1. Karen Yager Knox Grammar & University of NSW
Building a Culture of Assessment for Learning In the Language Classroom
Karen Yager
Knox Grammar & University of NSW

2. “We have to know where we want to end up before we start out – and plan how to get there …”
(1999, Tomlinson).

3. Desired Outcomes
Confident person: adaptable and resilient, knows himself, is discerning in judgment, thinks independently and critically, and communicates effectively
Self-directed learner: takes responsibility for own learning, questions, reflects and perseveres in the pursuit of learning
Active contributor: works effectively in teams, exercises initiative, takes calculated risks, is innovative and strives for excellence
Concerned citizen: strong civic consciousness, is informed, and takes an active role in bettering the lives of others around him

5. Considerations Global skills required for the 21st century workforce:
Critical thinking
Problem solving
Innovation
Collaboration
Creativity
Connectivism through technology

6. “Learners are at the center of the teaching-learning process.”
Considerations
Quality learning enables pupils to:
Engage
Examine and explore
Enrich and extend
Create and construct
Apply
Communicate and share
Reflect and evaluate
“Learners are at the center of the teaching-learning process.”

7. The Evidence
Coyle and Colvin (1999): The brain is phenomenally plastic, and that we construct ourselves through behaviour – “It’s not who you are, it’s what you do and where you do it.”
Hattie (2003) & Dinham (2008): The significance of quality assessment married with timely and meaningful feedback for teaching and learning.
Wiggins (2006): Correlation between authentic assessment and improved learning outcomes.
Create an environment for higher-order thinking, problem –solving and risk-taking
Integrate summative and formative assessment
Provide quality feedback

8. ‘There is a natural tendency for both teachers and students to tailor their classroom activities to the demands of the test, especially when the test is very important to the future of the students, and pass rates are used as a measure of teacher success’ (Buck 1988). ******* ‘Every act of assessment gives a message to students about what they should be learning and how they should go about it’ (Boud, 1998).

9. Teaching to the Test
Teachers have done excellently in delivering knowledge and skills that are essential for high-stakes norm-referenced standardized testing.
Assessment has been used as a measure of achievement rather than as a tool to inform and engage students in their own learning (Shepard, 2000).
Teaching to the tests becomes a driver in the classroom leading to backwash.
Positive: transparency and explicit understanding of expectations.
Negative: Narrow focus, lack of inclusivity, risk-taking and creativity.

10. Kwek, Albright and Kramer-Dahl (2007) observed that when the English language syllabus is implemented in Singapore’s classrooms it applies “a narrow range of textual forms and organizational ‘rules’ that students are asked to reproduce.”
Assessment for learning requires student-centred pedagogical practices. Learning outcomes cannot be achieved simply instruction and memorisation, and focusing on examination preparation.

11. Assessment for Learning
‘Teachers who assess for learning use day-to-day classroom assessment activities to involve students directly and deeply in their own learning, increasing their confidence and motivation to learn by emphasizing progress and achievement rather than failure and defeat’ (Stiggins, 1999; 2001).
A classroom culture of transparency, strategic questioning by teachers and students, an understanding of what is quality.

12. Quality Assessment
Embedded in the syllabus having clear, direct links with outcomes
Planned deliberately and integral to teaching
Balanced, comprehensive and varied
Fair, inclusive, valid and reliable
Ongoing and sequential
Engaging and student-centered
Time efficient and manageable
Supported by models, scaffolds or annotated exemplars that demonstrate what is expected and what can be achieved
Reflects any adjustments made to teaching and learning

13. Assessment for Learning
TRADITIONAL/SUMMATIVE
AUTHENTIC/FORMATIVE
CONTRIVED
REAL-LIFE
RECALL/RECOGNITION
CONSTRUCTION/APPLICATION
TEACHER DIRECTED
STUDENT DIRECTED
COVERAGE
UN-COVERAGE
SELECTING A RESPONSE
PRODUCING/PERFORMING/
PRESENTING
PASSIVE LEARNING
ACTIVE LEARNING/SELF-ASSESSMENT/METACOGNITION
STRUCTURED
OPEN-ENDED
Wiggins (2006)

14. Assessment for Learning
Is an essential and integrated part of teaching and learning
Reflects a belief that all students can improve
Involves setting learning goals with students
Helps students know and recognise the standards they are aiming for
Involves students in self-assessment and peer assessment
Provides feedback that helps students understand the next steps in learning and plan how to achieve them
Involves teachers, students and parents reflecting on assessment data.

15. The Classroom
How would a language classroom operate with a culture of assessment for learning?
Contextualisation
Learner-centredness
Learner-focused interaction
Integration
Process orientation
Spiral progression

16. Culture of Learning
“Building a strong foundation in language, and enriching language learning for all.”
“Learners are at the centre of the teaching-learning process.” (English Language Syllabus 2010)

17. Culture of Learning
Processes assessed as well as the products of language learning.
Variety of rich tasks that assess receptive and productive skills, and knowledge about language.
Student direction and creativty

18. Deep understanding When pupils truly understand, they can:
Explain, make connections, offer good theories: Make sense of what they experience; show their work and defend it; provide thorough, supported, and justifiable accounts of phenomena, facts, and data.
Interpret: Tell meaningful stories; offer translations; provide a revealing historical or personal dimension to ideas and events; make it personal or accessible through images, anecdotes, analogies, models.

19. Deep understanding
Apply and Produce: Effectively use and adapt what they know in diverse contexts, and design effective products.
Appreciate Other Perspectives: See multiple points of view, with critical eyes and ears; see the big picture.

20. Deep understanding
Empathize: Get inside, find value in what others might find odd, different, or implausible; perceive sensitively, enter the mind and heart of others.
Self-knowledge: Perceive the personal style, prejudices, projections, and habits of mind that shape and impede their own understanding; are aware of what they do not understand, and why it is so hard to understand.

21. Creativity Fluency: generating many ideas
Flexibility: shifting perspective easily
Originality: conceiving something new
Purpose: vision
Audience: context
Elaboration: building on other ideas
Evaluation: critical reflection

22. Empowering the Learners
Pupils as active participants in assessment for learning
Self reflection: Pupils take greater responsibility for their own learning when they regularly assess themselves (Shepard, 2001).
Peer assessment
Setting learning goals

23. Culture of learning What do I want my pupils to learn?
Why does it matter?
What do they already know?
How will they demonstrate learning?
How will they get there?

24. The Model Outcomes Focus
Concept + Key Question or Essential Learning Statement
Overarching idea of the unit grounded in the syllabus
(Deep knowledge)
Key Ideas + Question
What students will learn by the end of the unit
(Deep knowledge)
Key Ideas + Question
Reflect intent of the outcomes and concept
(Deep knowledge)
Key Ideas + Question
Grounded in the syllabus
(Deep knowledge)
Assessment for, of, as and through learning
(Deep understanding, Problematic knowledge, Higher-order thinking, Explicit quality criteria)
Demonstration of key learning ideas
Pre-testing/Pre-assessment (Background knowledge - connections to prior learning)
Brainstorming, Graphic organisers – KWL, mind mapping, Y chart, Lotus diagram. Quiz
Teaching Strategies
Learning Activities
Explicit / Systematic
Building the Field
Teaching Strategies
Learning Activities
Explicit Literacy & Numeracy Strategies
Teaching Strategies
Learning Activities
Integrated ICT
Teaching Strategies
Learning Activities
Connected & Scaffolded
Teaching Strategies
Learning Activities
Scaffolds / Models – annotated
Resources

25. Culture of A4L: Speaking & Representing
Concept: Persuasion
Outcomes: LO1; LO2; LO3
Key Learning Ideas:
Features of the spoken language of persuasion
How language features persuade others
The pace, volume, tone and stress patterns of speech of persuasive speaking

26. Culture of A4L Building the field Explicit, systematic & balanced
Pre-testing for learning:
Quizzes and Wordle
Listening task on persuasive speech
30 second persuasive speech
Formative assessment:
Students plan a speech using Persuasion 101:
Creative producers
Class blog created as a platform or Voicethread -
Modality
Imperative voice
Repetition
Intonation and pace
Emotive language
Second person
Forceful verbs
Exclamation
Cyber Grammar:
Visuword:

27. Culture of A4L Resources Formative & Summative Assessment
Receptive listening task based on one of the speeches: Focus on how language is persuasive and the meaning conveyed
Productive Task: Persuasive campaign individually or in groups of three that allows for student choice and is presented to an audience OR
Persuasive speech podcast
Critcial self evaluation of campaign or podcast focusing on the use of persuasive language
Severn Suzuki’s speech delivered at UN Earth Summit 1992 focusing on the ideas and the purpose of the speech:
EDF Energy Advertisements: ;
Al Gore’s speech to Smith School World Forum on Climate Change:

28. “Assessment should be first and foremost for the learner’s sake, designed and implemented to provide useful feedback to the learner on worthy tasks to make improved performance and ultimate mastery more likely” (Wiggins, 2006).

29. Importance of Feedback
“An expert teacher, mentor or coach can readily explain, demonstrate and detect flaws in performance. He or she can also identify talent and potential, and build on these.”
“In contrast, trial and error learning or poor teaching are less effective and take longer. If performance flaws are not detected and corrected, these can become ingrained and will be much harder to eradicate later. Learners who don’t receive instruction, encouragement and correction can become disillusioned and quit due to lack of progress.”
(Dinham, Feedback on Feedback, 2008)

30. Feeding Forward Constructive Precise
Connected to what is being assessed
Timely
Frequent (Holmes & Papageourgiou, 2009)
Invites self-assessment and self-reflection
Informs future teaching and learning

31. The Power of Feedback in School Settings John Hattie (2003)
Feedback directed to the ‘self’ (e.g.: “You are a great student”). ‘Rarely does it enhance achievement or learning’.
The Power of Feedback in School Settings John Hattie (2003)
Pedestal of
feedback
Increases the ability to accommodate feedback and create internal feedback...
Level 3: Self-regulation
Relates to greater skill in self evaluation/self regulation
Level 2: Process
Aimed at the processes used to create the product/task
Level 1: Task
'corrective feedback'
information focussed
‘Feedback at this process level appears to be more effective than at the task level for enhancing deeper learning’
‘Having correct information is a pedestal on which processing and self-regulation can be effectively built.’
Most feedback remains task focused

32. Quality Feedback Effective feedback answers three questions:
Where am I going? (the goals) Feed up
How am I going? Feed back
Where to next? Feed Forward
(Hattie & Timperely, 2009)

33. Journey to self & peer assessment
Encourage peer discussion about what constitutes effective use of language.
Invite diagnostic peer and self assessment by using a rubric and marking scheme that has been clearly explained to the pupils.
Require pupils to design the assessment task and marking criteria.
Require pupils to develop an individualised personal learning plan.

34. “It is about learning to learn, about becoming independent thinkers and learners. It is about problem solving, team-work, knowledge of the world, adaptability, and comfort in a global system of technologies, conflict and complexity. It is about the joy of learning and the pleasure of productivity of using one’s learning in all facets of work and life pursuits” (2006, Fullan, Hill and Crevola, Breakthrough).