Background

1.  Most language learning takes place in the moment.  Often the review takes place in a followup class (“Do you remember what we talked about yesterday?  Look through your notes…”), a process sometimes called “recycling.”    How can we give feedback to students during the week to let them know how they are doing?   Is there a way to gather information in real time?  “What did you mark on my sheet?” is a good question that you want to stimulate in students, so that they want to know what they did incorrectly.

2. Sometimes a teacher observation includes a “participation record” system (“tick and dot”) using a list of the students in the class and putting a check mark (“tick”) next to  the name of a student who speaks or asks a questions and a dot (“point”) or “x” next to a student’s name when the teacher asks for a response from a particular student.   This system gives feedback to the teacher about possible bias in the class to call on certain students and helps the teacher become aware of students who dominate the discussion.

Both of these issues can be addressed with the form presented below called “Ongoing Assessment Form.” 

    Procedure

1. Hand out the sheet to each student.  Ask them to write their goal for the week and put their names in the blank at the top of the sheet.   Ask the students to tell you how much the points add up to (100) and ask them to adjust the number for their satisfaction (some students don’t want to telephone the teacher, so those five points might be added to the writing total).
2. Collect the sheets and start marking the sheets whenever a student asks a question or makes an error.  
3. Pronunciation assessment:  during a pair work exercise, take a student aside (one at a time) and run through the words.  Check pronunciation and circle difficulties.
4. New words – enter the words that the student introduces to the class.   Ask each student to present at least three new words (The student should say, “This is new to me!”).
5. Participation:
6. Reading:  Ask students to read articles.  If the student presents a summary of an article that he/she has each selected, then a check mark goes here. 

Feedback

A the end of the week, the sheet is given to each student.   This procedure is a way to personalize the evaluation process without encumbering the teacher with a lot of paperwork.  The notes are made on the fly, during class, and kept in a binder that the teacher keeps in the classroom or with him/her.

Ongoing Assessment Sheet             Name of Student:  _______________________ 

Goal: 

Total              /100

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