+ Workshop on Enhancing
Assessment
Literacy in the
Primary English Classroom
Teacher
Empowerment
English Language
Assessment of/for/as Learning
Strategy Training
Dr Simon Chan ssychan@hku.hk Faculty of Education The University of Hong Kong
+ Outline of the Workshop:
Part 1: Introduction to Assessment of, for and as Learning
Part 2: Enhancing assessment literacy in teaching reading: Principles and examples
Part 3: Enhancing assessment literacy in teaching writing: Principles and examples
Part 4: Promoting assessment literacy in the primary classroom: Hands-on task
+ Part 1: Introduction to Assessment of, for and as Learning
Brainstorming:
Share your thoughts about assessment of, for and as learning. What are they? How are they different from each other? Are there any difficulties in implementing them in your classroom?
Part 2: Understanding reading assessment tasks and developing primary students’ reading skills
Goal:
- Setting and achieving aims of the GE programme and reading workshops for
school-based English Language curriculum to ensure the development of students’
literacy and thinking skills Means:
- Applying understanding of KS1 and KS2 reading skills in EDB’s English Language Education KLA curriculum guide in identifying the testing points of reading
assessment items and thereby guiding students through developing those strategies with purposeful questioning and feedback
6
Warm-up discussion
Read the lists of specific reading skills highlighted for KS1 and KS2 in EDB’s English Language Education
KLA guide (CDC, 2017: A42-43) on the task sheet. How would you compare the two lists? To what extent are
our lessons on teaching reading covering those skills?
KS2 KS1
Reading Skills Development
- Focus on word parts
- Using knowledge of the world
- Recognising the format and language features across different text types
- Understanding vocabulary beyond the word level (i.e.
meaningful chunks)
- Reading between the lines (for attitudes, intention,
Sample learning-teaching-and-assessment (LTA) cycle
The following teaching sequence requires you to participate in the capacity of both a KS2 teacher and student.
Student Role: Teacher Role:
Completing the
teaching and learning activities based on a P.5 textbook text
Critically examining the lesson activities Analysing and
developing new
reading items based on the reading text
Pre-Reading
‘Firing up’ the reading text for our students:
Familiarising and engaging the students with the
topic of the reading text with the use of a multimodal text
Pre-reading : Let’s watch a short video…
v
Watch the short video and answer the following questions.
1. Where are the children?
2. What are they doing?
3. What problem do they have?
4. What will happen next?
5. Have you ever had the same problem? How would you solve it?
Share your answers after watching.
While-Reading
Facilitating the students’ reading process by…
familiarising the students with the target genre of the text, and its typical language features
activating their schemata of /providing support for both content and language they are going to encounter in the reading text
Developing teachers’ awareness of the reading skills targeted in each item in the assessment task for
guiding their students to answer those items and
therefore to develop the corresponding reading skills
providing feedback on their students’ task performance
What does this text talk about? What is its topic?
Who is ‘I’? Who are ‘we’?
What tense(s) did the writer use? Why?
Why did the writer write this text?
Have we read similar texts before? What type
of text is this?
While-Reading 1: Let’s read a special version of a text…
While-Reading 2: Let’s read the original text quickly and answer some questions together…
Who wrote this text? Why?
What type of text is it?
While-Reading 2: Let’s read the original text quickly and answer some questions together…
Who was Brad with when he had the special experience? Circle them all as they appear in the text.
While-Reading 2: Let’s read the original text quickly and answer some questions together…
Put the following in the right order:
a. The family were chatting with each other.
b. The family were doing something online.
c. Brad arrived home from school.
While-Reading 2: Let’s read the original text quickly and answer some questions together…
Look at the two pictures. In which of them did Brad look happier?
Why?
+ While-Reading 1&2: Food for thoughts
KS2 KLA CG reading skills targeted:
Recognise the format, visual elements and language features of a variety of text types
Skim a text to obtain a general impression and the gist or main ideas
Understand intention, attitudes and feelings conveyed in a text by recognising features such as the choice
and use of language and images
Orienting the students with the text and guiding them to grasp
While-Reading 3: Answering specific reading questions
Zooming in the specific details of the text
Moving beyond assigning exercises and checking answers
Identifying the reading skills targeted in each question and scaffolding the students to master those skills accordingly
Developing questions focusing on specific reading skills that complement the original questions
While-Reading 3a: Let’s read the original text in detail and answer some questions together.
KLA CG reading skill targeted:
- Locate specific information in a short text in response to questions How can we guide our students to attempt this item?
“What does the phrase ‘used to’ suggest about Brad and his mum?”
How can we guide our learners to attempt this item?
“ Which part of the reading text should we read?” “ What is the main idea of this paragraph?” “Which sentence is the topic sentence of the paragraph?”
KLA CG reading skills targeted:
- Identify details that support the gist or main ideas
- Understand connection between ideas
Is it a valid reading assessment item?!
Alternative question suggestion:
- Which phrase in the text shows what Brad’s dad was doing in the picture?
KLA CG reading skills targeted:
- Read written language in meaningful chunks
KLA CG reading skills targeted:
- Understand connection between ideas
- Work out the meaning of an unknown expression by using visual clues
How can we guide our students to attempt this item?
“What was Grandpa holding on his hand? What was he doing? What
KLA CG reading skill targeted:
- Work out the meaning of
unknown expressions by using context and world knowledge
How can we guide our learners to attempt this item?
“ Does Grandma have any suggestions on where to have lunch?”
“What is Grandma’s friend’s opinion on Delimeal?”
How about IMHO?
How can we guide our learners to attempt this item?
“ Do we see the word ‘problem’ in the text? Why would the writer mention the router in line 18? How about ‘broken’? ”
KLA CG reading skills targeted:
- Identify details that support the gist or main ideas
- Understand connection between ideas
KLA CG reading skill targeted:
- Predict the likely development of a topic by making use of the context
How can we guide our learners to attempt this item?
“ What relationship between ideas does the word ‘but’ suggest? What does
‘but’ in line 29 suggest about how the writer thought about the games?
KLA CG reading skill targeted:
- Scan a text to locate specific information
- Skim a text to obtain the gist and main ideas
Is it a valid reading assessment item?!
Alternative question suggestion:
- Do you think it’s a good idea to have an Internet-free day or night?
Give a reason from the text to support your view.
While-Reading 3b: Let’s try setting some questions that target specific reading skills in the curriculum guide.
Task: Shall we use the text No more Internet! to set some questions targeting the following KS2 KLA CG reading skills?
Understand intention, attitudes and feelings conveyed in a text by recognising features such as the choice and use of language and images
Recognise the format, visual elements and language features of a variety of text types
Skill: Understand intention, attitudes and feelings conveyed in a text by recognising features such as the choice and use of
language and images
Question: Which phrase shows that the writer likes the idea of having an Internet-free night?
Skill: Recognise the format, visual elements and language features of a variety of text types
Question: Who was Mei-lin messaging with during dinner?
Skill: Understand connection between ideas
Question: What can be the fun of playing board games and card games?
Assessment of/for/as learning in reading tasks
‘Teaching’ Vs ‘Assessing’ students (assessment of learning )
Apprenticing the application of specific reading skills
using the reading items as the context (e.g. identifying the semantic and syntactic clues) (assessment for learning )
Actively involving the students in the reading process (i.e.
not just the final product!) and in evaluating such process through scaffolding Q&As (i.e. realising the assessment as learning)
While-Reading 1,2&3: Food for thoughts
Additional assessment as learning strategies:
Sharing learning objectives and success criteria
Guiding students to set realistic and achievable learning goals to monitor and evaluate their own learning
performance and strategies
Developing students’ learning strategies and metacognition.
While-Reading 1,2&3: Food for thoughts
…to be further discussed in Part 3
+ Part 3: Enhancing assessment literacy in teaching writing
Assessment as learning (AaL) and self-directed learning (SDL) in writing
Involving students in the goal setting process
Aims:
To develop the students’ metacognitive strategies (e.g.
planning and monitoring skills)
To make them more aware of their own learning progress and objectives
To promote learner autonomy and independence
Assessment as learning (AaL) and self-directed learning (SDL) in writing
Let’s contextualise our discussion using the following writing task:
You are going to write an article for the school magazine about your favourite sport.
Write about 80 words. Write about ONE sport only. You may use your own ideas or the following questions and pictures for your article.
My Favourite Sport
Who do you play the sport with?
How did you learn it?
Why do you like the sport?
What safety measures do you take?
Where do you play the sport?
?
+ Goal setting and goal attainment at the pre- writing stage:
Goal setting: the process of establishing clear and usable targets, or objectives, for learning (Moeller et al., 2012)
Studies have shown that appropriate goal setting, along with timely and specific feedback, can lead to higher
achievement, better performance, a high level of self- efficacy, and self-regulation(Moeller et al., 2012)
“Goal setting can have exceptional importance in
stimulating L2 learning motivation, and it is therefore
shocking that so little time and energy are spent in the L2 classroom on goal setting” (Oxford and Shearin, 1994,
+ Goal setting and goal attainment at the pre- writing stage (Cont’d):
SMART formula for desirable learning goals: Specific,
Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time bound (Doran, 1981; Miller & Cunningham, 1981)
A classroom goal-setting intervention should consist of
explicitly teaching and illustrating the connection between effort and achievement (Moeller et al., 2012)
Students should be allowed to participate in setting their own goals (Azevedo, Ragan, Cromley, & Pritchett, 2002;
Tubbs, 1986, as cited in Griffee & Templi, 1997)
+ Goal setting and goal attainment
Discussion task: Imagine you’re the English teacher of a P5
class and you’ve asked the class to set some goals before they attempt the above writing task. How would you respond to the following goals as set by your students?
1. “I’ll get 70 marks in this composition.”
2. “I’ll write with correct grammar.”
3. “I’ll write more than 80 words.”
4. “I’ll write three paragraphs.”
SMART
Learning goals:
Specific,
Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time bound
+ Goal setting and goal attainment
Let’s see how the TSA assessment criteria can enable us to guide the students through setting goals for their task performance.
+ Goal setting and goal attainment
Let’s start with ‘Content’:
Reading and discussion task: Read the descriptors for Level 4 under ‘Content’ in the marking criteria and identify areas for guiding the students to set their goals for the above writing task. How can we use student-friendly language to discuss those areas with our KS2 students?
Interesting ideas Supporting details Suitable ending Clear ideas
+ Goal setting and goal attainment
‘Content’ (Cont’d):
Brainstorming task: Can you suggest how we may advise KS2 students in achieving each of the following?
Supporting details
Area How?
Interesting ideas Supporting details Suitable ending Clear ideas
Idea links
How about the following suggestions?
Adding a reason/result Ordering events Describing feelings Using topic sentences Using dialogues Adding a character Predicting the future Making contrasts
+ Goal setting and goal attainment
Let’s move on to ‘Language’:
Reading and discussion task: Read the descriptors for Level 3 under ‘Language’ in the marking criteria and identify areas for guiding the students to set their goals for the above writing task. How can we use student-friendly language to discuss those areas with our KS2 students?
+ Goal setting and goal attainment
‘Language’ (Cont’d):
Brainstorming task: Can you suggest how we may advise KS2 students in achieving each of the following?
Supporting details
Area How?
Vocabulary
Sentence patterns Sentence links Mistake control
How about the following suggestions?
Using conditionals Using/checking the right tense(s)
Using adjectives Using modals
Using words with Using words with Checking correct Using pronouns
+ Goal setting and goal attainment
Finally let’s guide the students to set their own goals for the composition:
Goals for my composition For ‘Content’, I would like to focus on the area(s):
________________________________
For ‘Language’, I would like to focus on the area(s):
_________________________________
My specific ‘Content’ goal(s) is/are:
________________________________
My specific ‘Language’ goals are:
_________________________________
To achieve the goal(s), I will:
_________________________________
To achieve the goal(s), I will:
_________________________________
Assessment as and for learning at the post-writing stage
Guiding and encouraging the students to self and/or peer assess using the ‘Two Stars and a Wish’ method:
+ Part 4: Promoting assessment literacy in the primary classroom
Hands-on task: With reference to any task in the new set of TSA 2019 past paper distributed (2019-TSA-
ENG-6ERW3), discuss in small groups and explore how we may apply the strategies covered in this
workshop or your own experience in building the learning-teaching-assessment cycle (10 min)? Get ready to share your insights briefly with the rest of us.