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knowledge from what they already know, we will start with a diagnostic
assessment of previous knowledge, learning styles and dominant intelligences
in order to adapt the teaching contents to the students skills. Once again, the
teaching plan has to be seen as an open proposal which can be adjusted or
modified when necessary and actualized frequently.
A second reflections focus on the types of assessment we are going to
use, mainly continuous and periodic evaluation.
On the one hand, formative assessment evaluates students in the
process of forming their key and area competences. It is based on systematic
observation, on day-to-day monitoring and recording of students performances.
On the other hand, the summative assessment aims to measure or
reflect what a student has grasped through a period of time, in our case through
each unit. This kind of formal assessment is thought to help students acquire
the habit of constant study, which is crucial when learning a foreign language.
Constant tests will benefit the slower students too, because they will cover less
content and they will test fresh acquired and practiced contents. Other
advantages of periodical testing, according to cognitive psychologist Henry
Roediger (2011)iv, Professor of Psychology at Washington University, include
identifying gaps in knowledge and giving feedback to the instructor;
producing a better organization of knowledge and improving the transfer
of knowledge to new contents.
Assessment criteria
The assessment criteria will follow the objectives legally stated for 3 rd of
CSE (Murcian Decree 291/2007):
1. Understand and extract global and specific information (main ideas
and relevant details) from oral text on concrete and known topics and
from simple and clear audiovisual messages.
2. Take part in communicative interactions related to general situations
or topics of their interest, with different communicative aims, and use
conversation conventions and strategies for coping with incidental
difficulties that might arise during the oral interaction.
3. Read in a comprehensive and autonomous way different types of real
or graded written texts with the aim of extracting global and specific
information. Differentiate facts and opinions and identify the authors
communicative intention.
4. Write under guidance different types of texts, paying attention to
lexicon, structures and to the cohesive and coherence devices
necessary to produce a comprehensible text with interconnected
ideas.
5. Use consciously the previous knowledge of the English linguistic
system, in different communication contexts, as a means of selfcorrection and self-assessment of their personal oral and written
productions and as a means of understanding others productions.
6. Identify and use consciously different strategies to make progress in
learning.
7. Use Information and Communication Technologies in a progressive
autonomous way to search and select information, produce texts
following a model, send and receive emails, and to establish oral and
written personal relationships showing interest in their use.
8. Identify the most relevant cultural aspects from those countries where
the foreign language is spoken; signal the most significant
characteristics of the customs, attitudes and values of the society
whose language is being learned and value positively cultural norms
that are different to ours.
Assessment tools
Systematic observation. Daily observation and monitoring of the
students progress in learning and attitudes is the keystone of the evaluation
process. By its own nature, it has an important subjective component. However,
it is a vital tool since teachers should not take into account only the final goal,
but also the whole learning process. That is why 50% of the final grade will be
based on everyday work, both through the activities carried out in the classroom
and the individual or group work through the Moodle platform.
At this point, the main aspects to be taken into consideration are the Area
competences (70%) and the participation in (30%).
For the content areas section, the assessment will concern: English
production through the four skills (read and write, listen and speak) [3
points]; Grammar and vocabulary [2 points, because English production
englobes grammar and vocabulary in use] and Cultural aspects [2 points].
The rest of 3 points form this section will be distributed as following: use of
IT (1 point), social and civic competence (1 point) and sense of initiative and
participation (1 point).
Unit tests will be taken through the Moodle Platform, in the IT laboratory,
and will consist of a one minute listening (with no restrictions on the times they
reproduce it] with several tasks, freely finish sentences using a grammatical
pattern, reorder scrambled chunks of language, rewrites of different kind [order
paragraphs and insert connectors; change the end of the story, finish the
paragraphs so the whole text have a meaning etc.] and cultural questions with
T/F/ or T and F answers based on the materials worked during the reading
session. They will check three of the four skills: reading comprehension, writing
and listening, as well as vocabulary and grammar. The test will take 30 minutes
and after all the students have sent the exam to the Moodle Platform, feedback
will be given. Students can see their exam, but they cannot modify it. A general
knowledge quiz will follow for reducing stress. For the speaking, they will be
evaluated in the class production and they will have separate evaluations
through different exercises on Moodle [practicing pronunciation and record their
production; answering different questions on the topics discussed in the
classroom or recording themselves interacting in pairs or groups on a topic of
their choice].
http://www.docv.gva.es/datos/2007/12/21/pdf/2007_15520.pdf
http://www.borm.es/borm/documento?obj=anu&id=329911
iii
http://www.cgp.upenn.edu/A_Grand_Bargain/31_assessmentlearning.html
iv
Roediger, H. L., Putnam, A. L., & Smith, M. A. (2011). Ten benefits of testing and their applications to educational
practice. In J. Mestre & B. Ross (Eds.), Psychology of learning and motivation: Cognition in education (pp. 1-36)
[Available online:
http://www.hfmboces.org/hfmdistrictservices/techyes/prenskydigitalnatives.pdf ]
http://psych.wustl.edu/memory/Roddy%20article%20PDF%27s/BC_Roediger%20et%20al
%20%282011%29_PLM.pdf]
ii