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Content Type: 1
Title: Podcast: Assessments, Affect, and Proficiency Goals
Body:
In episode 34 of the We Teach Languages podcast series, Danielle Dorvil interviews Professor Raul Rosales Herrera, Associate Professor of Spanish at Drew University. Dr. Rosales Herrera discusses his perspective on excellent language teaching and the goals he and his institution have set for students.
Access this podcast at https://weteachlang.com/2018/01/05/ep-34-with-raul-rosales/
Source: We Teach Languages
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Title: Strategies for Staying in the Target Language During “Housekeeping” Tasks
Body:
From http://teachinginthetargetlanguage.com/
Here are a few tips for staying in the target language during classroom situations such as school announcements or student requests: http://teachinginthetargetlanguage.com/strategies-for-staying-in-the-target-language-during-those-tedious-housekeeping-tasks/
Source: Teaching in the Target Language
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Title: Flipgrid: for Reactions and Reflections, and for Formative Self-Assessment
Body:
A few teachers have been posting about how they use the video sharing platform Flipgrid.
First, Kara Jacobs describes how her students used Flipgrid for a presentational writing/speaking assessment: http://www.ceauthres.com/2018/01/flipgrid-for-reactions-and-reflections.html
Second, Laura Sexton describes how she plans to have students show their progress toward self-improvement goals with others around the country using Flipgrid: http://www.pblinthetl.com/2018/01/flipgrid-for-self-improvement.html
Source: Various
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Title: Research Summary: Influences of Native-Speakerism on Teachers and Students
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From http://www.eltresearchbites.com/
Jeremy Slagosky revisits the issue of the native/non-native speaker dichotomy, or "native-speakerism," by summarizing the findings of two 2016 articles that investigated the phenomenon. His conclusion: "These studies illustrate the extent to which the labels of native speaker and non-native speaker can, but not necessarily do, impact teaching and learning English." He finishes with suggestions for teachers from Aneja's 2016 study.
Read the research summary at http://www.eltresearchbites.com/201801-influences-of-native-speakerism-on-teachers-students/
Source: ELT Research Bites
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Title: Concepts and Specific Ideas for Engaging Students
Body:
From https://sandymillin.wordpress.com
Sandy Millin has written an excellent blog post around the theme "Why should they care?" For each skill (speaking, reading, writing, listening, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation), she presents a common scenario of uninterested students and then provides concrete suggestions, based around more widely applicable concepts, for making the activity or task engaging. Here is the example for speaking:
You ask students to discuss a question like this in pairs:
Tell your partner what you did at the weekend.
They each monologue for about 30 seconds, and the whole activity peters out after less than two minutes. Neither student really listened to their partner, and apart from saying a few words in English, they haven’t really got anything out of the activity.
...Here are a few little tweaks that might avoid this situation.
Give them a listening task too. These can also be used as questions for feedback after the activity.
‘Find something your partner did that you didn’t.’ > Feedback = ask one or two students to say what their partner did and why they didn’t do it.
‘Decide whose weekend was more boring.’ > Feedback = put your hand up if you had the most boring weekend.
Add challenge.
Students have 15 seconds to tell their partner what they did – time it strictly. Afterwards they change partners and tell someone else what their partner did. Give them thinking time first to decide/rehearse what to say in that time.
Students can only say two sentences before their partner speaks. Give an example, and make sure you include questions!
Change the interaction pattern.
Students mingle, speaking to as many others as possible. They have to find one person who did the same three things as them/did none of the things they did/did something they wish they’d done.
Play Chinese whispers with two teams racing to correctly write down one thing each person in their team did.
Give them some functional language you want them to use.
‘No, really? Why did you do that?’
‘That’s something I’ve always wanted to do.’
Read the full blog post at https://sandymillin.wordpress.com/2018/01/06/why-should-they-care/
Source: Sandy Millin
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Title: Blog Post: Make Learning Visible by Graphing Performance and Proficiency
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From http://madameshepard.com/?p=1432
Lisa Shepard has been having her students graph their performance on each Integrated Performance Assessment that they do, noting the proficiency level they performed at each time. She writes, "There are a few reasons why I consider the simple task of graphing proficiency/performance progress to be one of my successes in 2017. For one, I LOVED the conversations that I heard among my students as they completed their graphs each time. It is so much more meaningful to hear 'I moved up to Intermediate Low 1' than 'I got a B.' These graphs are also a great visual for my students. As we transition toward teaching for proficiency (and away from discrete point assessments) some students question 'what' they’re learning. These graphs help students to see their progress in a concrete way." The graphs also informed the instructor, leading her to conclude that she needs to change the prompts and provide more direction and targeted practice for the third IPA.
Read the blog post at http://madameshepard.com/?p=1432
Source: Madame's Musings
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Title: Did you miss InterCom yesterday?
Body:
Due to an unexpected technical problem, some of our subscribers didn't receive their January 15 issue of InterCom yesterday. We are re-sending it, and we hope you continue to enjoy your InterCom subscription.
Source: CASLS
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Title: IPA's as Authentic Assessment
Body:
By Isabelle Sackville-West, CASLS Fellow
In education, there is a pervasive concern about whether schools can maintain consistent standards. This concern is reflected in the use of mass assessment. The issue with mass assessment, however, is that its results provide little evidence of students’ real cognitive capabilities (Wiggins, 2011, p.82). Wiggins (ibid.) posits that tests should not be the standardized mass testing that many students are accustomed to, but rather a more “authentic and equitable” form of assessment (p.81). A true test of a student’s ability is to perform consistently and complete tasks with criteria that are both understood and valued (ibid., p.84). These assessments should be designed to replicate the complex challenges that one faces beyond the classroom. For example, professionals need to be competent writers, be able to conduct individual research, and collaborate to develop proposals. Authentic testing should be responsive to the student and his or her environment and be evaluated in such a way as to include negotiation and dialogue between the tester and proctor (ibid., p.81). As Wiggins (ibid.) states, authentic assessment should, “[reveal] achievement on the essentials, even if they are not easily quantified. In other words, an authentic test not only reveals student achievement to the examiner, but also reveals to the test-taker the actual challenges and standards of a field” (ibid., p.82).
One modern assessment that embodies the tenets of authentic assessment is the Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA). The IPA is designed to measure students’ progress towards national standards of foreign language learning while simultaneously catalyzing pedagogical change (Adair-Hauck et al., 2006, p.359-360). Like Wiggins' authentic assessment, the IPA values student improvement over the auditing of student performance (ibid., p.360). In an IPA, students are expected to employ their own linguistic knowledge to create products and respond to open-ended prompts individually or in a collaborative setting (Adair-Hauck et al., 2006, p.361). Students begin by completing an interpretive task which might include reading an article and discussing it with the proctor, creating a feed-back loop in which the two negotiate meaning. Then, to assess interpersonal communication, students might interview fellow classmates or engage in a realistic roleplay related to the topic at hand. Finally, to assess presentational communication, students might write an application letter using the information gained from the previous tasks to demonstrate their knowledge of the topic and convince a reader that they deserve to be admitted into a given program (ibid., 368-370). All of these tasks are designed to be realistic and representative of tasks completed in real life. The IPA assessment not only upholds and applies the core values of authentic assessment, but also connects them to the standardization process.
Authentic assessment and the IPA, are both designed to mimic the ambiguity of real-world challenges and offer dynamic testing with quality feedback (ibid. 2006, p.361-362). By evaluating students in creative and equitable ways, students are able to produce their own original work, pose critical questions, and tackle problems (Wiggins, 2011, p.83-84). Though authentic assessment is not as clean-cut as traditional mass-testing, it provides a way to more effectively evaluate student’s work while increasing student autonomy, confidence, and practical experience; setting students up to succeed in the real world.
References
Adair-Hauck, B., Glisan, E. W., Koda, K., & Swender, E. (2006, Fall). The Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA): Connecting Assessment to Instruction and Learning. Foreign Language Annals, 39(3), 359-382. doi:10.1111/j.1944-9720.2006.tb02894.x
Wiggins, G. (2011, April). A True Test: Toward more authentic and equitable assessment. Phi Delta Kappan Magazine, 92(7), 81-93. doi:10.1177/003172171109200721
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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Title: January 2018 Issue of KinoKultura
Body:
The January 2018 issue of KinoKultura, an online journal dedicated to new Russian cinema, is now available. In this issue:
Articles
Yuri Leving: Kuleshov’s By the Law as a (possible) source for Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. A Video Essay
Evgenii Margolit: The Metamorphosis of a Model: The Development of the Spy Film from the 1930s during the Early Thaw
Lilya Nemchenko: Short Films 2017: Homo Ludens, Memory, Oil and Milk
Interview
Anna Nieman: Interview with film editor Tat’iana Kuz’micheva
Reviews
Rustem Abdrashev: The Kazakh Khanate. The Diamond Sword by Stephen Norris
Timur Birnazarov: Night Accident (KYR) by Gulbara Tolomushova
Ivan Bolotnikov: Kharms by James Norton
Pavel Chukhrai: Cold Tango by Sergei Dobrynin
Fedor Dmitriev, Vladimir Toropchin, Darina Shmidt: Urfin and His Wooden Soldiers (anim.) by Olga Blackledge
Vlad Furman: Guppy by Vincent Bohlinger
Rustam Khamdamov: The Bottomless Bag by Birgit Beumers
Sabit Kurmanbetov: The Returnee (KAZ) by Peter Rollberg
Yusup Razykov: Sella Turcica by Seth Graham
Aleksei Rybin: All Will End Soon by Laura Todd
Ivan Shakhnazarov: Rock by Rita Safariants
Klim Shipenko: Salyut-7 by Natalija Majsova
Valeriia Surkova: Pagans by Elise Thorsen
Valerii Todorovskii: The Bolshoi by Tim Harte
Nariman Turebaev: City Filth (KAZ) by Connor Doak
Kseniia Zueva: Nearest and Dearest by Otto Boele
Access the latest issue at http://www.kinokultura.com/2018/issue59.shtml
Source: KinoKultura
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Title: The Development of Prosodic Focus-marking in Early Bilinguals’ L2: A Study of Bai-Mandarin Early Bilinguals’ Mandarin
Body:
The Development of Prosodic Focus-marking in Early Bilinguals’ L2: A Study of Bai-Mandarin Early Bilinguals’ Mandarin
By Zenghui Liu
Published by LOT Publications
This dissertation investigates the development of prosodic focus-marking in early bilinguals’ L2 by examining Bai (L1)-Mandarin (L2) early bilingual’s Mandarin. By investigating Bai-Mandarin early bilingual children aged from six to thirteen and bilingual adults, we have established the developmental trajectory and ultimate attainment of prosodic focus-marking in Bai-Mandarin early bilinguals’ Mandarin. We have found both similarities and differences in the route and rate of acquisition of prosodic focus-marking between early bilingual children’s L2 and monolingual children’s L1. Regarding the developmental route, early bilinguals can use duration earlier than pitch for focus-marking purposes, similar to the monolinguals, but their use of prosody to distinguish narrow focus from non-focus is not earlier than distinguishing focus types, different form the monolinguals. Regarding the developmental rate, early bilinguals have not developed similar competence after five years of formal Mandarin education to that of the monolingual four- to five-year-olds. Our results thus provide first evidence that early bilingual children’s L2 acquisition does not completely resemble monolingual children’s L1 acquisition in prosody, similar to findings on phonological acquisition but different from findings on lexical and syntactic acquisition. Furthermore, we have found that Bai-Mandarin early bilingual adults are highly proficient in using duration and pitch-related prosodic cues for encoding focus in Mandarin, but they are not fully Standard Mandarin-like. Our results show that L1 influence (i.e., positive and negative transfer) is evident in the bilinguals’ L2 development, which has been widely observed in bilingual language acquisition in different linguistic domains. Importantly, non-Standard L2 input might also influence the route and rate of acquisition in early bilinguals’ L2 development.
Visit the publisher's website at https://www.lotpublications.nl/the-development-of-prosodic-focus-marking-in-early-bilinguals-l2-a-study-of-bai-mandarin-early-bilinguals-mandarin-2
Source: LOT
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