What am I Assessing? Process

Example

THEME: My favorite year

Interpersonal Task: Put students in groups of four or five. Give each group an envelope with the word “FAVORITES” written on it. In the envelope are cards with categories for “favorites” such as: favorite vacation, favorite year in school, favorite movie, favorite summer, favorite birthday, favorite story. Each student takes a card from the envelope and states what happened during his/her favorite summer, movie, etc. The other members in the group must each ask a follow-up question to learn more about the topic.

Presentational Task: Students will give a 2-3 minute presentation on the topic “My favorite year”. For the presentation, the students must state why they chose the year, what event or events made it special. They must include visual aids to help other students understand their presentation (pictures, souvenirs, objects). The presentations can be given in front of the whole class, in small groups, or video-taped.

Interpretive Task: Students listen to someone from the target culture talk about his/her favorite year. If a native speaker is not available, ask an advanced level language student to share his/her favorite year. The class listens to the presentation and lists what event(s) happened and why the year was selected as the person’s favorite year. This task could be done as a model for the presentational task explained above. In that case, for the interpretive task, students could take notes on several classmates’ presentations, listing the event(s) and why the year was selected as their favorite year.