Post #13: Assessment

            Chapter 23 and 24 in Brown discuss the topic of assessment. We have talked about a lot of the topics in these two chapters this semester in 346. Both chapters explain the differences between norm-referenced and criterion-referenced tests. These are two different ways of scoring tests. With criterion-referenced tests, scores are assigned based on the content of the student’s work, if it contains all the required criteria. With this type it is possible that all students in the same class can receive A’s. Norm-referenced tests are scored by comparing the quality of the student’s work to their classmates’. With this type of scoring, not all the students in the class are able to get an A. One of my teachers here at ISU assigned grades on our papers based on the norm-referenced format. This way isn’t used too often in my opinion. It’s probably more common in the college than in a K-12 setting. I’m not a fan of the norm-referenced scoring approach since I don’t think it’s fair to students since they’re always being compared to their peers. It’s also very subjective scoring since it’s the teacher’s opinion as to who they think did the best and worst on the test or assignment.

            Authenticity is described as being a principle of language assessment. This isn’t something we talked a lot about in 346 but I do think it’s important. With language assessment, test items should be contextualized and natural, assessing real-world tasks. I think this is important but I also think that it may also be necessary to give structured tasks to assess students as well since some language skills and concepts may be difficult to determine whether students know them or not when they’re within a context.

            Chapter 24 talks about alternative assessment, another topic we recently covered in 346. Portfolios are an example of alternative assessment. I think portfolios are especially great for ESL classes since teachers are able to see the progress of the students’ L2. They’re also great for the students to see how far they’ve come in the learning of the L2. Performance-based assessment which is discussed in chapter 23 is another example of alternative assessment. I think performance-based assessment is especially important in language classrooms since it’s necessary to see students produce the language. Overall I like the idea of alternative assessment even though the grading is also very subjective. Students who don’t do well on formal tests may also prefer this method. I think it’s a good idea to use both formal and alternative assessment in the classroom.     

Post #12: Curriculum Design and Lesson Planning

      This week’s readings are about curriculum design and lesson planning. Brown chapter 9 talks about how a curriculum is created and describes principles of an effective curriculum. When it comes to curriculum, all schools and districts are different. As a pre-service Spanish or ESL teacher, to what extent I’ll be able to make my own curriculum choices will depend on the school that I teach at. Depending on the school I may have a strict curriculum I need to stick to or I could have the ability to create part of my own curriculum. No matter what I think it’s important to realize that all schools are different. At the Illinois Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ICTFL) conference that I went to in October I listened to a presentation on surviving your first year of teaching given by a second year Spanish teacher. She teaches at a small school in southern Illinois that has a lot of students from low SES backgrounds. She, along with the two other teachers in the small foreign language department, was able to design the curriculum herself. This is very rare, not all teachers are able to design their own curriculum and instead have to follow one that is already in place. Pre-service teachers need to be aware of the curriculum differences amongst schools. I think that either way, whether there’s a set curriculum that you have to follow or that you get to create your own, would be difficult. I feel like this idea is something that should be covered more in teacher education classes.

      Branching off of curriculum design is lesson planning with is discussed in Brown chapter 10. In the chapter, the guidelines for planning a lesson and the format for a written lesson are laid out. I think that it’s unrealistic to write a complete lesson plan for every lesson. When you’re first starting out writing lessons it may be a good idea, but I think that having just a rough outline of the order of things for each class period is sufficient enough. Writing full lesson plans for all lessons would be very time consuming. When I student teach, lesson planning is one of the parts I’m most worried about because it’s going to take a while to plan all those lessons since I have very few materials to start from. Everyone plans in their own way so I think that teachers should find the system that works best for them for planning lessons. Going along with lesson planning is Brown chapter 11 which is about the techniques and materials that go into a lesson plan. In this chapter is a section about textbooks. This is a topic we’ve talked a lot about in my foreign language teaching methods class. I think that textbooks, especially if they’re outdated, should be used as a guide for teaching. You can follow the order the concepts and vocabulary are presented and use some activities it includes but there should also be some supplement activities from other sources or ones that you created yourself. You can also evaluate the activities in the textbook and alter them to best suit the lesson needs. After a curriculum is designed and lessons are planned out, it’s very important for teachers to monitor their own teaching acts in order to make changes to best suit the students’ learning needs, which it the concept discussed on Kumar chapter 13.  Monitoring your own teacher acts emphasizes the importance of self-observing, self-analyzing, and self-evaluating. This is necessary in order to grow and develop as a teacher and to also benefit your students the most.