When and how to assess

Assessment in this unit is continuous, which means it takes place at different moments throughout the learning process. In each lesson, class activities provide opportunities for formative assessment, and at the end of the unit a written test will serve as a summative assessment.

At the beginning of first grade, children are still learning the mechanics of reading and writing, and of course their grasp of English as a foreign language is still very limited. Therefore, visual aids and images are extremely important both for teaching and for assessment. The amount of language students are expected to produce is very small. Even in non-bilingual schools, science exams at this level may often consist mainly of tasks such as “Circle the correct drawing” “Sort  the pictures into the proper categories” etc to minimize productive language demands in the assessment of content.

It is necessary to divide language into receptive and productive. In class, students will be asked to produce short sentences, with sentence stems or models given, as well as vocabulary (names of different foods and types of foods).  Additionally, through the use of gesture and visual aids they will be able to understand language they are not yet capable of producing reliably on their own. This receptive language is not an explicit object of assessment, but it forms an important part of learning in English.

As far as how to assess, assessment activities and classwork activities will be very similar. In class we will use flashcards, pictures that students have brought, food packets, etc. in order to classify items according to various criteria (raw vs. cooked foods, foods that is stored in the refrigerator or in the cupboard, foods to be eaten daily, sometimes, or not often, etc.)  These classroom activities provide opportunities for continuous/ formative assessment, and in this way fulfill a double duty. 

On the written exam at the end of the unit (summative assessment), they will be asked to draw foods for different categories, colour according to category, and match the word with the picture and also choose from a word bank and copy the correct word under a picture, to test language aims.  These are all activities with which they should be familiar, since they have done similar things in class.

One form of scaffolding on the written exam will be the use of images in many of the activities, as well as the use of word banks and matching exercises (image and word) to measure reading and writing skills.  As mentioned earlier, speaking activities will be assessed as an ongoing part of classwork, rather than as a specific part of the summative exam. In the case that it is necessary, students can be given many opportunities to master the speaking objectives, and if this cannot be managed for everyone in a whole-class setting, they may be pulled aside individually for a quick speaking assessment.  

For this assessment of speaking skills, a carefully-planned observation register will be employed.