USING AUTHENTIC
ASSESSMENT: TASKS,
RUBRICS AND
LANGUAGE
COMPETENCIES
Lina Lee
University of New Hampshire
December 6, 2014
llee@unh.edu
Let’s Discuss …
(1) What types of classroom assessment do you
use?
(2) Do you include four language skills? If so,
give a few examples.
(3) Do you include an oral component? Why and
why not?
(4) How effective is the way you measure
student language abilities? Any challenges?
Three Fundamental Questions
(1) What do you believe about language
learning?
(1) What approaches or methods do you
use? Are they effective?
(1) What types of activities do you use?
Are they meaningful?
Teaching Practices
(1) Grammar-driven approach
(2) In BETWEEN (1) and (3)
(3) Communication, PERFORMANCEBASED use of language
Traditional Design
• Vocabulary + Grammar
• Practice
• Quiz
• Practice more
• Culture
• Chapter test
• Feedback
PPP Cycle – Framework
• Presentation
• By the teacher
• Practice
• Pattern drills with specific grammar points
• Production
• Controlled language exercises
• Focus on accuracy and then develop fluency
Traditional Quiz
Fill in each blank with the correct form of
the present tense verb.
Yo _______ (caminar) por el parque y mi
amigos ________ (practicar) frisbi en la
playa. Nosotros _________(escribir)
composiciones y Luis _________ (leer) el
texto de español …
Another Traditional Quiz
Choose the correct answers.
(1) ¿ ________ hora es?
a. Quién b. Qué c. Dónde
(2) ¿ ________ te llamas?
a. Qué
b. Cuándo c. Cómo
(3) ¿ ________ años tienes?
a. Cuántos b. Cómo c. Cuál
(4) ¿ ________ vives?
a. ¿Cómo b. Dónde c. Quién
Creating a Dialogue
María: ¡Hola! ¿Cómo ________?
Gabi: Muy bien. ¿Y tú?
María: Regular. ¿_________ clase ahora?
Gabi: No, tengo clase hasta la 1:00. ¿
________ tomar café conmigo?
María: Claro que sí. ¿ ________ quieres ir?
Gabi: Vamos a Dunkin’ Donuts.
Question-Answer Type
Modelo
Juan: ¿Vas a la escuela?
María: No, no voy a la escuela.
1.
2.
3.
4.
¿Vas a la biblioteca?
¿Va tu amigo a la playa?
¿Van tus amigos a la plaza?
¿Vamos al parque?
Language Output
Write a dialogue about what you and your
friend did last week. Be sure to use complete
sentences.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Buy Christmas gifts
Study for a exam
See Halloween decorations
Attend a birthday party
Traditional Testing
• Grammar is main key to L2 Learning.
• Focus on form NOT meaning
• Without meaningful contexts
• Lack of authenticity and creativity
• Drills and after drills are not sufficient.
• Overuse of a specific L2 item
• Teacher as “grammar police”
• Exhausting and boring
• Fail to perform outside the “box”
Communicative Competence
• Fluency
• How well?
• Accuracy
• How accurate?
• Pragmatics
• How appropriate?
How to carry a good
conversation at dinner?
Observation: Linguistic accuracy should not be the primary focus.
Areas of Assessment
• Communicative Competence (Canale & Swain,
1980)
• Linguistic Competence
• Socio-linguistic Competence
• Discourse Competence
• Strategic Competence
Question: Are your students equally strong in all four competences?
Communicative Language Teaching
• Meaningful use of the target language
•
•
•
•
•
•
Interaction in real-life situations
Authentic and functional use of L2
Fluency before accuracy
Integration of four skills and culture
Learner-centered classroom
Beyond classroom learning
Authentic Assessment
• Performing real-world tasks
• Application of knowledge and skills
• Focus on meaning not form
• Within meaningful contexts
• Creating new meanings
• An ongoing process
• Effective grading system & practices
Making Languages Come to Life
Tasks
Michael Long (1985)
“A piece of work undertaken for
oneself or others … things people
do in everyday life.”
Jane Willis (2002)
“A task is an activity where the target
language is used by the learner for a
communicative purpose in order to
achieve an outcome.”
Key: “Promoting Learning by Doing”
Task is an essential concept in
• Real world
• Doing ‘things’ in everyday life (e.g., go shopping)
• Language teaching and learning
• Use of the target language for authentic
communication
• Second language acquisition
• Input, interaction, negotiation and output (conditions)
• Assessment of language competence
• Fluency + accuracy + pragmatics
Create Authentic Assessment
• Two documents
• National Standards – “Communication”
• ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines – “Levels”
• Four steps
• Identify your goals
• Select authentic tasks
• Identify the criteria for each task
• Create rubrics
Goal: National Standards
“Knowing how, when, and
why to say what to whom”
ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines (2012)
Distinguished
Linguistic Skills
+
Cultural Knowledge
Oral Proficiency Interview
(OPI)
http://actflproficiencyguidelines2012.org
Expected Language Proficiency
ACTFL Proficiency Levels
• Intermediate High
(College major without study abroad)
• Intermediate Mid/Low
(4 years - high school; 6 years - grade 7-12)
• Novice High/Mid/Low
(2 years - high school)
Doing Tasks in Real Life
#1 Doing a Variety of TASKS
• Give three examples for each level
• Beginning
• Intermediate
• Advanced
• Identify language skills
• Listening, reading, writing and speaking
• Share your answers with …
#2 Doing a Variety of TASKS
(1) Give directions or instructions
(2) Listen to weather forecast or news online
(3) Send e-mails to friends or colleagues
(4) Read daily newspapers or recipes
(5) Make a hotel reservation
(6) Deliver a paper in a national conference
(7) Read travel brochures
(8) Write a complaining letter
(9) Talk to your friend about your last weekend
(10) Listen to a podcast about your famous artist
Integrated Performance + Task
• A shift from focusing on teaching to
learning
• Authentic communication In real world
context
• Moving beyond single skills
• Tasks should incorporate three modes of
communication.
• Tasks should be interrelated and built upon
one another.
After Graduation: Job Search
(1) Complete the Career Interest Inventory
• http://www.okcareertech.org/cac/Pages/Career_cluster/Caree
rClustersInterestSurveySPANISH_rev.pdf
With the results, use the websites to find jobs that
meet your 3 highest recommendations
• http://www.infoempleo.com/
• http://www.computrabajo.com.ar/
Real world Tasks
(2) With your partner, compare the jobs that
you have chosen and why
(3) Create a resume for your first choice job
Novice
• Giving simple; limited learned information
• Task
“Describe the weather in New Hampshire”
• “Hace” weather expressions
• Vocabulary—seasons, months,
geography
• To be – ser
Three Modes of Communication
• Interpretive
• Listen to a TV weather report (e.g., CNN; BBC)
• Read weather report online
http://www.rtve.es/eltiempo/
• Interpersonal
• Discuss the weather in ________.
• Compare and contrast the weather in two places.
• Presentational
• Create a weather forecasting in _______.
• Record the broadcast in VoiceThread or YouTube.
Intermediate
• Description in the present tense using basic
vocabulary; uncomplicated tasks; survival
skills with some creativity
• Task
“Describe/Talk about your daily routine”
• Reflexive verbs (regular and irregular)
• Connectors (before, after, first, then, …)
Advanced
• Narration and description in the
present, past and future time with
details; formal vs. informal
• Task
“Describe your best Thanksgiving”
• Preterit/imperfect
Superior
• Supporting an opinion/hypothesizing
and presenting arguments
• Task
“No Child Left Behind”
• Sophisticated vocabulary; extended
discourse and argumentation
#3 “My Dream Trip to …”
• Level: Intermediate
• Objectives
• Tasks
• Interpretive
• Interpersonal
• Presentational
• Evaluation criteria
#4 INPUT – Comprehension
1) Do you teach listening and reading
skills?
2) How often do your students listen or
reading in L2?
3) What kinds of activities do you use?
4) Do you include these two skills in
your assessment? Give a few
examples.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K11o19YNvk&list=PL00C11E2EF1F9843E
“We acquire language in
only one way: when we
understand messages; that
is when we understand
what we hear or what we
read, when we understand
the message.”
Krashen
Listening / Reading Comprehension
• Schema Theory
• Prior knowledge
• “Restaurant”
• Anticipate and predict incoming information
• Top-down approach
• Global comprehension
• Bottom-up approach
• Detailed information
Strategies for INPUT comprehension
Interpretive Communication
• A lot of INPUT
• Global understanding and then details
• Use of authentic materials
• Author’s perspective and cultural
context
• Use of context cues
• Not translation nor learning about new
words or expressions
3 Modes
Source: Discovering French Bleu Mc Dougal LIttell
Testing Reading Comprehension
http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/span100/main_reading.htm
Interpretive Tasks
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Maps
Songs
Poems
Stories
Catalogs and Ads
Folktales
Fairy tales
Movie trailers
• Charts
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Checklists
Key Word
Recognition
True / False
Questions
Drawing responses
Graphic organizers
Resources
• French and Spanish
http://www.ver-taal.com/index.htm
• French and Spanish
http://miscositas.com/index.html
• Various languages
http://wlteacher.wordpress.com
• Spanish
http://www.laits.utexas.edu/spe/
• Spanish
http://zachary-jones.com/zambombazo/
http://www.ver-taal.com/index.htm
http://www.thefrenchpodcast.com/index.php
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/
#5 Interpersonal Exchange
1) How do you teach interpersonal
skills?
2) What types of activities do you use?
Give a few examples.
3) Do you include speaking and writing
in your assessment? Your examples?
4) Do you use digital tools to help
students develop interpersonal skills?
Interpersonal Communication
• Two-way exchange
• Not asking questions by the instructor
• Interactive; negotiation of meaning
• Input + feedback + pushed output
• Spontaneous; not memorized dialogues
• Focusing on the message not overly concerned
about accuracy
• Communication strategies (e.g., circumlocution; body
language; geatures)
I think Kate is
pregnant …
What do you mean?
Clarification check
Interpersonal Tasks
• Pictures; drawings
• Real life situations
• Controversial
issues
• Problem-solving
• Theme-based
topics
• Role-play
• Interview
• Information-gap
• Tell difference
• Debate
• Panel discussion
• Survey
Interview Activities
• Small Group ( 3-4 students) or walk around the class
• Worksheet
• Asking questions using a worksheet; vocabulary
practice
• Ex:谁，什么，在哪儿，有没有，会不会
Name
1
2
3
4
你的老师是谁？
你在哪儿学中文？ 你有没有中文书？ 你会不会说日文？
Survey Activity
• Worksheet
• Students walk around the class and ask questions
until they fill out all the information on the
worksheet
• Ex: 去过, 吃过, 喝过，看过，用过.
名字
1
2
3
去过中国
用过毛笔
喝过烧仙草
吃过臭豆腐
Find the Difference
Small group activities: A/B ask each other until they
both have the same objects in both rooms.
A
B
Information Gap Activities
• Students Working in pairs
• Student A has the information student B does not have and
they will share their information by asking each other.
• Weather, restaurant menu, airplane/train timetable, person’s
schedule, etc.
• Target grammar: 几点/ 什么时候/ 什么时间/ 多久了
北京到上海
起飞时间
降落时间
广州到南京
香港到广州
西安到上海
成都到长沙
Role-Play
You are in a clothing store and have $150 to
spend
Card A: You are customer
Card B: You are clerk
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
You are looking for
gifts for three people;
your mom, brother and
boyfriend
Ask for suggestions
Ask for prices
Ask him/her to wrap
the gifts
Thanks him/her
•
•
Offer to help
Tell him/her what
is on sale
Suggestions: a bottle of
perfume for mom, a
pair of pants for
brother, a watch for
boyfriend
Go to the customer
service
Digital Tools
• Google Voice; Google Hangouts
http://ditchthattextbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/google-voicecall.mp3
• Skype
• Wikispaces
• Blogger
Synchronous & Asynchronous
Computer-Mediated Communication
http://jaredseminar997.blogspot.com/
• AudioBoom (pair or group recordings)
• VoiceThread (interactive comments)
• Voxopop (Talk discussion board)
Presentational Communication
• One way communication
• Awareness of audience
• Not just talking or writing
for teachers
• Maintain audience’s attention
• Organized, rehearsed and practiced
• Edited and polished
Presentational Tasks
• Descriptive
• Narrative
• Demonstrative
• Explanatory
• Transformative
•
•
•
•
•
•
Personal experience
Tell a story
Instructions
Provide evidence
Give a talk
Convince someone to
adapt a point of view
Performing a Task
• Create a podcast and talk about “your best
friend”
• Use descriptive adjectives and comparisons
• más/menos … que; tanto/a/s … como
• A minimum of one minute voice recording
• Listen to my voice (Model)
• Guided questions: Who is your best friend?; How
is she/he?; How old is he/she?, etc.
Presentational Mode
Presentational Mode
https://audioboom.com/boos/2282461-mi-mejor-amigo-y-yo
Performing a Task
• Create a blog entry and write about the
celebration of July 4 th in 2014
• Use both the preterit and imperfect
• A minimum of 120 words
• Guided questions: What did you do? Where did
you go? What was the weather like? Why was the
day special or not special?
Presentational mode through writing
Presentational Tools
• Voki
(voice recordings) http://e-
languageexemplars.wikispaces.com/Voki
• Glogster (interactive posters)
• Storybird (digital stories)
http://voicethread.com/?#q+el+perro+Frederico.b3205219.i16999401
• Animoto (videos)
• Audioboom (voice recordings)
http://audioboo.fm/Milana
• Audio Dropboxes (voice recordings)
http://clear.msu.edu/teaching/online/ria/
• VoiceThread (interactive presentations)
http://spanish402people.wikispaces.com/VoiceThread+presentations
• Prezi (fancy PowerPoint shows)
#3 “Project-Based Assessment”
1) Do you use project-based learning
(PBL)?
2) What types of projects do you use?
Give a few examples.
3) Do you find them useful? Why and why
not?
Some Examples …
• The menu project
• Authentic dishes of the target culture
• The children story book
• Create a set of characters in the target country
• The ABC book project (one semester)
• Focus on a target city (e.g., Quebec)
• The intercultural exchange project
• Spanish-American telecollaborative exchange
https://sinbarreras.wikispaces.com/Nuestros+Blogs
A Quote from a Spanish Teacher
“When designing my unit, I wrote my learning
outcomes based on the 3 modes of
communication and proficiency guidelines,
then developed assessments around them …”
- Señora B
http://senorab1972.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/integrated-performanceassessment/
“La Comunidad”
• Interpretive task
• Understand a written description of a
monument of Segovia, Spain
• Interpersonal task
• Complete an info-gap activity with a map
of Segovia
• Presentational task
• Write a description of a monument in __.
Interpretive Task
You are meeting your friend in Segovia
and you are trying to find some
interesting sites to visit. You find this text
about Alcázar de Segovia. Read the text
to find out more about the castle and
what you need to know to visit.
http://www.alcazardesegovia.com/index.htm
Interpersonal Task
You are meeting your friend from Madrid in Segovia
tomorrow but the maps that you printed online cut
off the names of some of the monuments. Your
friend has half of the names and you have the other.
However, your friend is in Madrid. Because your
friend does not understand English. You must speak
Spanish to get the missing names of monuments on
the map. Before you begin, you should
• Greet your friend
• Ask how your friend is doing
• Try to find the names of the missing monuments by asking
and responding to questions about each structure
Presentational Task
You loved Segovia. You want to send
your host family a postcard to describe
your experience while there. Choose
your favorite site in Segovia and describe
it in your postcard to the host family.
“La Vida Escolar”
• Interpretive task
• Understand a written description of a
school curriculum
• Interpersonal task
• Conversation with a Mexican exchange
student
• Presentational task
• Create a foreign language program
brochure
Interpretive Task
http://www.colegioespanoldetijuana.com/
Interpersonal Task
Mario es un estudiante de intercambio que ha
llegado recientemente de México. Le gustaría
saber información acerca de tu escuela.
Comparte información con él mencionando
aspectos de tu vida escolar que te gustan o
que no te gustan. Tu charla es de 2 minutos.
Digital tools: Skype; Google Hangouts
Presentational Task
A group of high school students are
coming to visit your university. With your
partner, create a foreign language
program brochure and make a
PowerPoint presentation to present the
program
http://www.stocklayouts.com/Templates/Free-Templates/FreeBrochure-Templates-Download.aspx
#6 Grading and Rubrics
What grading criteria do you use to
measure
 interpersonal skills?
 writing skills?
 presentational skills?
Six Components for Rubrics
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Comprehensibility
Comprehension
Language control
Vocabulary use
Discourse (flow)
Cultural awareness (sociolinguistic
issues)
http://www.fcps.edu/is/worldlanguages/pals/index.shtml#steps
Holistic Scoring Rubrics
3. Exceeds expectations
Message effectively communicated; rich
vocabulary; highly accurate; fully covered content
2. Meets expectations
Message generally comprehensible;
appropriate vocabulary; some patterns of
errors; adequate content
1. Does not meet expectations
Message communicated with difficulty;
inappropriate vocabulary; patterns of errors;
insufficient information
Teacher Feedback
“Your description lacked details to keep
your audience interested. Try to write
more complex sentences that include
more colorful adjectives and phrases
that help the audience to envision what
you are describing.”
Source: http://www.carla.umn.edu
“Three” is the Key
• Three modes of communication
Interpretive, interpersonal, presentational
• Three real world tasks within one
‘theme’
“Jour de la Terre” (environmental issues)
• Three proficiency levels
Novice, intermediate, advanced
• Three criteria for scoring rubrics
Exceeds, meets or does not meet expectations
“US Boys: Jane Lee”
• Interpretive task
• Interpersonal task
• Presentational task
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ih1p2Jn-EE
Toni Theisen-Loveland High School
“Caillou
se va a la playa”
• Interpretive task
• Interpersonal task
• Presentational task
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2dQmSChFPE
Interpersonal Task
Useful Resources
Examples of IPAs from CARLA – University of Minnesota
http://www.carla.umn.edu/assessment/vac/CreateUnit/e
_1.html
World Language Assessment: Get in the Mode!
http://www.ecb.org/worldlanguageassessment
Consortium for Assessing Performance Standards
http://flenj.org/CAPS/?page=parent%20/
Teaching Foreign Languages K-12: A Library of
Classroom Practices
http://www.learner.org/libraries/tfl/
More Resources
• Project-based Learning
http://www.edutopia.org/project-based-learning
• Ohio Department of Education
http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Ohio-s-New-LearningStandards/Foreign-Language/World-LanguagesResources/Ohio-Foreign-Language-Model-Assessment-Project
• French and Spanish Tasks with Rubrics
http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/examples/tasks_hi
ghschool_foreignlanguages.htm
Useful Book
The Keys to Assess
Language
Performance:
Teacher’s Manual
by Paul Sandrock
Available at actfl.org