Welcome to the follow-up to the ACTFL Webinar titled “Assessing Communication: How Do You Know When Your Students Are Making Progress?” Thank you to all who participated in the webinar. I enjoyed sharing ideas and now invite you to join in the conversation. The webinar hour was not long enough to answer all the questions posed by participants, so I will answer those questions through this blog. I will answer the questions in batches - so you will see several blog postings with different questions. This blog also will allow us to explore issues further, exchange examples of assessing communication, and pose further questions. Thank you for continuing the conversation.
Many of the webinar participants later identified themselves as teachers in elementary grades and asked for some specific elementary examples. Here are some examples of summative assessments of the interpersonal mode of communication, identifying the expectation of what students will be able to do on their own at the end of the unit of instruction. These examples were collected from elementary teachers in workshops I have given.
Theme: Healthy Lifestyles – Food Pyramid
Interpersonal Performance Assessment: Ask and answer questions with each other about foods you like/don’t like to eat for breakfast, lunch, snacks, and dinner. Try to find out who eats the most healthy food.
Theme: When I Grow Up – Work and Careers
Interpersonal Performance Assessment: After creating a picture book showing members of your family and what they do for a living, share your picture book with a classmate, answer questions about the people in your picture book and ask your classmate questions about the people in their picture book.
Theme: Communities
Interpersonal Performance Assessment: With a group of two or three classmates, discuss how to make a decorative tourist map for an imaginary city in a country where the target language is spoken. Plan a tourist map identifying streets, businesses, and city services to include.
Theme: Art Appreciation – Colors (Novice Low-Mid level)
Interpersonal Performance Assessment: Look at several art prints and tell each other what colors you see in each print. Tell if you like the print or not and the feeling you get from the art print (how it makes you feel).
Please comment on these assessments and share your own examples. Thank you!