Taking the stress out of the Territory-wide System Assessment TSA (previously known as BCA)

1. Taking the stress out of the Territory-wide System Assessment TSA (previously known as BCA) WORKSHOP 11th January, 2006 The British Council by Wendy Arnold

2. Understanding TSAWhat does the TSA comprise of?What do these assess?

3. Content of TSA • Listening • Writing • Reading • Speaking For the purpose of this workshop we will only focus on the speaking part of the TSA.

4. AIMS OF THIS WORKSHOP • To give an overview of some of the components of the speaking part of the TSA • To help you reflect on strategies for developing more effective speaking • To help you reflect on what might be dilemmas for speaking and how to overcome them NOTE: time constraints do not allow for very detailed discussion but the hope is that the reflective process will help you start to develop longterm practices in your schools.

5. What does the TSA speaking entail? • Reading aloud • Teacher-student interaction (based on reading) • Presentation • Pairwork (not covered in this workshop) How it is defined officially

6. 1) Real aloud (1 minute) Showing a basic understanding of simple and familiar texts by reading aloud the texts with comprehensible pronunciation and generally appropriate pace, stress, rhythm and intonation. Link to http://210.0.238.201/tsacontent/tsa2005_tws_eng.htm For video and feedback on marking

7. 2) Teacher-student interaction (2 minutes) Providing and/or exchanging (asking and answering)simple information and ideas (including personal experiences, imaginative ideas and evaluative remarks) and attempting to provide some elaboration with the help of cues.

8. 2) Student-teacher interaction contd/ … Using a small range of vocabulary, sentence patterns and cohesive devices to convey simple information and ideas fairly appropriately with the help of cues despite some grammatical mistakes. Link to http://210.0.238.201/tsacontent/tsa2005_tws_eng.htm For video and feedback of marking

9. 3) Presentation (2 minutes) Pronouncing familiar words comprehensibly. Providing and/or exchanging (asking and answering) simple information and ideas (including personal experiences, imaginative ideas and evaluative remarks) and attempting to provide some elaboration with the help of cues.

10. 3) Presentation contd/… Using a small range of vocabulary, sentence patterns and cohesive devices to convey simple information and ideas fairly appropriately with the help of cues despite some grammatical mistakes. Link to http://210.0.238.201/tsacontent/tsa2005_tws_eng.htm For video and feedback of marking

11. Killing 3 birds (skills) with one stone (skill)! Guess how?TIP: What skill is essential for 2 out of the 3 components?

12. Using reading as the ‘vehicle’ to improve other linguistic skillsNote: ‘books’ is used as it could be fiction or non-fiction • Listening to books with • teacher/adult • partner CONTEXT! reading listening Writing about books -bookreport -tasks based on books Speaking about books -teacher/adult -partner speaking writing

13. Do you need any more reasons to improve the reading skills of your pupils’? Do you already have 40% of your timetabled English classes as ‘reading’? 2 of the 3 tasks of the TSA speaking are reading or based on understanding the reading text!

14. How ready are your Ss to do these TSA tasks? Task 1 Groupwork (10 minutes) a) Why do you think it’s worth understanding the problems our Ss might have? b) What do you think are the problems your Ss will have with the 3 components of the TSA?

15. Feedback (5 minutes) Some ideas pronunciation problems Lack of practice TSA dilemmas Read aloud presentation limited vocab Teacher-Ss interaction not enough practice English only used in classroom so very shy Ss Ss used to lower order questions* and cannot elaborate

16. NOTELower order thinking http://www.coun.uvic.ca/learn/program/hndouts/bloom.html Knowledge - Question Cues:list, define, tell, describe, identify, show, label, collect, examine, tabulate, quote, name, who, when, where, etc. Comprehension – Question Cues:summarize, describe, interpret, contrast, predict, associate, distinguish, estimate, differentiate, discuss, extend Application - Questions Cues:apply, demonstrate, calculate, complete, illustrate, show, solve, examine, modify, relate, change, classify, experiment, discover

17. Higher order thinkinghttp://www.coun.uvic.ca/learn/program/hndouts/bloom.html Analysis - Question Cues:analyze, separate, order, explain, connect, classify, arrange, divide, compare, select, explain, infer Synthesis - Question Cues:combine, integrate, modify, rearrange, substitute, plan, create, design, invent, what if?, compose, formulate, prepare, generalize, rewrite Evaluation - Question Cuesassess, decide, rank, grade, test, measure, recommend, convince, select, judge, explain, discriminate, support, conclude, compare, summarize

18. Let’s have a go! Put yourself in your Ss shoes Task 2 Real aloud – pairwork (10 minutes) Take it in turns to read the passage given to you. Part A) Note what you do when you come to unknown words, is this something you can teach your Ss? Part B) Using the TSA marking scheme, note the possible difficulties your Ss might have

19. FEEDBACK – 5 minutes What did it feel like to read aloud an unseen text? What strategies did you use to decode unknown vocabulary? What helped you decode? Could you teach these strategies to your Ss? What common errors do non-native speakers of English have?

20. Task 3 – Teacher-student interaction (10 minutes) Take it in turns to ask the questions about the passage you read. Try and give ‘elaborated’ answers.

21. FEEDBACK – 5 minutes What problems did you have with this part? Which are the easy questions to answer? Why? Which are the more difficult questions to answer? Why?

22. Presentation (move to main room) Task 4 (groupwork – groups of 4) 15 minutes Choose one of these topics • My home and family • Weather in Hong Kong • Food in Hong Kong You have 3 minutes to prepare a 2 minute presentation

23. Presentation contd/… In your group elect • Timekeeper and 2nd marker • Marker • Sentence counter Take it in turns to present, timekeep and mark

24. Presentation – feedback Feedback (5 minutes) • Timing • Marking/comments • Number of sentences spoken • Room for improvement?

25. Some ways to overcome these dilemmas

26. 1) Reading aloud The ONLY way to overcome problems with reading aloud is by doing more of it! It’s NEVER too late to start – the TSA is here for the longterm! The more you do it, the better you get. Do you have • a reading scheme? • listen to your Ss read regularly? • parent workshops to show how they can help? • a school buddying system whereby upper primary helps lower primary (and helps themselves)

27. 2) Teacher-student interaction As in the case of reading aloud, the more you do it the better you become, the same can be said of ANY interaction. Try these • Ask Ss to write questions about a book they’ve read (easy and harder ones) • Ask Ss to share the book with a friend and then ask them the questions • Ask parents helpers to come to school and help to train the Ss

28. 3) Presentation This looks like the hardest BUT it is the easiest to practice! Try these • show and tell (Ss take it in turn to bring in something to the class to share. Ss speak about it for 2 minutes) • after Ss have presented, rest of class are encouraged to ASK questions (practicing interaction) • Ss have competitions to mind map keywords for a given topic (for 2 minutes speaking they will need at least 15 sentences) • Ss are invited to speak in front of the class on their given topic (start with 1 minute and build it up to 2 minutes) ALL OF THESE IDEAS NEED TO BE MODELLED FIRST BY THE TEACHER SO THE SS UNDERSTAND WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE AND KNOW THE AIM

29. SHARING What other strategies are you using to help your Ss with the TSA?

30. Round up • More practice reading aloud, introduce buddy system in school • More practice asking and answering questions, use the buddy system for pairwork. • More practice presenting, use mind maps to collect keywords/ideas NOTE: you cannot do this alone! Get the help of parent and students helpers

31. Many thanks! Hope you’ve learnt something useful to take back to the classroom tomorrow. Possible follow up workshops • Using a reading scheme, with running records, tasks and continuous assessment • Setting up a buddy reading scheme to enhance Primary 3 and Primary 6 reading and speaking skills • Setting up parent workshops for supporting reading at home

32. References http://www.systemassessment.edu.hk/pri/index.htm 8th December, 2005 ‘Report on the Basic Competencies of Students in English Language (pg 126,146,148) 4th November, 2005 ‘Territory-wide System Assessment 2005 (Marking Scheme) 30th April, 2005 ‘English Language Speaking Oral Assessors’ Training (videos) http://210.0.238.201/tsacontent/tsa2005_tws_eng.htm 12th April, 2005 ‘Territory-wide system assessment 2005 Quick Guide’