As teachers, how do we know that our students understand the class material? And how do our students know that they understand it? Everybody Up has a variety of assessment opportunities that can help your students reflect on their progress and lead them to become successful English language learners.
In a recent webinar, Erika Osvath [1] described two common types of assessment: Assessment Of Learning, and Assessment For Learning. What do students learn from an assessment of learning? Often, students focus on mistakes and their grade from a test or assignment.
On the other hand, assessment for learning can help your students assess where they are in their learning journey, and guide them to their next steps.
Another powerful tool is to help students develop a growth mindset. According to Dr. Carol Dweck [2], we can help our students to become resilient, reflective learners by focusing on the process of learning. Here are some growth mindset affirmations [3] that I model regularly in my classroom.
Mistakes help me learn and grow.
>I can do hard things.
>I am a problem solver.
>I can ask for help when I need it.
Practice helps me improve. (The more I practice, the more I improve.)
I may not be able to do this YET.
FAIL – First Attempt In Learning
Everybody Up has multiple opportunities for students to reflect on their “learning journey.”
1. Flashcard games
Who doesn’t play flashcard games in class? You can introduce, review and assess unit vocabulary in a gamelike format. You can vary the way you do this. I usually teach the vocabulary words with pictures, the words, and the audio using the Classroom Presentation Tools (CPT). When assessing vocabulary, I take away the words, the audio, or both. Students then name the word.
To help students reflect on their own learning, I make time after the activity to ask students, How many words did you remember today? How many words are you still working on? Can you use the vocabulary and phrases together?
2. Self-assessment
At the end of each Everybody Up lesson, students reflect on how well they understand the lesson material. We can remind students of the lesson goals.
Today we learned about these jobs: doctor, nurse, cook, pilot, teacher, student. Then, we can use the self-assessment check box at the bottom of the page for students to rate their confidence.
How do you feel about this? Great!
Okay.
I don’t know/understand this yet.
What do you need to practice?
3. Check up
At the end of a unit in Everybody Up, students are assessed on their knowledge and skills in the student book. Rather than tallying up the number of correct answers and asking, “Who scored (10) points?,” I recommend reviewing the questions again. Invite students to correct their answers with their favorite colored pencil. If students know that mistakes help them to learn and grow, they can review their errors and move ahead. Again, at the end of this Check Up, students can use the self-assessment box to reflect on the things they’ve learned in this unit. What do you still need to practice?
4. Additional assessments
Everybody Up has unit, mid-term and final tests in the teacher resources where you can assess students’ language skills—listening, speaking, reading, and writing. While we don’t “teach to the test” for a specific external assessment, there are practice pages similar to the YLE test which provide everything students need in order to do well on most international tests.
Using the “assessment for learning” approach, students can work with a partner to compare and correct their answers. Students can reflect: What am I doing well on? What am I still working on?
Everybody Up has multiple ways for your students to be successful. We can help our students by giving them opportunities to reflect on their learning and assess what their next steps are. What have you accomplished so far? What do you need to work on yet? Guide your students to success by adding varied assessment opportunities to your lessons.
Find out more about assessment for learning
If you want to learn more about how you can add assessment for learning into your program, there is detailed support in the Everybody Up Teacher’s Guide, as well as papers on topics such as Effective Feedback, found in the professional development area of the teacher’s online resources.
Reference:
1. Teaching English With Oxford (2021, 23:25), Assessing Global Skills by Erika Osváth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaKQUmnKzi8
2. Dweck, C.. Ph.D (2016). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York, NY. Ballantine Books.
3. Tulsian, K. 21 Affirmation Examples to Develop Growth Mindset
