marked ‘homework’ with C, why? What can you do about it? Is there anything you are not pleased with in your group or pair work?” etc.
  4. If the students cannot suggest a solution, send I-messages which will reveal your caring attitude; Asking for clarification: “Am I right in saying that you find homework boring?” or Expressing concern: “What I worry is that it seems hard for you to work if there is too much noise in the class.”
  5. Avoid words like ‘but, however, nevertheless, nonetheless‘. They bring the positive feedback to zero. (This is surprising but psychologically true!)
  6. Teachers often pay too much attention to assessing language skills only. The other skills may give you a real chance to praise the student for his/her efforts. Repeat the most positive feedback at the end.  And encourage genuinely.

Remember that the students will forget your words quicker than the feelings the discussion evoked in them.

Observation and feedback form to be used in the development discussion.

N.B. This is only a sample and you need to modify it for your own purposes and classes. For some classes it may be in mother tongue.

A = always, B = often, C =sometimes, D = seldom, E = never

Study skillsABCDE
You always study hard at school and at home.
You always do your homework by yourself.
You use very many ways to learn English better.
You know how to use dictionaries and the internet.
You always finish the tasks given to you.
Social skillsABCDE
You co-operate very well in pairs and groups.
You are kind and always follow the class rules.
You help others willingly and ask for help too.
You control your own and other students’ behaviour.
You encourage the shy and quiet ones.
Motivation and attitudeABCDE
You want to work hard alone, in pairs and groups.
You try to find new ways of learning English.
You want to learn English outside school as well.
You practise speaking alone and with others.
You read and write English in your free time.
Language skillsABCDE
Your spelling is nearly free from mistakes.
Your writing is logical and convincing.
Your vocabulary is developing well.
Your pronunciation is very good and clear.
Your speaking is fluent and with good ideas.
Your listening skills are very good.
Your reading skills are excellent.
You can use grammar taught to you very well.
A = always, B = often, C =sometimes, D = seldom, E = never

Making the feedback a positive experience.

The comforting comments below can be made to an individual or to the whole class.

  • Remember that you have not done this before. All of this takes time.
  • Let’s keep things in perspective – what you did today was a very demanding thing to do and still you managed so well. 
  • Remember this skill is a hard one and nobody can do it straight away. There simply are so many things to take into account. 
  • You already master points A, B and C so all you have to do is to get the last thing done the way you want it and that’s it.
  •  I remember when I was trying to do this for the first time. It was nowhere near of what you accomplished here.   
  • Most people I know struggle with the same issue and with a bit of an effort success becomes routine for you.  Practice makes perfect!  
  • What I encourage others to do is that they speak the whole presentation aloud many times at home.  Nervousness is natural but we can fight it back by rehearsing the lines aloud at home.                                             
  • The way you handled the moment when you lost the trail of your thought was great and natural.                             
  • It seems to me you know what to do better next time. Right? 
  • Now I think you know how to deal with these issues next time, don’t you? So what’s your action plan for the next presentation? You seem to be improving fast now.                                          
  • All in all, the way you are improving as a class is just wonderful. I’m truly proud of you.

Modified heavily from ‘Which kind of observer are you’ by Luke Prodromou IATEFL Newsletter 2004

Writing

TEACHING BEGINNERS WRITING, differentiation

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Use some pre-tasks to stir the imagination of the students before you ask them to write anything. Photos are excellent in this respect.

Learning a foreign language is usually started with listening and speaking. The words and phrases learnt may be shown as visual stimuli but actual reading and writing takes place a bit later when the students are given a textbook.

Writing in its simpliest form means

  • writing down or copying words, word lists or short sentences; the teacher shows a picture and the students write the word for it; the teacher says words aloud and the students write them down, etc.
  • dictation: the teacher reads simple sentences or stories and the students write them down, filling in words in a text with gaps or some missing words in a song
  • writing down simple sentences either copying them from the book, copying part of the sentence and changing part of it
  • elaboration: students make sentences or simple stories using some words given to them
  • free creative writing: the students write a fictive story using or ignoring the prompts given by the teacher

All in all, writing starts from individual words, continues in writing simple sentences which at its best are creative in the sense that they are not copied from the textbook chapters. Learning to write well is a long process and both teachers and students have to be patient until the very end of studies.

At the beginning pupils need a lot of guidance from the teacher but as they get older most students benefit from being allowed to be creative and all they need to get going is a set of titles or pictures to choose from.

Differentiation in mixed-ability classes

However, all teachers know that there is a tremendous variation in writing skills in mixed-ability classes. Let’s have a look at the following example and see how the teacher can differentiate the writing task so that the pupils can work at their own level. They know how past tenses of regular verbs are formed and some 30 irregular past tenses.

The formula of differentiation is simple

  1. Revision is done the previous lesson on vocabulary and the grammatical point we wish to emphasize. The topic has to be based on the chapters that were recently studied.
  2. A couple of oral pre-tasks are done in pairs or groups at the beginning of the writing session as a reminder.
  3. Three (or two) choices how to get started with writing. The only difference is in how much of the guidence provided by the teacher the students are making use of.

For example Title: Last summer Be as creative as you wish.

Pre-tasks: The idea is to force 6th graders to use the past tense in telling what happened last summer. The past tense was practised the previous week but we will do a couple of warm-up exercices as a reminder.

Many students find it hard to get started with writing so we need to stir their imagination a bit with some pre-tasks, A) and B) below.

A) The students change a story on the screen written is the present tense to the past tense. It is an oral exercise done in pairs. The second time the students do the same thing but have to change something in every sentence. (5 min) In other words, the mechanical 1st version is turned to a semi-communicative more creative version.

Jane likes to go shopping on Saturday mornings. She usually goes to town by bus but sometimes she takes her own car if she plans to buy some big things. It is eight o’clock and Jane gets up, brushes her teeth and makes morning coffee. She also drinks some water and eats a banana and two sanwiches …
The story is unfinished here and would need 3 – 4 sentences more. If the students do not know the answers, they need to negotiate between themselves and finally consult another pair or the teacher. Some students get only the 1st reading done, others maybe have 3 different versions.

B) The students get into groups of four and make a mind map on what they could write about. 5 min planning. Something like this, just throwing in ideas that can be used or ignored.

C) Write a true or imaginative story of what happened to you, your friends and/or your family last summer. Choose any of the three options below.

Choice A Choice BChoice C (the easiest one)
Feel free to write a creative story. It does not have to be true.You may use the beginning of the sentences below as part of you story. 1) Answer the questions OR 2) Fill in the story with any ideas that please you. The first letter or two are sometimes given to you. You are welcome to write sentences of your own too.
Last summer I and my best friend went to … because we …
First we … the train to …
Secondly, we …
After four hours we … because …
When we came back late in the evening we …

The next week me and my family ….
We … there by … and the following morning we … because …
1) What did you do last summer and why? Where did you go and with whom? Pick four places and explain about them. How did you get the money for ? Why did you go there? How did you get there and back? What were the best things you did there? … OR
2) Last summer my family m… a trip to … and we stay… in a ho… for … days. We sw… in the swimming pool for many ho… and at lunch time we we.. very hungry a… like a horse. My mum w… to the nearby village and bo…. herself some new clothes. My dad likes reading so he r… some short stories when we we… swimming.
Just before we le… the hotel on the last d…, we pick… up apples and strawberries. They co.. very little. My dad dr… us back home and …
A week later we …
The best thing last summer was when we …
When school started …


(Surprisingly many students give up this choice because it is not creative and because the modified cloze text (2) actually requires reading comprehension and a lot of thinking.) In most classes Choices B and C might be enough.
Choice A is for advanced students, B for average ones and C for weaker students. Still, we let them choose any of the options. The more there are sentences and ideas produced by the student him-/herself the better, He/she has to be rewarded with higher marks.

At first glance this kind of differentiation may seem troublesome but if you think about it from the students’ point of view, it shows that you care and try to make writing a more pleasant experience for them. Especially the weak writers need a lot of support and ideas. On the other hand, this way we do not tie the hands of more advanced students.

How does one evaluate stories like this?

This is an interesting question but I like to keep things simple.

Teacher evaluation: In our Finnish system we use grading 4 – 10. 10 is the highest grade and 4 means failure. This is what I tell my students:

  • Choice A suggests you are heading for Grade 9 or 10.
  • Choice B implies you wish to get Grade 7 or 8
  • Choice C basically means you aim at Grade 5 or 6
  • BUT the evaluation is not that simple since everyone can use the ideas given in Choice B and C. Therefore I simply have to consider the level of creativeness and language in general because someone who makes use of Choice C may well come up with a perfectly original story and deserves a high grade.
  • On the other hand, someone who chooses Choice A and writes an appaling story does not deserve a high grade.
  • SO, in the end I am simply using the national criteria in giving the grades but take into account how much the writer leans on the guidance given.

Student/Peer evaluation in writing

Letting the students read each other’s stories and assessing them is a delicate process of its own. In my opinion the students find it very interesting and it is great to have a group of other people who read the story in addition to the teacher. However, note the following points:

  • Ask the students not to write their names on the papers. The writers draw a symbol on the paper to identify their work later on.
  • Young students can indicate with some positive symbols how much they liked the story. 1 – 5 stars or roses, etc.
  • Junior high students (ages 11 -15) can use positive symbols and write only positive comments about the story. If they do not understand something they can put a question mark (?) in the margin.
  • Some junior high classes might be mature enough to give some constructive feedback also on the challenges or the ways the story could be made better. They might even be able to suggest the grade if they are familiar with the criteria/rubric.
  • The assessment can also be done in (randomly selected) pairs.
  • All the feedback is done in class before there are any teacher’s markings on the papers. The teacher moves around the class when the ‘assessment’ is going on because this is a dead-serious business and nobody’s feelings are to be hurt.
  • Senior high students benefit a lot if they are allowed to assess each other’s stories, essays or any other type of written assignments.
  • They will 1) get a realistic view on how good writers they are compared with others, 2) They will learn to interpret the criteria better and realize which writing skill elements they need to improve themselves, 3) They will have to think carefully how to apply all the advice given to them by the teacher. 4) They will be more motivated to write the texts since they know someone else than the teacher will be reading them too.

I hope you now realize how different the writing process becomes if it is done at least roughly as I suggest above. To me the benefits are undeniable and in the long run the teacher’s workload is not increased.