I had big dreams for the post-assessment of the food unit in my middle school Pre-Spanish I class. I really wanted students to use their knowledge from the unit to practice ordering food in authentic ways. My initial thoughts were a field trip or a restaurant in our classroom and neither worked out.
So I crafted the best assessment I’ve ever made.
Food was donated to the class by a parent and I set it all on a table in the back.
Students needed to order, in Spanish, three types of food and one drink.
I, the server, “only knew Spanish” and if I couldn’t understand their Spanish I would act confused and ask questions.
This prompted students to use the valuable language skill of negotiating for meaning.
It was the best assessment because of how motivated the students were (middle schoolers love snacks), how it was an authentic situation where they would need to use the vocabulary and grammar from the unit and I could individually assess them as they ordered.
I made the rubric out of 4 points. They could get a 4/4 if they asked for four things in Spanish and I could understand what they were asking for. They would lose a .5 if they were missing a key word that even after prompting they didn’t negotiate for the meaning. They would lose a whole point if they just opted out of asking for another piece of food/drink. (I had told them they needed to ask for four things - even if they didn’t want to eat/drink all of it. They could just let me know before they order and I wouldn’t give it to them)
I think this was one of my best assessments because it really helped me evaluate what students were able to produce from this Food unit. It worked as an example of assessment as learning as students were learning how to apply their knowledge of Spanish food words in authen
tic ways. I like how I was able to give students feedback individually. Largely I, “ignored errors when they [were] inconsequential to the solution process and forestall errors that the student ha[d] made previously by offering hints or asking leading questions.” (Shepard, 2000, p. 7) This was a Pre-Spanish 1 class, we weren’t striving for perfect Spanish, we were striving for communicating in a new language and for building confidence communicating in Spanish. It wasn’t important that I pointed out every error. It was important I encouraged the students that I could understand what they were asking with real food that they were incentivized by. Working one on one with them was such a sweet way to understand where they were at. I also loved how into the kids were. They had fun! They enjoyed this. It was a challenge for them but one that they took head on.
Resource:
Shepard, L. A. (2000). The role of assessment in a learning culture. Educational Researcher, 29(7), 11.
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