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Assessing YLs End of Session Handout

The document discusses assessing young learners. It explains that assessment is important for monitoring progress, providing motivation, and informing teaching. Various assessment tools are described, including portfolios, projects, observation, and tests. Portfolio assessment involves students collecting work over time to demonstrate their skills and progress.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
19 views4 pages

Assessing YLs End of Session Handout

The document discusses assessing young learners. It explains that assessment is important for monitoring progress, providing motivation, and informing teaching. Various assessment tools are described, including portfolios, projects, observation, and tests. Portfolio assessment involves students collecting work over time to demonstrate their skills and progress.

Uploaded by

kasraclient01
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Assessing Young Learners

Handout

Introduction
Assessment is a general term which includes all methods used to gather information
about children’s knowledge, ability, understanding, attitudes and motivation.
Assessment can be carried out through a variety of instruments and can be informal
or formal.
From Assessing Young Learners by Sophie Ioannou-Georgiou and Pavlos Pavlou,
Oxford Resource Books for Teachers.

Assessment is a vital part of the learning process: it shows students how well they
have done so far and what they need to do for the next stage of their learning. We
need to consider teaching and assessment as one continuous cycle and therefore need
assessment tools that reflect the way children learn in the class as well as evaluating
their skills and knowledge.

Why assess Young Learners?


Assessment may sound threatening and not suitable for Young Learners but there are
a number of reasons why it is important:
 To monitor and aid children’s progress Teachers need to be constantly
aware of what children know and how to help them – on the basis of
assessment outcomes you can help individual children.
 To provide children with evidence of progress and enhance motivation
Assessment results give tangible evidence of progress and let children know
that they are achieving their goals. This aids motivation, particularly when
results are positive, and so it may sometimes even be worthwhile to
encourage some children by giving easier tasks.
 To monitor your performance and plan future work With information
from assessment, you can evaluate how effective you and your methodology
have been and modify aspects of your teaching accordingly.
 To provide information for parents, colleagues and school authorities
Assessments can help build up a profile of children’s progress which will be
useful to all interested parties.

What can we assess?


 Skills development Teachers may want to assess the skills separately, or
indeed assess sub-skills. However, because real-life language use integrates
the four skills they should also be assessed in an integrated way.
 Progress over time Sometimes children make more progress at certain
points of the year than others. This can be due to extra effort, or simply that
things are ‘falling into place.’ Whatever the reason, it’s a good idea to
assess this, so that children see that progress is noticed.
 Learning how to learn Skills such as using a dictionary, the Internet,
checking and reflecting on one’s own learning, reviewing work and
organising learning will help pupils become more autonomous and therefore
better learners. So these skills can be assessed as well.
 Attitudes Fostering positive attitudes is a priority at this stage of a child’s
development. Assessing attitudes will enable you to intervene if a child
expresses overly negative feelings.

© Oxford University Press 2009 1


Assessing Young Learners

How do we assess children?


A friendly atmosphere is vital if children are to be motivated learners. Assessment
can be seriously damaging if it is done insensitively and so all assessment should
protect the positive learning atmosphere you establish in your class. Assessment tools
include:
 Portfolio a collection of samples of work produced by children over time –
see below.
 Structured assessment activities tasks organised by the teacher in order to
assess knowledge, skills and attitudes. We looked at a number of these during
the session.
 Projects can be especially suitable for assessing mixed-ability groups as you
can assign tasks according to an individual’s level.
 Self-assessment can be extremely valuable as it promotes learning skills.
 Peer-assessment when learners assess each other.
 Traditional tests can be objective and easy to mark, but can also be
intimidating and stressful.
 Learner-developed assessment tasks children can contribute to the content
of an assessment task – this helps encourage responsibility and maturity.
 Take-home tasks doing tasks at home fosters autonomous learning.
 Observation can be recorded systematically using checklists or notes.
 Conferencing informal and friendly chats with children, during which they
should feel comfortable to express themselves freely about their progress.

Congruence
The key issue to bear in mind with all of the above assessment tools is congruence.
Teaching and assessment should form one continuous cycle; assessment tools should
reflect the way children learn in the class as well as evaluating their skills and
knowledge.

Portfolio assessment
A possible working definition of portfolio assessment could be as follows:
… a systematic and organized collection of evidence used by the teacher and student
to monitor growth of the student’s knowledge and skills in a specific subject area.

Why is it important?
Portfolio assessment allows children to present their work for you to assess. They
collate their materials and select what they feel most adequately represents their best
pieces, thereby demonstrating what they know rather than sitting a more traditional
exam that tries to catch them out and reveal what they have forgotten.
How does it apply to the classroom?
Reasons for using portfolios are outlined below:

Portfolio assessment…
1) matches assessment to  The products that are assessed are mainly
teaching products of class work and are not separate from
class activities like test items tend to be.
2) has clear goals  Goals are decided at the beginning of instruction
and are clear to both teacher and students.

© Oxford University Press 2009 2


Assessing Young Learners

3) gives a profile of learner  It enables students to show quality work which


abilities can be done without pressure and time constraints.
 Students can work with the help of resources,
reference materials and collaboration with others.
 A wide range of skills can be demonstrated.
 It shows efforts to improve and develop, while
demonstrating progress over time.
4) is a tool for assessing a  Written as well as oral skills can easily be
variety of skills included.
5) develops awareness of  Students have to reflect on their own progress
own learning and the quality of their work in relation to known
goals.
6) caters to individuals in a  Students can work at their own level.
multi-level class  As there is choice, it caters to different learning
styles and allows expression for different interests.
7) develops social skills  Students can also be assessed on work done.
together (pairs and groups) on projects and
assignments.
8) develops independent  Students must select and justify portfolio choices,
and active learners monitor progress and set learning goals.
9) can improve motivation  Asking students to prove their achievement has
for learning and been found to be motivating.
achievement
10) is an efficient tool for  Different kinds of products and records of
demonstrating learning progress fit neatly into one portfolio.
 Changes over time can be clearly shown.
11) provides opportunity for  The teacher can get to know each student better.
 Portfolios encourage joint goal setting and
teacher-student dialogue negotiation of grades.

In terms of the individual components that make up a portfolio this would vary,
depending on the demands of the syllabus and expected learning outcomes. The
content suggested below is only a general outline of what might go into a student
portfolio:

 This letter should include details “About the


author” and “What my portfolio shows about my
progress as a learner”.
Covering Letter  The covering letter is written at the end of the
course but is put at the beginning of the portfolio. It
summarizes the evidence of a student’s learning and
progress

Table of Contents  This lists the sections of the portfolio by title


and page number

© Oxford University Press 2009 3


Assessing Young Learners

 These include core (items students have to


Entries include) and optional (items of student’s choice).
 The core elements will be required for each
student and will provide a common base from which
to make decisions on assessment.
 The optional items will demonstrate something
about each student’s individual personality.
Dates  All work should be dated to show proof of
growth over time
 Aural/Oral and written products together with
Drafts revised versions can be included to show evidence of
progress and reflection
 These can appear at different stages in the
learning process (for formative or summative
purposes) and could be written in the mother tongue
for lower levels.
 For each item in the portfolio students can write
a simple rationale which details their feelings about
Reflections their performance and progress as learners
 Students can choose to reflect on some or all of
the following:
 Why (based on the agreed teacher-student
assessment criteria) did I choose this item?
 What did I learn from it?
 What did I do well?
 What were the problem areas?
 What do I want to improve in the item?
 How do I feel about my performance?

You and your students can work together to come up with criteria for selecting work
that will be included in their portfolios. When reflecting on portfolios, starting with
basic criteria is advisable – students can some up with more sophisticated statements
as they get more experienced at working within a portfolio assessment framework.
The types of statements they might work with are:

References
Sophie Ioanniu-Georgiou and Pavlos Pavlou Assessing Young Learners Oxford
Resource Books for Teachers, OUP. (All the assessment activities used in the session
come from here.)
Annamaria Pinter Teaching Young Language Learners (Unit 10)Oxford Handbooks
for Language Teachers, OUP
Harris M and P McCann Assessment Heinemann

For an example of a model for a Young Learner Portfolio look at www.nacell.org.uk


Here you can find a downloadable template written in conformity with the CEF and
produced by CILT, the UK National Centre for Languages, 2001.

© Oxford University Press 2009 4

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