| Body | Stephanie Knight is the Language Technology Specialist at CASLS.
As this week’s Topic of the Week indicates, assessment is motivating to students when it is paired with self-evaluation. The activities showcased here are included in order to highlight some formative assessments and subsequent self-evaluation methods that correlate with improved levels of student motivation. These activities are appropriate for learners of all proficiency levels and are targeted towards developing a learner’s awareness of his or her interpretive language skills.
Modes: Interpersonal Communication, Presentational Speaking, Presentational Writing, Interpretive Reading, and Interpretive Listening
Objectives:
Learners will be able to:
- Use existing knowledge to make inferences about texts and to negotiate meaning within texts.
- Engage in self-evaluation to achieve higher levels of motivation within the world language classroom.
Materials: Target visual or audio texts, scene depiction handout, RAFT template, Storyboard template
Activities:
- Scene depiction: Find a video or audio text and give learners the scene depiction handout. Allow learners to depict a specific scene featured in the text by working individually to draw and label what they understand on the handout. Afterwards, the class will engage in a gallery walk/carousel to evaluate what they understood by comparing and contrasting their drawings with those of their classmates. A short closing discussion regarding the content of the text will allow learners to more finely assess their interpretive skills than the carousel/gallery walk alone.
- Text marking: Have learners highlight the words that they understand or can figure out in an assigned written text. After they are done highlighting, learners must use only the highlighted words to answer comprehension question. This focus empowers learners to use existing knowledge to make inferences and to negotiate with unknown language. It also helps learners to see trends (e.g., thematic vocabulary strengths and weaknesses and the ability to recognize verb tenses) in the knowledge that they possess.
- RAFT: Allow learners to explore a targeted perspective featured in a given text by writing or speaking a RAFT (Role, Audience, Format, and Topic). In order to produce a RAFT, learners are assigned a combination of R, A, F, and T to consider as they produce language. Self-evaluation regarding using source texts can occur if learners to mark evidence in their source text that justifies the claims made in the RAFTs. To better understand how to assign a RAFT, see the example that we have provided regarding how the prince should choose his bride in Cinderella.
- Storyboard creation: Have learners work in pairs or small groups to create a storyboard with six scenes from a target audio or visual text. For each scene, learners will be charged with representing a specific chunk of the text. So that learners can engage in self-reflection of their interpretive language skills, have the pairs or small groups present their storyboards to the class to reinforce instances of comprehension and to highlight any instances of miscomprehension. A storyboard template is provided here for use with any target text.
Notes:
Though these activities are appropriate for learners of all proficiency levels, teachers must exercise care when choosing appropriate texts. Additionally, teachers should consider the appropriate amount of target language use to imbed in the closing reflection of each activity.
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