It's been a month. I have thought about blogging and then I picture my head exploding, so I have put it off. Teaching Like a PIRATE is exhausting! There is so much planning that goes into making class both exciting and informative that there is very little time for any extras-grading, family time, and time for myself have definitely gotten the shaft this past month.
Last year my entire department went to a free workshop based on Standards-based Instruction and Assessment. There, we were introduced to the three modes of communication (Interpersonal, Interpretive, and Presentational) and various ways to use them in class and even more importantly, assess them.
My level 4 and 5 students are currently in the same unit based on chronologies which basically asks students to discuss, debate, and learn about famous Latin Americans whom they would like to see speak at their graduation. I narrowed down the field a bit and asked students to focus on Latin American philanthropists. This is a unit that my entire department planned together during Summer Institute days in our district. It is always a work in progress, and we plan on changing it as we need to. It is intended for level 4 students, but since my 5's didn't get it last year, I thought it would be beneficial for them to review.
The Interpersonal Assessment requires students to debate with a partner about who they want to hear speak at their graduation. Students are presenting tomorrow during class. I have paired them up with people in their class who are basically the same proficiency level, but will not disclose the information until tomorrow when we are in the DiLL Lab. (Our language lab uses DiLL software...very cool stuff, I highly recommend it.) This is the first time I have spent a lot of organized time on preparing for the assessment, and I am crossing my fingers that it goes well.
The rubric we are using for interpersonal assessments is a hybrid of Paul Sandrock's The KEYS to Assessing Language Performance and the PALS assessment rubrics used in Fairfax County, Virginia. I handed out the rubric Friday (the day before the assessment) and we went over each strand, focusing a bit more attention on the comprehensibility strand and the communication strands. I want kids to focus their attention on how well they are able to get their point across instead of the accuracy of their grammar or vocabulary. In the future I would probably give the rubric out farther in advance and work on individual strands in more detail, but since we just collaborated on the rubric the day before in a meeting, I'm glad I didn't since we would have been using a totally different document.
I am feeling pretty comfortable with the progression of this assessment. Students first individually chose three people who they would like to hear speak at their graduation. The only criteria was that they be Spanish-speaking and I pushed for them to be philanthropists. Then in pairs, students researched 4 people from the compiled class list or from a livebinder I created for them. Using this form, students focused on personal characteristics, profession, acts of charity, as well as listing 4-6 important moments in their lives with dates. From there, (still in pairs-and during the next class block) students narrowed their list down to the one person they would like to argue for and made sure both partners had the same information. They filled out this chart in order to expand on their content and vocabulary. Their homework was to be sure the chart was completed entirely.
The next class, Students worked with the same partner and first spoke in English to ensure that they understood their compiled information, as well as to see how much time they could talk about their person in their native language. Next they had 6 minutes to speak in Spanish with their partner. I had students keep a list of words they did not know how to say in Spanish while they were speaking. I wanted them to just make a note of them, not spend time looking them up just yet. This really helped them to see what vocabulary was necessary for their side of the debate. We went over the list as a class and then did one more 6 minute trial run. This one went smoother and I think the kids were surprised at how much easier it was for them to have the conversation for 6 whole minutes. The final debates in level 4 will be 8 minutes long, and in Spanish 5 they will be 10 minutes.
The moment of truth is here tomorrow. I want to start the class with students working with the same partner to do their final preparations. I will give them one last organizational form to create their outlines. I have the desks arranged in a circle with half of the desks facing out, and half facing in. They will practice speaking with a few people before going to the lab halfway through the block. I was going to have them just speak with a partner for 5 minutes and rotate around, but I think I will give them a specific topic to speak about for the 5 minutes before they rotate. Maybe have them try to ask each other as many questions as possible during one of the rotations, and describe their people for one, their accomplishments for another. I am really excited to get feedback about the assessment and my fingers are crossed that they feel confident and well-prepared.
Overall, preparation for this interpersonal assessment took about 5 class blocks. Starting with brainstorming their own class set of debate vocabulary (I believe that, you're wrong, I disagree, etc) and ending with practice runs and an outline they can reference during the assessment. Of course the entire blocks haven't been dedicated to this, but probably about half of each.
How do you have your students prepare for an interpersonal assessment? DO you have them prepare at all? How long do you ask them to speak?
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