Children's Assessment

Throughout the whole semester we have been writing about children’s abilities and skills during the classes. However, we have not talked about how we can make an assessment in which we can evaluate these children in order to demonstrate how much they have learned or acquired in this short time. Thus, this last entry will be focused on some ways of how we could assess them through an evaluative task, so here are my ideas.

 

One way of how we could assess students in order to evaluate their learning is through selected-response activities, such as matching. For example, they can match pictures with the correct words. Also, we could do it through using multiple choice activities. For example, we could put them a picture and some words in order that they can choose the word that belongs to that picture, or we could do it the other way around, it means by writing one word and putting some pictures so they can select the right picture.

In addition, we even could use true-false activities by asking them easy questions regarding to the vocabulary they have studied in order that they can say with their thumbs up or down if that is true or false. It can be done by using pictures or some other materials appealing for students. Selected-response activities are an effective way for evaluating students because as most of them are at the second stage of language development which is early speech, in which performance indicators are kinesthetic responses and one- or two-word utterances. During this stage, teachers ask students to name, number, list, and group words or phrases (Krashen and Terrell, 1983; adapted by Olsen, 1992), so that is what our children are able to do.

Moreover, we could evaluate them by assessing constructed response activities, such as: fill-in. We could do it through giving them some uncompleted words in which they can write some missing letters to those words.

 

To sum up, it is vital that we as teachers know as many assessment tools as we can in order to improve not only our teaching way but also to provide an effective learning to our students. 

References:

Shaaban, K. (2001). Assessment of young learners. In English Teaching Forum (Vol. 39, No. 4, pp. 16-23).

Ingrid & Mercy's second class

November 15^th, 2013

Teachers: Ingrid and Mercy

Topic: Food and drinks

Vocabulary: Donuts, vegetables, candy, soda, water, fruit, cereal, hamburger, pizza

Grammar: Is it good for you? Is it bad for you? Yes, it is. No, it is not.

Review: Numbers, colors, alphabet.

 

As it has to be, our second teaching time arrived, and this time we had to improve our teaching way, so we do all what it was in our hands to overcome any problem that could be presented while our teaching time. Since it was our second time, we could not avoid everything. However, we tried to do our best.

 

One more time, I will not focus on Darlyn, my case of study, because she was not in the class.

 

We began the class by singing the “how are you” song which children have already internalized, so we did not have problem with it when singing it.

 

This time, Ingrid was in charge of starting the class. She started doing the warm up activity. This activity was very well done because it was not only for students could start by doing something enjoyable but also for they could review some vocabulary that they had studied in previous classes. Also, because all students had the chance to participate, demonstrate and share their knowledge by helping each other.

 

Presentation

She presented the topic in a very creative and interesting way due to the fact that she did it through using one of the techniques that Luis taught us in the workshop day, it was the puppet’s technique. This was an amazing idea because with it she could get all students’ attention, and they showed interest during the whole stage. Also, this technique helped a lot because she not only got students’ attention but also children were able to encounter and clarify the target language in a very attractive and effective way. In my personal opinion I liked how Ingrid carried out this stage because she tried to do her best even when he had a sore throat, so she did a very good job.

 

Practice

Next, she carried out the first practice. It was about using a secret box that contained in it food and drinks items. In this practice, every student had to get out an item and put it in the right circle. It was nice because the materials were very attractive and they were hidden, so they did not what item they were going to choose. Through this practice they could practice vocabulary and

learn which items are healthy and which ones are unhealthy for them. I could see that all children liked this activity because all of them wanted to participate, and by doing so is how they not only get involved in the tasks but also they learn what they do. Maybe something that could be improved in the activity was students’ arrangement because they were too close, so they had not enough space to walk on. However, besides of that everything was perfect. Also, because Ingrid made all of them could participate. 

 

Then, it was my time to teach. I continue the practice stage by asking them to make a puzzle. At this stage, children are able to use their cognitive skills. Even though all of them are able to use these abilities, not all of them could do it in the same speed because some of them are beginning the stage and other are almost at the end of it, so what I did in order that those younger students

were not in disadvantage is that I made the pairs by choosing a younger with an older or two in an average level. In this way, every pair could have at the same cognitive level. I think this activity helped not only to ask students to use cognitive skills but also to practice vocabulary because once every pair finished I went with them and I asked them what the picture was and if it was good or bad for them, and they did a great job because all of them worked on it, and all answered the questions. However, in this activity I had some problems because the idea was to ask them and everybody could listen to each other. However, I got close with every pair for asking them because they were getting distracted, so at the end, I just could ask about two puzzles because the rest of students had got the pieces back, and I could not do what I had in mind.

 

Another activity that I asked students to do was about using disposable plates. Every student had a disposable plate, and every disposable plate had two sides one for pasting good items and the other for pasting bad items, I just modeled how to start, and they continued. At this stage children are able to use their fine motor

skills, so everybody did a perfect job in less time that they were supposed to do it. At the end of this activity, the idea was to ask student by student to say one side items. However, I did not do it because all students had the same, and if I did it they could get bored and I could lose their control, so I decided to ask all of them by using just one of the plates, and in this way I could ask most of them at least once.

 

The last practice was about completing a shopping list. It was the activity that I liked the most because I noticed that all of them enjoyed a lot as it was an activity that required to spend a lot of energy and during all the classes that they have had, I have seen that is what they loved. At the beginning of this activity, I made groups

of four students, what I did for having all students work in a better way is that I chose the groups by doing so, I realize that some boys did not want to work with some girls as at their stage they like to do activities with same sex groups; however, I forced them to do it because it is the only way to get them working in a more controlled way. Then I

asked them to write the missing letters in the shopping lists while they were doing it, I was checking and helping them to form the right words. When they finished the lists, I asked explained and modeled what they had to do, and fortunately they got it quickly. Also, something that I did in order to avoid a disorder in this activity is that I pointed out every time that they had to go for an item, so the activity was a

success. At the end, I checked with all of them the four lists’ groups with the items in order to make sure they had done a good job. With this activity, they could review some other topic and practice our topic target language. Also, through it, we could reach our objective that was that they could differentiate good and bad food and drink items, and indeed, they did it.

 

At the end of the class we sang the “good bye” song with the rhythm of the Sponge Bob’s song, and as children already learned most of the lyrics song, they did not show problem at all to sing it.

As I said at the beginning even though we faced some difficulties, we had to do our best, and I expect everybody have valued our effort and liked our class…

Here is our planning 

Objective of the lesson: By the end of this lesson, SWBAT recognize and differentiate the bad food from the good one.  In addition, they will be able to answer to these questions in the last practice: “Is (water) good for you/Is (candy) bad for you?” and say the correct answer “Yes, it is” and “No, it is not”.
Time	Stage	Procedure	Notes
5 15	Welcome Song Warm up	I will set up the song so the students can once again sing along with both teachers Children stand up in a semi-circle and I will give them the directions to follow. The students will be sitting down on the floor (semicircle). Teacher will have a secret box in which a card will be taken out. The box will contain for example: a t-shirt with the word “t-shirt” at the bottom of the card. A student will be called out to pass and to grab one card out of the box. Teacher will ask: Color of the item; quantity; spelling. The vocabulary included here will be: Days of the week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) actions (swim, eat, and run, fly, climb and jump). Each of these images will have also a number from 11-20 for review.	Aim of the activity: To get the students sing. Also, in warm up, students will have the opportunity to review the previous vocabulary, days of the week, numbers from 11-20, actions.   Type of learner: A-K-V Interaction:teacher-students Materials: cards with the old vocabulary already learned. Responsible: Ingrid Girón
15	Presentation	Introduce the topic “Drinks and Food”using one puppet and a theater scenario to present the topic to the children. They will be sitting down on the floor. The puppet will show each vocabulary item using the items of the fruits, vegetables and the like made of carton.  The puppet will use these items to present them the vocabulary. After that, puppet will make the students to repeat after me the name of the vocabulary items. Finally, the puppet will ask them to repeat the word at least three times along with him. It will also introduce the “good” and “bad” so that students know that not all food is good for them. It will mark the difference. Teacher will stress the: Color and name of each vocabulary.	Aim of the activity: Encounter and remember target vocabulary. Type of learner: V-A - Interaction:  Teacher (puppet)- students Materials: puppet, cards with the pictures of the food and drinks. Responsible:  Ingrid Giron
15’’	Practice	Activity 1: First, students will sit down in front of the wall where they will have two big circles. These two circles are going to be empty. The two circles will have a sad and happy face inside. There will be 2 groups of 8 children. I will choose or order these two groups and they will have two boxes with them, each one for the two groups. What they will do is to make two lines. The kids that are in front of the line are first. They will introduce one hand and choose one item of a food or drink. They will show it to the rest of the group and teacher will ask:  What is this? And then when they have answered: Is soda good for you? Whether the item is healthy or unhealthy food or drink, that student will make use of the correct answer (Yes, it is; No, it is not). In order to avoid distractions or boredom from the rest that are waiting for a turn, I will use the two questions for them to respond as a group.	Aim of the activity: Students will learn to decide what type of food they have taken from the box. Moreover, they will answer whether the food is good or bad for them. Type of learner:V-A Interaction: Teacher- Students Materials:  handmade items of food and drinks, two circles on the wall, colorful box with the items of food in. Responsible: Ingrid Giron
15’’ 10-12’’		Activity 2: Ss sit in a circle will work in pairs. I will give each pair the pieces of a puzzle. Each pair will have a different puzzle (either a food or a drink item). When they finish, I will ask which is the item and if it is food or bad (one question to every member of the pairs). Activity 3: Ss will be seated in a circle. I will give each student a disposable plate divided in sections; I will also give them food and drink items, so each of them can select the good ones for pasting at the front of the plate, and the bad ones at the back. Once they finish pasting the items, I will go to each of them for checking the items by raising one of the plates in each student. For example, I raise Imelda’s plate, and I point to the items in it (one by one) and ask them “what is it?” (if it is better I can choose the S) and they say the items. I also ask them if those items are in the right side. It will be with just one of the two sides.	Aim of the activity: To use Ss’ cognitive skills and practice target language Type of learner: V, A, T Materials: pieces of puzzle, board, pictures with all food items in the puzzles, glue, colorful pages. Responsable: Mercy Márquez Aim of the activity: differentiate good and bad remembering target language. Type of learner: V,A, T Materials: disposable plates, glue, food and drink items Responsable: Mercy  Márquez
15’’		Activity 4:  Students will sit in a circle. I will give them a shopping list to every S. Every word in the list will have missing letters, so that Ss can complete the words before shopping. Once they have completed the words (I will be checking all Ss’ list while they work for making sure the words are well written), then I will make four groups of Ss. In front of them, there will be drinks and food items. There will be a leader in every group in order to check the list items, and the other three students will run to look for the items in the list for completing the shopping list (one item per student). Once they complete the list, they will show the list and the items to me. I will get out the items of every group (one group at a time), and all students will check with me if the list is completed. E.g.: if there is water in the list, I will get out any item and ask “Is this water?” and they will answer “Yes, it is” or “No, it is not” according to what they see. When they say “Yes, it is”, I will also ask them “Is water good/bad for you?” by showing them hands with thumbs up (good) or down (bad) so they have a clearer understanding of what they are being asked. Closure: We’ll set up the song so the students can once again sing along with both teachers.	Aim of the activity:To recognize food and drinks and internalize target language. Type of learner: Visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile Materials: shopping list, food and drink items, thumbs up/down, two baskets for carrying the items,  Responsable: Mercy Márquez

References:

Papalia, D., et al. A child's world. pp. 239-290. Mc Graw Hill. USA, 2006 

Raúl and Juan’s second class

Teachers: Raul, Juan José

Topic: Actions

Vocabulary: Swim, run, jump, fly, climb, eat, drink, drive.

Grammar: I can/can’t, she can/can’t, he can /can’t, it can/can’t

Review: Animals, family members, alphabet.

 

Raúl and Juan were the ones who carried out the third class of the third and last period of this semester.

Raul started the class by singing the “how are you” song which children have already internalized it, so they were able to sing it by themselves since the first time. I liked the way of how he add some movements to it because I could notice that they enjoyed it a lot as it required to spend their energy when doing those nice movements.

 

Then Raúl made the warm up activity. In this activity, he used the name tags

technique by putting children’s name on some pages that were pasted on the board. Behind every name there was a picture which all children had to recognize and say what every name tag had in it. It was a nice warm up because children not only enjoyed the activity but also they review some vocabulary. In addition, something that in a way failed was students’ arrangement because they were too closed and even when Raúl tried to control it; it was hard because students got the

same again. I think that he could have made a line or lines in order to have avoided this problem. On the other hand, talking about Darlyn, my case of study, I could see that when she participated in this activity, she answered correctly even when she had not come at the class in which children studied about family vocabulary because I remember that what she had in her name tag was a family member, so it shows that her learning about the language is not just in this class but somewhere else. I was surprised of her because even when she is one of the youngest in the class, she is able to do a very good job in her learning.

 

Next, Raúl presented the topic by showing some pictures in a portfolio. I liked the way of how he presented the topic because since the vocabulary was about verbs, children needed to see the action of each verb in order to have a better understanding of the meaning, so that is what exactly he did it. He showed the picture, said the verb and modeled the action, and then students made the action too, so through doing all these children had the opportunity of encountering and clarifying the new vocabulary. Also, something that I could realize and that was really helpful for having children well behaved was that in most of the activities he changed students position, so children had less chance of being distracted by their partners.     

 

Practice:

One very nice and interesting activity that Raúl did was the one in which children made two lines of students, and the two students at the top of each line had to take a hoop, run and look for the right action that the teacher had said; the student who put first the hoop in the right verb won a piece of ribbon, so it made them to be more alerted because all of them wanted to win pieces of ribbon. I could

see some of them that were comparing the pieces of ribbon, and I could see that they felt proud when they had more than their partners. Also, with this kind of activities, he could realize who have already learned the words and who did not. Although it was a very good activity, I consider that if students had had the verbs in front of them, both groups would have done a better job. Since they had them in a side, one of the groups was in disadvantage because they could not help their partners as the other group, and also because at the time of running they had to wait that the child of the group nearer to the verbs ran; on the contrary, an accident could happen. So that is the only thing that I think that could be improved in that activity.

 

Another activity that I liked was carried out by Juan. It was about using a variation of the spinning wheel technique. The spinning wheel was rotated, and the student who was pointed for it had to choose a paper, look at the picture at

its back, go to the front of their partners, say what it was, and finally paste it on the wall. I could see that everybody was able to perform the activity because if they did not know Juan helped them. It happened with Darlyn because as she is not still in the same developmental level of most of her classmates, she still needs to take more time for internalizing new things.    

 

Moreover, the activity that I liked the most during this class was the one in

which students had to use a hat. All of them had to put the hat on their heads do an action that Juan told them, and pass the hat. They passed it while they listened to music. When the music stopped, they had to choose a word, say the name of the action, the letters of the word, and the colors of the paper in which the word was written. It was so interesting and all students got excited in it because of the great songs and movements that they had to listen to and do. Also, even though when some of them felt ashamed of doing some movements, I realized that all children enjoyed this activity a lot.

 

Definitely, Raul and Juand did a better job because it was a great class which children not only enjoyed but also increased their knowledge just as children have an effective learning.

 

References:

Papalia, D., et al. A child's world. pp. 239-290. Mc Graw Hill. USA, 2006 

Luis and Gloria's second class

Teachers: Luis and Gloria

Topic: Clothes

Vocabulary: Jeans, shorts, dress, blouse, skirts, t-shirt, socks, shoes, glasses, hat, cup, sweater.

Grammar: I am wearing, she is wearing, and he is wearing.

Whose _____is this? Whose _______are these?

It was Luis and Gloria’s class, the second teaching group in the third period. I think they improved a lot their teaching because I could notice that they did many great activities that gave a nice environment to the entire class. I really enjoyed it. Once again I will not focus on my case of study because, unfortunately, she was not there…

 

Gloria started the class with the warm up activity which was the “how are you” song, I liked the way of how she gave her own touch to the activity because children had to not only sing the song but also raise some faces at the time of mentioning every mood (hungry, happy, and sad). Even though it was a great change, I consider children did not understand the instructions at all because they did not sing as other times, but they were more focused on raising the faces, and even some of them in some times raised mistaken faces. I do not know, but I think that with clearer instructions, children had done a better task.

 

Next, she presented the topic by showing some

flashcards about clothes items. It was interesting because at the same time of encountering the target language, children were reviewing the topics: colors and numbers.  In addition, something that I really like of Gloria’s attitude was that every time that children were talking, she changed their position so they could be more attentive.

 

Practice

 

One interesting activity was about wearing body shapes.

In this activity, boys had to wear to Ricardo (a boy’s body shape) and girls to Fabiola (a girl’s body shape), so they had to follow Gloria’s modeling in one of the shapes. This was a great task. However, I consider that it could have been more successful if all children have had both body shapes and Gloria had modeled one by one in order they got not confused and they could use all item clothes they had in the bags. Even though it was a nice activity in which students at

this stage are ready to perform it very well because at their age, they already can differentiate among what is for boys and for girls. Most of the children wore their body shape according to what every gender must wear. Nevertheless, I could see that one of the boys had used all the clothes item and he had paste a skirt in the boy’s body shape. I consider it was not because the child does not have that knowledge, but probably because he could have thought that they were going to use all the items because they were in the bag. Thus, I consider that children could have had both body shapes, so they can show that difference.

 

Another very interesting and nice activity that children and most of us enjoyed was when Luis used the memory game activity. At this age, children have developed their brain, so they can use their memory and self-awareness for performing this kind of activity. Through this activity, children were able not only to use their cognitive area but also to practice the new target language and review the colors and numbers as every time that students participated, they had to choose two colors and two numbers, so it made them increase their knowledge. Also, something that made them get involved in the task was that when the first child formed a pair and Luis gave it to her, many of them wanted to participate because they also wanted to get pairs. For me it was an amazing activity. However, I could realize that it would have been more appealing if Luis had had an order by which all children could participate. For this, he could have made maybe lines in order to every children participated the same times. 

 

    

Moreover, something that I REALLY liked and enjoyed as the children was the “good bye” song because of the complete change and style that Luis gave to it. It was not the simple song that we have sung in all classes, but it was a complete “boom”, and as me, everyone was astonished of that…

 

Without doubt, they overcame most of the problems that we had had previously, and of course they increased a lot their way of teaching because besides of those little problems, they definitely did a good job!

 

Congratulations Luis and Gloria for this great class!!!! Personally, I liked it so much!!! :D

 

References:

Papalia, D., et al. A child's world. pp. 239-290. Mc Graw Hill. USA, 2006