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Making the most of assessment: designing multi-purpose tasks for young language learners. Louise Courtney Warsaw 21 st October 2011. Presentation Outline. Introduction Presentation of tasks used in transition project Presentation of tasks used in Younger=Better project Discussion.
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Making the most of assessment: designing multi-purpose tasks for young language learners Louise Courtney Warsaw 21st October 2011
Presentation Outline • Introduction • Presentation of tasks used in transition project • Presentation of tasks used in Younger=Better project • Discussion
Introduction - Assessment • 3 Types of Assessment • External • Classroom • SLA research (Shohamy 1994)
Introduction - UK Context • Primary Languages Initiative • Compulsory for all children aged 7-11 from 2011 (did not happen) • Key Stage 2 (age 7-11) Framework for Languages incorporates 5 strands: • Literacy • Oracy • Intercultural Awareness • Knowledge About Language • Language Learning Strategies
The transition study • Success of primary languages depends upon effective transition • continuity, building on previous learning, managing a mixed in-take • Longitudinal case study of 26 children who learnt French in primary school. • Pupils from two primary schools feeding in to one secondary school. • Focused on the problematic transition period – 12 months from summer term year 6 (aged 10/11) until summer term year 7 (aged 11/12).
Research Questions: • How does the children’s target language proficiency evolve during the transition from year 6 to year 7 and is there evidence of linguistic progression/attrition? • What are the similarities and differences between the primary and secondary foreign language curricula and pedagogic practices and how do they effect the children’s language learning? • What effect does the transition from year 6 to year 7 have on the children’s motivation for foreign language study and their confidence in the classroom?
Assessment challenges • Variability of pupil experience • Reluctance to assess at primary • Deter enjoyment of lessons • Lack of teacher experience/confidence • Little knowledge of young learner attainment in schools • Incongruence of standard framework level descriptors and SLA measures of grammatical progression • Developmental route/rate • errors/accuracy • sensitivity to progress
Considerations when assessing young learners • Age-appropriacy/cognitive demand • Short/fast-paced • Need for ‘warm-up’ • Interesting/fun/engaging • L1 literacy skills • Content validity - UK Primary Framework and National Curriculum
Guiding principles for assessment • Focus on productive skills • Language use • Implicit knowledge • More varied output • Ability to measure individual achievement • Assessment of progression over three rounds • Emphasis on what the learners were able to produce • Measurement of multiple aspects of linguistic progression • Ability to analyse data on different levels
Evaluation of target language development • Two key areas of focus: • Vocabulary development – productive vocabulary • Predominantly nouns, few verbs (Cable et al. 2010, Low et al. 1995, Szpotowicz 2009, David 2008) • Morpho-syntactic development (grammar) – emergent creativity • formulaic chunks • verb morphology • nouns • acquisition sequences for negation and questions (Mitchell & Hooper 1999, Rule & Marsden 2006, Myles et al. 2004) • Two further areas of investigation: • Interactive/communicative capability • Development of L2 literacy
Assessment Tasks • Oracy-based tasks • Paired oral role-play task • Photo description task • Negation Task • Literacy-based Tasks • Reading Aloud Task • Reading Comprehension • Writing Task
Negation Task • Designed to elicit a specific linguistic structure • Well-documented path for acquisition of grammatical negation in L1 and L2 • Role of chunks – je n’aime pas and je déteste in expressing negation
Data Processing and Analysis • Oral tasks – transcribed using CHILDES CLAN program http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/ • Writing task – entered into CHILDES CLAN program • Reading Comprehension – marking criteria – score out of a maximum of 36 points • Reading Aloud – transcribed - rating scale 0-3
Advantages of using CLAN program • Vocabulary measures – lexical diversity, TTR, word counts • Permits analysis of specific grammatical structures • Aggregation of files for analysis across modes/groups
Younger=Better Project • Document the development of linguistic competence among young classroom learners of French at three different starting ages, and identify similarities and differences • Compare the rates of development at different ages after the same amount of classroom exposure • Vocabulary • Morpho-syntactic (grammar) development
Younger=Better Project 73 young learners in two schools, all L1 English • Year 1 (5/6 year olds n=27) • Year 3 (7/8 year olds n=26) • Year 7 (11/12 year olds n=18) No previous instruction in target language Part-time teacher employed by the project • 38 hours of instruction over 19 weeks
Empirical Design: Testing • Four testing cycles: • Pre-instruction tests • Mid-instruction tests (after 18 hours of teaching) • Post-instruction tests (after 38 hours of teaching) • Delayed post-tests (2 months after cessation of teaching)
Empirical Design: Testing • Role Play task • Story Retelling Task • Elicited Imitation
Elicited Imitation Task • Used to investigate whether there are age differences for knowledge of grammatical structure • Limitations in working memory in young children (Gathercole and Baddeley 1996) and working memory develops through childhood • Adult working memory capacity has been determined by Miller (1956) as 7 chunks plus or minus 2, where a chunk is defined as either a stand-alone word or multi-word phrases • So we would expect young children’s capacity to be less
Elicited Imitation Task • Administered the task with contextual support • Stimuli of varying lengths. Up to 9 words. The participants had encountered all of the vocabulary items • In this task an utterance read out and then learner asked to repeat the utterance as exactly as possible • It is claimed that if the stimulus is the appropriate length the learner can only repeat the utterance if it has been processed and some understanding has occurred • Learners also asked comprehension questions in English after each section – focus on meaning rather than form
Scoring • Different codes used: • 0 not produced • 1 produced prosodically only • 2 produced incorrectly but understandable • 3 produced correctly
Multiple levels of analysis • Is it also possible to apply task data to national framework measures? • National Curriculum Level Descriptors Would my oral tasks provide evidence to assign learners to levels? What kind of rating scheme could you develop?
Questions ? Contact details: lmc1v07@soton.ac.uk