Once upon the time, a couple of years ago, a powerful information wizard was born. His name is Internet. Gradually he has become very powerful swallowing enormous amounts of information and providing people with them. People - who always tend to be curious - were thinking about which useful service could the wizard do for the mankind. Some languages teachers said:"We can use his web-pages as learning materials." Lenka Bucherová
And here we are, proving those first 'thinkers' were right!
These week's tasks were, once again, challenging and profiting! I feel I gained a lot from what I've done this week, but I'm also sure I gained a lot from what all my coursemates have done!
I started by doing the task related to 'Delicious.com', just because I'm a sweet tooth and its name sounded appealing to me... :)It was a sweet discovery indeed and what's best: it doesn't make me put on weight! The only thing that gets fatter thanks to it is my resources pile and my knowledge on useful and practical web sites. Isn't it wonderful to be able to access your 'secret weapons' from any computer?! And sharing them with others? And having access to others'? JUST GREAT!
Reading the materials on Listening/Speaking Skills was good as well. As an EFL teacher I always try to make sure my students can understand what they listen to and that they can speak, because I believe that is the most important thing to do with a language: communicate by speaking and listening! I don't always succeed in doing it, but most of the times my students can do well. Still, I always try to find new exercises that can help them with that, and both the documents we read and the sites I looked for as well as the ones suggested by everyone in this course gave me some pretty nice and new ideas on how to do it!
As I said in one of the comments I posted on Nicenet, Speaking Skills are important for students' evaluation in Portugal. What I didn't say is that it is one of the things that scaries me most! It's very difficult for me to know how to accurately evaluate them... I take notes on their mistakes, pronunciation, ideas and so on, but I'm always afraid I might be too demanding or too soft when it comes to decide on their final score... Any suggestions on how I can cope with this?
Have a nice weekend!
Dear Elsa,
ReplyDeleteI like your introduction of this post. For evaluating your students' speaking skills, you can use speaking checklist. This checklist includes many criteria. Of course, these criteria are not for your use only, but you should tell your students about them. So, when they speak, they put this checklist in mind . Here is anexample: http://www.eslgold.com/speaking/speaking_checklist.html.
I hope this would be beneficial
Yours,
Azhar
Dear Azhar,
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for your comment and suggestion!
I've already tried to check the link you sent but it didn't work, maybe I must copy it and write it again...
Yours,
Elsa
Hi Elsa,
ReplyDeleteI agree that having a checklist or rubric for students helps a lot when evaluating their speaking. For example, in one of my academic classes we introduce specific discussion phrases that we want the students to use in their discussions. If they use the phrases correctly, they get points. In other contexts, the rubric includes the use of speaking skills and active listening skills (ex, asking others to express their opinions, introducing a new topic). Other times, it's similar to our blogging here in class, the students must contribute something to the conversation, and comment on something another classmate has said in order to get check marks by their names.
It really takes a lot of effort to pay attention to quantity of speech, quality of speech, accuracy of vocabulary and grammar, pronunciation and the relevancy of ideas all at the same time! I do this with a rubric for their final presentations which is their final evaluation. Otherwise, I am more selective about what I focus on. This helps learners focus on certain skills too and gives them time to develop them.
Hope this is related to your comment and that I understood you correctly.
Yours,
Janet
Dear Elsa,
ReplyDeleteI liked your post, especially comparisons and allegories about a powerful wizard and your food taste.
As for evaluation I sometimes ask students to do it and it really helps. They comment, point to mistakes and turn out even much stricter judges. Nobody is offended, but, of course, we should discuss rubrics together beforehand.
Yours,
Victoria
Dear Janet and Victoria,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments and suggestions!
Yours,
Elsa
Dear Elsa,
ReplyDeletePlease try this link: http://www.eslgold.com/speaking/speaking_checklist.html.
If it doesn't work, just google "Speaking Checklist", you will find it the first result.
Yours,
Azhar
Hi Elsa,
ReplyDeletePerhaps you can consider using peer and self-assessment. This kind of involvement in the assessment process can empower students and as a result, their learning can become more focused and self-directed. Of course in order to have students do peer and self-assessment, clear and student-friendly rubrics are necessary. You may even want to develop the rubrics with input from your students so that they truly understand expectations.
Regards,
Stephen
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ReplyDeleteEssay Writing