DESCRIPTORS – ISCED 1, 2

1. DESCRIPTORS – ISCED 1, 2 Milena Ivšek, Slovenia

2. 1. Criteria by which a descriptor is chosen and formulated • 1.Listening, 2.Reading, 3.Spoken interaction (in a dialogue situation), 4.Oral reproduction (description, presentation, narrative, etc.), 5.Writing expression (report, article, etc), 6. Mediation (summary, report, translation etc.) are not all explicitly present in the curriculum for Slovene as LS

3. 1. Criteria by which a descriptor is chosen and formulated • Who? • How? • Support in preparation of • descriptors for external assessment of knowledge. • research development project New culture of knowledge assessment (2005 -2006?)

4. Shortcomings • Students have not been involvedenough in the process of formulating the descriptors. • Spoken interaction (in dialogue situation) and Mediation (summary, report, translation, etc.) - the main shortcomings appear in Slovene and less so in other languages where this is planned well.

5. 2. What particular (extra) considerations went into that formulation? 1. Understanding the target audience – teachers. 2. The guidelines are the curriculum goals and expected achievements. 3. Students’ abilities (age, grade and medium level of the required knowledge, and not minimum or maximum)

6. Shortcomings 1. Descriptors are not oriented enough towards the development 2. Lack of holistic approach to a special topic in a particular subject (activities as reading, listening, speaking and writing).

7. 3. What the next higher or lower level of reference (proficiency) would look like for that particular aspect of competence? 3. Semantic competence • Are able to explain the meaning of the given word/word phrase from the text b. Are able to select appropriate and effective vocabulary corresponding to the meaning (while producing texts) c. They are aware that the meaning of the word affects the meaning of the text

8. 2. Metalinguistic activities ISCED 1 b. Students identify the structure of sentence and the correlation between sentences c. Students identify the features of some/selected texts ISCED 2 b. Students identify the structure of sentence and the correlationbetween sentences and classify and categorize them c. Students identify the features of selected texts and classify and categorize them

9. A sample of literature text ISCED 1 • a. Students paraphrase (in speech or writing) their imaginative, conceptual and feeling perception of literary characters (describe a few motives for their actions), identify time and location, summarise the text with technical accuracy (show proficient level of response to literary text). ISCED 2 • a. Students identify and describe (orally or in writing) literary characters ... See the handout! • In drama or play they differentiate between the stage instructions and dialogues, they understand, describe or retrieve information from texts (talk about the importance of instructions for understanding texts); in comedy they identify and describe the comic perspective; evaluate the role of theatre/puppet show or radio play features and their importance for understanding the text (show proficient level of response to literary texts)

10. Shortcomings 1. Descriptors still lack the in-depth understanding of the reading texts and the critical judgment/evaluation to some extent despite the fact that this is required at all stages, of course, at different levels of interpretation. 2. As for the hierarchical requirements of each descriptor, the more prevailing component is still the quantity rather than the quality.